This may be long, to avoid any drip-feeding so thanks in advance if you get through to the end of it!
I own a house in England, and rent it out as I am currently out the country and want to keep the house for when I eventually return home. So, it's being fully managed through a reputable agency and right up until the point the tenants moved out, we had had no issues / quibbles etc.
During the negotiations with tenants regarding deposit retention I proposed a certain level of retention to cover the cost of getting in a cleaner, doing the carpets and replacing the broken items. Eventually it was all agreed with the tenants, and the balance of deposit distributed to tenants / me as agreed.
Now however, 6 months later (and I am with a new agency now for unrelated reasons), I have had an email from the original agents attaching a bill from the cleaners and asking me to pay.
I have replied to the agents explaining that all retentions had been made in accordance with the agreement between myself and the tenants, which the agents themselves had brokered. For the sake of round numbers, I was expecting to receive back £500, I actually received £380. This extra £120 deduction was, I expected, to cover the agreed cost of the cleaner (agreed at £120 with tenants).
The invoice I have now received is over double this amount and itemises things like oven cleaning for an additional charge which I had not agreed to.
The agency are saying that I need to pay; I believe that I have paid them everything owing and this invoice is a duplicate. We're at a bit of a stalemate, and I'm not sure what to do now.
tl;dr - agency sent a large invoice I believe was paid for out of the deposit retentions, they are insisting I pay again.