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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Help with landlord

57 replies

Loginmystery · 02/06/2022 12:16

I hope someone can help me.

we moved out of a property and were only there short term. It was in a bad way when we moved in but I cleaned and put up with things being broken.
i left it spotless. Far far better than when we moved in. It was two days solid cleaning.
thr landlord has now sent me a list saying various things are broken- shutters- chipped worktop- broken fridge. None of these things are true. She has alsI said I need to pay for professional clean. She’s holding the deposit.
i have photos and video showing that the place was left perfectly clean and undamaged.

before we moved in the carpets were very badly damaged and I think the landlord will need to replace before she lets another tenant in because it’s horrible to live like that. Burned and stained and moths everywhere. My guess is she is hoping to charge me for the professional clean she will need to do once the contractors have fixed up the house.

my question is could anyone help me with wording a letter saying I refute the dishonest claims on my deposit and have photos and video of when we moved into and out of the property.

for more context this is an extremely greedy woman who has a family business letting out residential properties in London. We were paying 4,500 per month and she is now asking much higher so she will definitely need to do the repairs that she refused to do for us. But she wants that at my expense. I’m furious but can anyone advise? Can we take her to court? It’s fraudulent and also defamation surely? I spent 6 months there cleaning up her property.

thank you to anyone who can help.

OP posts:

Testina · 02/06/2022 18:42

It isn’t personal.
Yes, she’s taking the piss - but it isn’t personal, she’d do it to anyone. As you know from the previous tenant.

If your anxiety is so bad you won’t look at your own paperwork to check the deposit details, why would you want to get into some bizarre attempt to accuse her of fraud and defamation?

I know London rents are mad, but £4500 a month isn’t rock bottom of the market where you’re effectively forced to accept a burned and infested carpet from a slum landlord. I can’t believe you’ve spent 6 months cleaning that for her.

I’m not sure Foxtons link means your deposit will be properly protected. Depends what services she paid them for. But, it seems most likely that it is.

So, read your paperwork and follow the correct procedures. You won’t shit her up the way she has you, by accusing her of defamation, to get some kind of revenge though. She has more nerve than you - it won’t bother her. Just deal with it through the correct channel.

MindPrison · 02/06/2022 18:44

I don't know what you want from this thread?
You seem determined to have a showdown with the LL so maybe you should just crack on.
Nobody, not a single poster has said you are in the wrong or the LL has grounds. Astonishingly for AIBU nobody has been goady and there is gold standard, clear advice.
Surely it would be better for your anxiety to let the deposit scheme pay you back than the chance to stub out the LL.
We all know and agree that some LL are chancing scammers which is why deposit schemes even exist.

BalloonsAndWhistles · 02/06/2022 18:46

In our last rented place before we bought we had this and had to dispute with the TDS. The landlord tried to keep 80% of the money! Cut a long story short, we got all the money back and it came down to the landlord taking the inventory photos three weeks before we moved in. TDS said that the landlord couldn’t prove that the damage they were claiming we’d caused hadn’t happened in those three weeks before we moved in (it hadn’t!)

Anyway, DH went round to the property about three months later as a friend had sent my birthday card there. Unsurprisingly, he found out from the new tenants that the landlord had carried out every single bit of remedial work that we’d said needed to be done. That’s what he wanted to keep our deposit for and I suspect that’s what your LL is trying to do to you.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 02/06/2022 18:48

I haven’t checked because I have crippling anxiety and cannot look at (the deposit scheme) paperwork

I honestly do get how worrying this must be - though as a PP said it's not personal - but if you want to rebut her claims you'll almost certainly need the DPS anyway

Would it help to ring them instead?

Testina · 02/06/2022 18:52

You will look silly if you start writing letters with MN help telling her you’ll take her to court for “Fraud”.

Fraud is generally a criminal offence, and thus you have no power to take anyone to court for it. You report it to the police, they decide whether to investigate, then the CPS decides whether to charge.

It is a civil matter too, but complex and you will look uninformed if you even try to threaten that.

If you can afford £4500 a month rent, you can afford to pay a solicitor to write a sniffy letter, which will at least look professional. Still a waste of money when you already have legal redress through the deposit scheme.

ThreeLittleDots · 02/06/2022 18:53

I think the deposit is protected because it’s a big agency

Not necessarily. They only introduced you to her and presumably drafted the contract. It may have been up to the landlord to ensure the deposit is legally put into a deposit scheme.