To be bracing myself for landlord to try and take all our £1,200 deposit back

[Helpmepleasenow48]

We are now the proud FTB/owners of our first home. We were previously renting for 10 years and moved to our new home 2 weeks ago
Now the property we were renting was in a state needing decoration when we moved in. Things went wrong as soon as moved in - only minor things like drawers coming out and hinges going and a mirror frame fell apart when we moved it. The upstairs toilet seat broke but it was an an unusual shape so the landlord had to order a new one and even when it was replaced the hinges weren't and ended up going rusty. The garden bricks started falling apart from frost.
Then the bathroom floor got a hole and the oven stopped working and the boiler made s terrible noise.
We reported all these things to the landlord but only the oven was fixed. Over the years she put the rent up from £750 to £995. She never visited and even left her agreement with the rental agency so they all but collected the rent. Anyway about four years ago we knew we were going to come into some money and we communicated with the landlord that we might buy the property. Basically we had it valued but she wanted more than the value, we also had building work and damp proof costed - which would have cost at least £30k.
So we put in an offer on a property nearby in November and now own it. We did our best to clean the property - we gave her a month's notice, but we think she's peed off because we didn't give her more notice/offer her more for the property. When we told her the bathroom floor was broken she told us she expected us to mend it. She said she was renting and made minor improvemts to her home. We know she's on an interest only mortgage because all her mortgage statements were sent to the address. She paid £500 a month and her mortgage is actually more than our new one! She owes £220k and we have £200k mortgage. This I digress a bit but we are pretty sure this income hasn't been declared to HMRC as I set up a limited company and rang them last week to change address they wanted to know who owned the property. I told them we rented through a letting agent.
So now worried I may have dobbed landlord in and we won't get our deposit back.

We rented a house for three years, very good relationship with landlords. They tried to fleece us for our entire deposit and more, claiming damage, that the whole house would need redecorating etc (it hadn't been updated for years). TDC adjudicator charged us £150 quid for some blu-tac marks and an overgrown hedge and gave us the other three grand back. We found out later they'd done the same thing to the tenants before and after us.

Lostinshoebiz
I seriously hope you aren’t a ll with this attitude. Op did the responsible thing by reporting the issues in the first place. It is not her responsibility to chase them up. Of course chase up for example the house is getting flooded or faulty electrics as the email may have got lost. They occasionally do. But in this case these are emergency situations and should be rectified immediately and best dealt with by a follow up phone call. Decent lls regularly inspect properties and get issues fixed. This ll did nothing for 10 years.

Helpme
Congratulations on getting your new home. It’s a shame she didn’t want to sell at market rate. That makes her less of an “accidental ll” more of a cf. I am a ll. A property, which hasn’t been touched for 10 years - and more for the decor - will probably need a lot of work. Your former ll won’t be able to get any money for flooring damaged through use. She’d struggle to get anything very much at all even if you deliberately damaged it. The rest also sounds like fwat.

People think renting out properties is great and you make big profits. You actually don’t if done responsibly as there are plenty of on costs. It’s more of an alternative to owning shares, which also if decent will increase over time. Yes she is only paying a few hundred quid a month. However she needed to use a good chunk that profit to save up and spend on the house. Doesn’t sound like she did that.

I really couldn’t give a fuck about how much her rent is in the area she’s living now. That’s totally irrelevant. Therefore I don’t think you should have used the amount she is paying in mortgage interest as leverage. Rather the state of the house. That is a massive hike. With long term tenants I keep rents well below market rent to reflect the fact the house isn’t up to decorative scratch (also redecorate if very long term). If she was forcing you to pay the market rent for a place in a decent state she was ripping you off. By the sound of it it probably should have been at least £100 less than a house in a good state.

Request the full refund through the deposit scheme. She sounds very dodgy.

@smallereveryday

There is also the the issue of 'fair wear and tear.' LLs cannot rent a property to you in 2009, replace a dodgy cooker and then expect to withhold your deposit due to their lack of ongoing maintenance. Obviously if you take a six month let and the brand knew carpets need replacing- that's quite a different scenario. It's about what is reasonable over that period.

I wouldn't be having any truck with 'poor little me - my rent is more expensive, I'm an accidental Landlord ' (subtext is - don't expect me to stick to the standards required because I don't really want to be one) - it's bollocks. She can sell the house and put the money towards a house somewhere else. Certainly wouldn't feel sorry for her !

Can't afford to be a landlord with all the responsibilities AND the rent ? Don't be one.

This X 1000.

@Helpmenowplease48

You have every right to your deposit back OP, and if the LL hasn't declared the income (from the rent) and she gets in trouble for it, that's her problem not yours.

Hope the deposit is protected.

And can people stop perpetuating this myth that it's illegal to open someone else's mail. It's utter bollocks.

Moreover, why is the LL still having mail SENT there if she no longer lives there?! The LL sounds dodgy as fuck. My cousin privately rented several years back, and her landlady had all her damn mail sent there, including stuff from student finance for her son, and tax and DWP letters; the works! God knows what SHE was up to!

Unfortunately, as with the OP (and my cousin and several others I know,) many landlords/landladies don't give a shit about the property, or what state it's in. They will just get anything done that they have to by law, but they don't care about anything else.

