Oh dear - landlord getting very tricksy about returning our deposit

[MrsCampbellBlack]

As expected our nightmare landlord is being very difficult about returning our deposit.

She phoned my DH earlier to discuss 'broken things' none of which we had broken but were broken when we moved in - I can't remember doing an inventory though.

The money is held in the tenancy deposit scheme so whats our next step. She hung up on my DH when he told her we didn't break the things.

She has form for this I've found out subsequently so just after some advice - its about £1,800 so I am loathe to write it off or to get solicitors involved but do we have any choice?

First thing to do is to find out which scheme your deposit was placed with (your landlord should have provided this to you as soon as the money was placed on deposit).

Each scheme should have some mechanism in place for the parties to negotiate (or go to arbitration) if a final apportionment cannot be agreed.

With the scheme I use (the gov't one - "the deposit protection scheme" I think it's called), there is an arbitration process and the amount of the disputed sum gets held whilst the parties continue to negotiate. Any amounts that can be agreed as belonging to the landlord/tenant get returned straightaway, even if part of it remains disputed.

I would have thought that the website for your particular scheme should have some helpful online guidance for these sorts of situations.

Good luck!

Thank you!

Have left a message asking for details of the scheme (definitely don't have that info) and also a copy of the inventory as I'm pretty sure we didn't have one.

Its just all so unnecessary really - we lived there 3 years and only 2 weeks before we moved out did they start doing any type of routine maintenance.

Contact the tenancy deposit scheme, it is very easy actually to put in a dispute online. I did this, all online, with my landlord, when he refused to give back my deposit, and the TDS awarded me all the deposit back, and the landlord had no chioce.

Fight for your rights, you have to.

The idea of the legislation was to protect tenants against unscrupulous landlords who just kept the entirety of the deposit. Any guidance is likely to be dealing with it from that perspective, so that's in your favour.

If there is an inventory and it mentions the items that are broken (but doesn't specify that they were broken at the date your tenancy started) then the presumption will be that they were unbroken when you got the tenancy and so the repair/replacement will be at your cost, unless you can rebut that presumption with evidence (which is likely to be v difficult unless you have a dated photo or something).

The inventory should have been attached to your tenancy, so if you don't have a copy of your tenancy either, request one. The tenancy will also deal with your obligations upon handing back the property so will be needed in any negotiations/arbitration.

Generally in residential tenancies, a landlord cannot charge a tenant for fair wear and tear - so if the paints a bit scuffed or the carpets are a bit worn, that's tough luck for the landlord.

I think landlords often hope that tenants will just forget about the deposit or won't feel confident enough to challenge any deductions so you may have to fight any urges to be non-confrontational about the whole thing!

We actually left the property in a much better state than we found it and I left lovely curtains in all the bedrooms, had ensured carpets/windows/house all cleaned professionally and garden tidied up etc etc.

DH has been dealing with the LL and will not give in. The thing is if they'd said there was some small issue we'd have been fine but to try and argue we'd pulled radiators off walls etc it just not on.

I suspect they've realised they can't let it out in the state its in - dreadful decoration, hideous kitchen etc and want to keep our deposit to start facilitating some updates to the house.

Thanks for your advice both of you.

We had a similar problem when we couldn't get our deposit back. IIRC a local solicitor wrote a letter to the letting agent, it was about £80 and we got the money back almost immediately so it was worth it.

As soon as you know who your deposit was lodged with, you should contact them to explain that all/part of it is disputed. They will help you with the procedure that you need to follow. The landlord was under a legal obligation to provide you with these details at the start of the tenancy, so she's on the back foot already.

I think you can try and find out whether your deposit was lodged with a certain provider by typing in your address on their website and they'll say whether or not they are holding a deposit for that address. The deposit protection scheme definitely do this and try googling "tenant deposit schemes" and you'll see the names of the other service providers (the RLA has a useful guide for landlord's which sets out the different service providers)

The landlord won't be able to get any/all of the deposit back without your agreement but it will show her that you aren't going to back down or be baffled by the system.

You shouldn't need to spend £ on sols writing a letter for you but can see why you might resort to this if it gets stressful!

If you have any before/after photos (even if the rooms are just the "background" to a photo), keep them as they will be useful evidence to support your position.

Also, keep all your invoices for the professional cleaning and curtains etc as again they'll be useful evidence.

definitely go through the deposit protection thing, we had a landlord like this and although it takes a while for them to check the claim and get the money back to you, you are very likely to get most if not all of it back. if you have any records of the correspondence with your landlord then keep it because you can submit it as evidence, we just pasted in a lot of the email discussions we had had with her, a couple of pics, some quotes we got for work to show the prices she was putting for things were vastly inflated, that kind of thing. she wanted to keep more than 1k extra from ours too but we got nearly all of it back. wouldn't spend money on solicitors, just try the deposit scheme its free and probably the most effective thing anyway as they can force the landlord to comply easier than a solicitor i think?
when you put the claim in the money is kept with the protection people pending their decision so she wont have access to it at that time, they keep it for you which is much better i think
also for the broken things i think she needs some kind of proof if she wishes to claim that, otherwise they are more likely to side with the tenant. ours started something about the plumbing was broken and bla bla bla, it was fine when we moved out so she either broke it herself or was lying. the protection scheme did not give her any money for it

Thanks all. I spoke to the letting agents we originally went through this morning and they've given me all the info - they were very helfpul indeed.

So am going to register a dispute and apparently the LL is going to confirm in writing what the dispute is (has to be within 10 working days from end of our lease).

I also said to the agent if this was how its going to play out - then I'll have back all the lovely curtains I left behind etc.

Hopefully we'll get a good chunk of our money back at least.

It does make me cross though and I really think there should be some way of checking LL's references because this one is notorious I found out subsequently. I feel very sorry for whoever moves in after us.

Just a quick update - the LL's son called DH about 10 mins ago - they've had a re-think and will be paying our deposit in full after all!

So thanks for all the help ladies.

Great news. Although to protect your position until you have the cash in your hands, I'd ask the landlord to confirm it in writing (an email will do) and you should keep hold of all the receipts/invoices for the furnishings and work.

You should also contact the scheme holding your deposit and confirm that all the deposit is being returned to you (they will contact your landlord to get her to confirm this before the cash in returned).

If there is a deadline for lodging a dispute (not sure there is but I'm not familiar with each scheme's rules), I wouldn't want you to miss out on that if the landlord changes her mind!

Have fun spending the cash!

Good advice - thank you!

Cash is ear marked for re-wiring work in new home so not terribly exciting but pretty important

it's funny how they suddenly decide to give the whole lot back as soon as you mention opening a dispute.

we had this with our last letting agent/landlord, as soon as they realised we weren't giving into bully boy tactics they backed down.

thank god for the deposit protection scheme.

I know - some landlords are just such nightmares - really do wish there was a register or somethign where they could be black-listed.