To ask if any of you are landlords?

[Biomedical]

Ex-DP moved out a while ago and I’ve been paying the rent and bills myself. I’ve messaged the landlord to tell him but had no reply. I’m looking to move back to my home town to be closer to family. Our tenancy is private and joint. When we took up the tenancy I paid the deposit but as the rent was going to come out of his account we paid it from his bank, not sure if that matters? He’s moved into a house share for now and can’t afford the rent on our home going forward.

My question is, does anyone know if I’ll need to save up a deposit again for a new tenancy? Will the deposit go back to his account or mine because I’m paying the rent? I can’t afford to continue paying rent and bills and save up another deposit it would take me a year but I need family support after everything he’s done / is doing.

You need to read the tenancy agreement line by line to get the answers on this. From memory they often say which is the "lead tenant" and have a few paragraphs on which person is given authority to get the deposit back..

Also your ex has probably been legally obliged to pay half the rent so you could sue him for the rent he has not paid unless you agreed he did not have to pay. It does not sound like you varied the tenancy with the landlord as he did not reply to m ove it just into your name which is all a bit of legal mess in that case.

Which of you did the deposit come from when you moved in? Even if all of it is paid back to your partner because the agreement says so he would still owe you any part of it which originally came from you.

Who's name is the deposit in?
It normally gets returned back to that named person.

I'm sure you can haggle this through mediation with your ex. If he won't do the decent thing voluntarily.

Depends on which deposit scheme, do you have the log in details? You should log in and it will be linked to an email address, do you know if the email is yours or ex partners as the instructions will be sent to that email?

I'm a landlord.

You don't say explicitly, but do you expect that your ExDP will keep the deposit and not return it to you if it's put back into his account?

Do you have the details of the deposit protection scheme your landlord is using? If your landlord isn't communicating with you then you could try contacting them directly. You need to inform them of changes to the tenancy.

www.thetenantsvoice.co.uk/your_home/joint-tenancies-and-the-return-of-the-deposit/

Thankyou for replying, When we first moved in the initial deposit and first months rent was transferred from my account to his then paid from his account. He always spent money while i saved. I’ll have to see if I can find the agreement and read through it, I have a feeling it was in his box of documents that he took with him.

The landlord previously said if I wanted to swap it to just my name it would cost £190 so we said we’d leave it til we were certain we wouldn’t have to change it again. I now realise that was a bad move! I could try to sue him for half the rent but he’s penniless, hence I know for a fact he will keep the deposit if its given back to him.

They're not allowed to charge for that sort of thing anymore are they?!

If it’s linked to his email and you don’t know which deposit scheme it’s in or the log in and password details then you will struggle to get it paid to you unfortunately.

You can always find out which deposit scheme it is in. I think there are 3 or 4 in England. When we enquired with our landlord she wouldn’t tell us which scheme it was in, so we emailed the 4 different schemes, turns out she didn’t put it in any. So you can definitely find out.

Found this online...Your landlord can use your deposit to cover rent arrears. Show your landlord proof of what you've paid if you disagree about the amount of rent you owe. You could use bank and benefit statements, a rent book or emails from your landlord or agent to prove what payments have been made.
So if you find somewhere else, don't pay the rent and save it towards the new deposit then the landlord will keep the deposit towards the rent.

It would maybe be better if you speak to your landlord and come to that agreement rather than just not pay, as it could affect a reference etc.