To think DPS should find in our favour?

[lolarox]

Was informed today through landlord wants to make various claims on our deposit which is protected by the DPS.

£40 for carpet cleaning - now this is a weird one. Because there is some water damage stains on the carpet, but these are due to a problem with the boiler/leak that reoccurred regularly (and was reported but never properly fixed) over the 4 and a half years we lived there. However what really annoys me is that because we had a dog we paid to have the carpets professionally cleaned which cost £100! And have provided receipts of this.

She also wants to charge us £130 towards re-sealing of the bathroom due to poor application. Now I will hold
My hands up and say we didn't go a good job, it's a bit messy. But £130.00? And she didn't ever replace the original sealant in the whole time we were there - four and a half years!

Finally our letting agent sent a recorded delivery section 21 notice with a date on it a week later than the date on our tenancy agreement. We never received it, and when they checked the tracking number the post office said they left a sorry we missed you card and we didn't collect it so it was returned to sender. Now in the meantime when we were unaware of this letter (or the sorry we missed you card ) we made arrangements to move into our new place at the end of what we thought was the tenancy date based on the contract. We moved out on this date but didn't drop the keys back for another week as we could only get there on a weekend and the following weekend was more convenient as we were moving the previous weekend. They said it was fine to drop the keys then. Now they are charging us for that weeks rent from the deposit I just feel so upset. Aswell as a check out fee of £72

We paid for a professional carpet, oven and end of tenancy clean by a maid service which cost £270 in the hope of getting our full £850 deposit back and now I doubt we will get much and not anytime soon.

Sigh.

They couldn't have let the house out again with you having the keys could they? I rented for over 10 years, and the keys being handed over was always the end point.

I get that. But they didn't ask us to return them sooner or we would have made it work.

They just said we have a good relationship with the landlord I'm sure that will be fine.

Wirhout handing the keys back you have not surrendered the property back to the landlord and if they were to go in in the meantime they would have been acting illegally and interfering with your quiet enjoyment of the property.

The handyman who the landlord hired to rectify the sealant presumably charges a callout fee and LL presumably has anincoice to show this is what was required to put it right.

If you paid for the carpet to be cleaned why was the stain not sorted att he same time if the LL has had it done now?

I am not sure you will succeed except possibly the stain because you can show that you did have a professional clean.

I was with you until you said you held on to the keys for an additional week. I think you can contest the rest, but you will lose the week's rent.

I would expect you can contest everything apart from the keys. You had the property a week longer therefore the rent is justified in my opinion.

Replacing sealant i wouldnt exoect a tenants job. If you have proof of raising the issue with the leak i would say the same about the carpets.

Sealant shouldn't need replacing of cleaned properly though.

YABU. You didn't return the keys, so you can't really consider the tenancy ended. That seems quite naive to me (sorry!). How could they re-let if you haven't returned the keys?

Paying for carpet cleaning is the very least you can expect if you've had a dog, most landlords won't even consider letting to dog owners. And if you've done a dodgy job of bathroom repairs, then they are right to bill you for it, presumably it will cost them to have it put right. Why didn't you ask them to reapply if it needed doing?

Sorry, I'm not usually one for backing the landlord, but I don't think you can be surprised in this instance.

We did expect to pay for Carpet cleaning and got it cleaned at a cost of £100 - the stain that will not be removed is a water damage stain from a leak that she would not send a professional plumber around for, despite numerous requests, only her "friend"

I have conceded on the keys, our mistake and a lesson learnt.

Genuinely asking, why would it cost £130 to replace messy sealant?

In that case, contest the stain on those grounds. I would guess they could replace the carpet under their insurance if it's that bad.

As for the sealant, the call out charge for handy person to remove and replace will be £130. They will have an invoice or it'll be a standard inventory charge rate. If you can find a cheaper quote locally, then you can probably challenge it as excessive.

Replacing sealant is a messy and time consuming job. It takes minutes to apply but hours to remove the old sealant and clean up to prepare the area for the new sealant. However, why did you need to do it in the first place? Was that a case of being reported to them and the landlords refusing to do it so you did it and now they are moaning it wasn’t done well enough?