Landlord wants to take £300 from our deposit

[Beatrice11]

Hi everyone, just wanted to ask what’s everybody’s opinion.
Long story short, we moved out of the previous accomodation and want to get our deposit back. Landlord has been a bit difficult throughout the tenancy, but now he’s saying that he wants to take £300 from the deposit, the reasons are: we moved out one day later then we supposed to, because our son wasn’t well. We cleared the garage a week later. Now he is saying that it is £100 for being one day late with moving out and £200 for keeping our stuff in the garage for one more week. The rent we were paying was £1275/per month. The cost of renting out a garage in that area is £100/ month top- and starts from £50/ month.
We have been asking him to return the deposit for the last 3 weeks. Last week he texted us to come to his house and he will pay cash- he then didn’t open the door. Next day I’ve sent an email saying that we will take further steps- he replied that he didn’t open the door as he had a suspicious of COVID 19! He knew that we were coming ( we texted him a couple of hours before) and he didn’t warn us that he was feeling ill!
He refused to make an inventory check when we were moving out; we left the house in a much better condition then it was when we were moving in.
I think if he asked for £100 althogether, it would be fair, but not £300! He is saying that it is favourable to us!
We are now considering taking this to the deposit insurance scheme he used to protect the deposit.
Also, he is refusing to make a bank transfer, he want’s to give us cash- my understanding is that the current goverment statement urges everyone to stay at home emplies that we should not go to his house- any idea on that matter and where I could report him?
Sorry for a long post, but I am just getting sick of him.

£300 is fair. Honestly, if I were you I'd back down on that.

Can nobody read?
One DAY late not a week!
The stuff was in a garage that’s £50 per month, not seeing how any of you justify £300🙄🙄

"if I were you I'd back down on that."

Do you normally pay large sums of money without finding out if you have to ?

The OP should request an adjudication

Can nobody read?
One DAY late not a week!
The stuff was in a garage that’s £50 per month, not seeing how any of you justify £300🙄🙄

Can you give me your address? I will come and store all my things in your garage without permission and expect you to charge me a fair and reasonable market rate. I will come and sleep in your house for a night too, obviously only paying an exact pro rate daily rate of your rent. Sound fair?

A deduction is reasonable, however it needs to be agreed and then the rest of the deposit returned, you can't just drag this out for ages which is what I suspect (from experience) hes trying to do.

Can nobody read?
One DAY late not a week!
The stuff was in a garage that’s £50 per month, not seeing how any of you justify £300
No.
The OP leased a PROPERTY.
That property comprised of a house and garage.
She had to vacate the PROPERTY but left the house a day later and continued to use the property's garage for personal storage for a week.

Renting a garage would have cost £50-100.
She wasn't renting a garage.
She was overstaying in the property after her leave date.
A week's rent is perfectly fair and she's lucky that the landlord didn't charge for the whole month as you don't rent monthly properties on a rolling weekly basis based on moving out when it suits.

Can nobody read?
One DAY late not a week!
The stuff was in a garage that’s £50 per month, not seeing how any of you justify £300🙄🙄

Maybe you can't read. The OP said that renting a garage in the area is 100 per month top up and starts at £50per month. This is not renting out a garage, this is making the house unrentable to another tenant.

If someone said that parking was £10 per day in the area so they were going to park on your drive for £10 would you b pleased? OP was keeping her stuff in the garage owned by someone else as the contract had ended.

Confused now.
So the landlord owns the garage which presumably comes with the house? Somebody help me.

madcatladyforever
The OP was renting. The property had a garage.
Instead of moving out on time, the OP left the house a day late and continued to leave her stuff in the property's garage for a week.

All this talk about what it would cost to rent a garage somewhere else is just a way of trying to make the landlord look unreasonable.
In a nutshell the OP fully vacated the property over a week late and thinks it's unreasonable to be charged a week's rent for this week.

If you disagree with what he is asking for then you need to contact the deposit scheme administrator who will log it as a dispute. Both sides then have to submit a fact based statement and include any evidence and a decision will be made.

I suspect OP that unless you have written proof that there was no charge for you to remain in the property for the additional day or leave items stored on the garage the deposit scheme will see that as you not vacating and charge you full rent accordingly. I think you can still get part returned now whilst disputed amount is under consideration. I think we had that with a previous tenant but the agent dealt with it all so not 100% sure.

