Tenancy deposits

[Mendi]

Please talk me through what happens when at the end of your tenancy, you inevitably disagree with the landlord about how much of your deposit he should keep.

I assume there is a complaints procedure to raise with the TDS? Say for example your landlord said he had to get holes in walls filled after picture hooks had been there and suggested a ridiculous price for doing this, such as £1,000. Are you able to require him to produce actual invoices for the work to back up his figures? Or can he just say what he likes and keep the money?

I am about to rent on the open market for the first time and want to understand how this bit works.

hi, I am in the process of doing the student bond returns for a landlord. I have 10 working days from the end if the tenancy to notify the tenants of any proposed deductions. These can be estimates but when I return the remaining deposit I must include invoices.
tenants have 10 working days after my letter to raise a dispute with me. if they do dispute we must try to resolve it between ourselves, if we cant then the tenants can raise a dispute with the deposit scheme and they have the final say.
it is up to the landlord to prove damages with inventories, photos, invoices etc... so it roughly translates as no inventory = no deductions.
your landlord has 30 days to register yout deposit with an approved scheme.

That's interesting petty - are those 10 days standard?

We're just about to go through this, but we're definitely post-10 working days. No inventory either.

Ah, no, we had a big property overlap. We're only at day 5.

Lots of useful info on the TDS website.

what prudence says.

most landlords won't charge stupid sums and won't mess you about. Most tenants are also good people. You hopefully won't be leaving bags of used cat litter, gallons of mystery chemicals and junk furniture and then telling the checkout clerk that it all belongs to the landlord.

protect yourself by all means, but everything is biased towards the tenants so if the deposit is protected as the law insists, you should be fine.

Well, that all sounds good. We scrubbed the house, weeded the garden, and power washed the drive, so I hope they're happy . We took lots of photos to back up our hardwork!

Sorry have been out this afternoon doing exit inspections!

I know the 10 working days applies to mydeposits and The Dispute Service, not sure about DPS.

Just remember, you don't have to prove all was ok, the landlord has to prove the damages and charges. And yes, as specialsubject says, most tenants and landlords are reasonable folk.

unicorn - if there was definitely no inventory at the start of the tenancy you could, in theory, drop a bomb on the house and walk away with your full deposit. Don't know if you want to test that theory though