They don't give too hoots that it's a shabby, poorly-heated shithole that's riddled with damp, with curtain tracks, loo seats, and cupboard doors hanging off, windows and doors falling apart, holes in the walls, and dangerous wonky patios! Don't you DARE pay the rent a few days late though!!!

A tip for anyone renting is to ensure you take detailed photographs on the day you move in and also on the day you move out. I luckily did this so when a former LL tried to withhold the deposit, he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

My former LL tried to keep the full deposit because we replaced a broken blind (and left the new blind there for him ), the living room carpet was stained (it was stained when we moved in- luckily photos proved this) and he claimed my DC had drawn on a bedroom wall which they hadn’t, ever. He was stupid enough not to protect the deposit so he had to pay it back after some heavy worded solicitors letters.

Provided you have sufficient evidence that you didn’t damage the property beyond general wear and tear, you will get the deposit back.

Thanks for all the help and support here. Checked with Tenancy Deposit Scheme and the guy I spoke to said 10 years counts for a lot of wear and tear. We shall see.
We had loads of bills of hers coming to the house

Op, at the beginning of a tenancy the landlord should give the tenant details about the deposit, where it's held, how much it is etc. That applies now and 10 years ago.
The two deposit protection schemes I know of (TDS and DPS) both have websites where you can log on and check if your ll has started a dispute. If ll has started a dispute you can argue your case, if not you can just request your deposit back from the scheme and ll can dispute it.
Either way, the decision whether to pay you back your deposit in full or not rests with the scheme, not the landlady.
Best of luck!

I researched this for my son. Ten years is 100% for wear and tear for most things. It sounds as if it was furnished, in which case she’ll have been claiming for wear and tear against her tax bill - although I bet she hasn’t declared the income at all.

If you have been there for 10 years and the landlord didn't replace anything while you were there I doubt but they could take anything off your deposit now. They would have to re decorate and put in new carpets now anyway. They can probably only claim for things that they wouldn't normally replace and have been damaged beyond wear and tear.

Okay landlord's 'bill' came through. She was trying to charge us £560 including £120 for a dishwasher that didn't work when we moved in; we asked her and she told us to have it removed.
For taking our stuff out of the loft. No inventory was made of the loft and in fact it was a third full of all her stuff. I've replied with all this.
Also trying to charge us for cracks to the glass windows (which happened when next door neighbour extended their property - the extension involved building over 'our' roof and took 2 years. Landlord only complained afterwards and she didn't object or reply when neighbours told her they were doing the work.
Out of the £1,192.50 I've conceded £100 towards cleaning costs...
Waiting to hear what she does now

Take it to TDC, you’ll get all your money back. She’s a chancer.

What does she say needs cleaning? Does the inventory of 10 years ago talk about the cleanliness of the property? It may well not and if there are no details tough shit on her. Don’t concede if you don’t have to. For example after 10 years I don’t think you should be paying to clean carpets.

I’ve just taken our old landlord through a Tenancy Deposit Scheme claim. Very straightforward process and didn’t cost me anything. We got back nearly all of our deposit. Good luck!

She's blatantly not told the bank she's no longer living in the property or declared the income to HMRC. I'd tell her my price for not sharing either of those pieces of information would be a deduction free deposit returned to you, no questions asked.

Only got half way through the OP, but she should give you all the deposit back, after 10 years that's all wear and tear. If she doesn't, challenge it and you'll win.

And big deal you opened her mail. As others have said your LL should have got her mail redirected. She hasn't done that so she doesn't need to tell the mortgage company. So she's no shining beacon of ethical light herself is she?

She hasn't got a chance of keeping much of the deposit. If she doesn't agree to your offer of letting her keep a hundred for cleaning try getting all back through the tenant deposit scheme. It's really annoying when landlords try to do this. At least nowadays it is relatively simple to get the money back. I remember having to go through the Small Claims Court.

I'm not sure what the fuss is about you opening her mail either. If someone is fraudulently getting mail delivered to your house in order to pretend they're living there it seems perfectly reasonable to open it to find out what is going on.

Go through TDS. If she hasn't had
your boiler serviced/checked yearly she's also in the wrong....

Sounds like she didn't tell the mortgage company she was letting or convert to a BTL if the post came to the house.

Oh I hadn't read your last update. I wouldn't even concede £100 for cleaning. Can you change you mind and just get it all back through the scheme?

I wouldn’t have conceded anything. Your LL has shirked her responsibilities for 10 years. You owe her nothing.

Interested to see the outcome.

Our landlord tried to claim a similar figure from our deposit. 500 and something. All ludicrous stuff. Including that 200 for the bloomin scratched lino which we bought ourselves for 50 quid! We did concede a figure of £150 because my car had had an oil leak before we left and there were a few drip marks on the (massive) brick paved drive. Didn't mind that. Oil's hell to shift.

Our landlord tried to keep our whole almost £1000 deposit. He redecorated the whole house and also tried to claim for other things which were all classed as fair wear and tear by the deposit scheme adjudicator.
He was awarded £15.

ll is still trying to extract money for the cracked windows so I've said pay us £1k or I will start a dispute with TDS. Prepared to write off £168 which I now feel is more than fair. Given her the end of today and if she doesn't agree will start the dispute.

Start the dispute for the whole lot, you’ll get every penny.

Just dispute it.

I have been both LL and tenant on both sides. She’s a mug if she lets you go to dispute. If you have an email trail of all issues and you’ve been tenants for 10 years she’ll get nothing (as it should be).