The inventory is an entirely separate issue. It is only relevant if the landlord tries to claim any costs for damage or similar where the inventory would be used as proof of condition at both start and end of tenancy.

If you log as a dispute and the LL doesn’t submit anything for consideration the full deposit will need to be returned to you within 28 days.

The landlord is actually being quite fair. I would have charged you for the whole month.

We don’t rent properties for days, we rent monthly.

Accept the 300 charge. Insist on bank transfer.

Go through the scheme, do not engage with him any more other than to tell him this if he contacts you.

For those thinking that £300 is fair, well the scheme will have the full details and are equipped to make that decision.

Go through the scheme. That is what it's there for. Perhaps he will think twice about how he deals with future tenants if you go through the scheme.

It's like OP leaving everything in one of the bedrooms and then saying that she can rent a room for £300 per month so she should only pay £75 instead of the cost of the entire property.

Do you normally pay large sums of money without finding out if you have to ?

If those large sums of money made sense - ie. A week's rent pro rata.
The property was still being used a week after the agreed moving out date.

If OP took this further it's very possible LL could push for a whole months rent as rentals tend to be month to month. They would be well within their rights to! THAT is why I would back down on it.

I think he’s right as you took the piss with the stuff in the garage.

@AncoraAmarena
Guarantee the scheme will agree with the Landlord.

I work for a landlord. There are two ways of looking at this. From a legal standpoint, when you rent a property you rent it in it's entirety, unless your tenancy agreement says otherwise. Under tenancy law, by occupying the garage for a further week you were by definition still in occupation of the whole property. The landlord is therefore well within his rights to charge you an additional weeks rent, and very likely actually another month's rent. A deduction of £300 is therefore fair and reasonable and I suspect the deposit scheme would agree with him on that.

If you look at it from a pragmatic point of view, then if the landlord was actually not putting a back to back tenant in then this is an inconvenience that he has had to deal with. e.g. he may have had to put off contractors who were due to start work. If that was the case then I would expect a negotiation to take place on the basis that he has had to modify his plans and had some additional admin to deal with and a reasonable compromise would be to meet in the middle somewhere.

I do agree his behaviour is slightly odd though in which case you might be better simply to go through the deposit protection scheme if you have identified which one that is. For what it is worth I haven't come across landlords returning deposits in cash for many years now. Bank transfer or cheque is the usual way these days as it gives a paper trail for the benefit of both parties. And that's without being in the middle of a pandemic.

OP @Beatrice11 You mentioned he wasn't going to charge anyhing and would have paid the deposit till you said you would take further steps.

What further steps were you talking about? Am I right to think this deposit issue started because of a disagreement you had?

@AncoraAmarena

Perhaps he will think twice about how he deals with future tenants if you go through the scheme.

Explain to me how he is unfair. OP broke a contract and left her stuff in the property for an extra week. It doesn't matter if it was in the garage or the kitchen, the landlord could not rent the property out.

There was a post earlier on here about how someone had exchanged on a property but the previous tenants were still there, people were telling the poster to change the locks and put all their stuff out on the lawn as they were the new owners of the property.

Contact MP, you need support from someone who may have clout.

@slashlover

Did you miss all of this in the OPs post?

We have been asking him to return the deposit for the last 3 weeks. Last week he texted us to come to his house and he will pay cash- he then didn’t open the door. Next day I’ve sent an email saying that we will take further steps- he replied that he didn’t open the door as he had a suspicious of COVID 19! He knew that we were coming ( we texted him a couple of hours before) and he didn’t warn us that he was feeling ill!
He refused to make an inventory check when we were moving out; we left the house in a much better condition then it was when we were moving in.

Contact MP, you need support from someone who may have clout
Clout that says "don't worry about moving out of a rental property on time, feel free to ignore your end date, store stuff in the garage and then be annoyed if a landlord charges rent for this"?

@Fantasiaa

Perhaps they will, but by going through the scheme there will be considered resolution. And nobody can guarantee that until it's done.

Op don't you see, the house was unlettable as you had left stuff there, it doesn't matter if it is in the garage or house, it is not vacant.
He effectively lost the ability to let someone else move in and therefore lost the rent he could have had.

He may be unlikeable or rude since but you were in the wrong here.