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Getting rental deposit back

8 replies

Greengrassofdome · 08/05/2018 14:44

Not sure if this is the right bit for this but thought I'd give it a go!
We moved out of a rental house 6 weeks ago. The day I gave back the keys I realised we'd accidentally taken a bucket from the house and went to drop it round. The landlords were already there and said they were really pleased with how clean etc it was and they would just wait to hear about the inventory which was happening the next day. It's now 6 weeks later and I'm getting nowhere with the letting agent. The landlord told the agent a couple of weeks ago they thought there was minor damage to a cupboard drawer in the kitchen but no mention of any deductions. The landlord lives in the Middle East most of the year and I don't have any contact details. I'd like our money back - what do I do next? Deposit is in the proper scheme.

OP posts:
Nightfall1 · 08/05/2018 14:55

Are they refusing to give you your deposit back?
Anyway -contact the scheme directly- see if any deductions are being made. If they are and you disagree you can use their ADR process.

specialsubject · 08/05/2018 15:39

you are entitled to landlord contact details but as above you don't need them. Contact the deposit scheme, raise a dispute if needed.

the landlord will have to prove that you did damage. And how do they know if they are in the middle east?

Greengrassofdome · 08/05/2018 15:40

They're not refusing to give it back, just not confirming with the letting agent that they can authorise returning it. Also the landlord hasn't said whether they want to make any deductions for damage. I've been making a nuisance of myself with the letting agent but that isn't getting me anywhere - even after being quite lovely tenants who looked after the house and paid the rent and every bill on time.

OP posts:
user102938 · 08/05/2018 16:11

I might be wrong but I think there's a timescale of when they have to return it without good reason..may be worth checking and sending them a reminder as such. If not contact the deposit people direct and see what they suggest

specialsubject · 08/05/2018 17:22

there is indeed a timescale - 10 working days. Light a fire under the agent, explain the rules to them, tell them to stop filing nails and flicking hair and get your money back to you.

planetclom · 09/05/2018 23:57

Email them and say you expect inventory to have been done, they are supposed to do it in 10 days and if they haven't done it by x date you will have to raise a dispute. We had this issue but because it was over Christmas I didn't actually realise until 6 weeks down the line and I didn't know my rights at this point. They started with the whole, oh didn't get it saga which went on for a day before the inventory finally came in, it seemed reasonable £50 for garden work, fine we moved out and it was snowing we couldn't have done anything to the garden at the time, £20 here and there came to about £100 plus agents fee of £160 something, there was £20 I could of queried but £20 can you be bothered, it then said some damage to the kitchen flooring and they would get back to us with that... my email back was very specific and said I would pay for and itemised, but I needed to price of the flooring, I expected about £20-30....£770 😲 I wrote back diluting the price offered £150 to keep the process moving and was ignored, every email after this was ignored except to keep forwarding prices which increased eventually I said unless I hear I would raise a dispute to get and email which was dismissive as in whatevs. I raised the dispute and the floor price increased again during this process. Plus they sent us an email with an invoice address to us a few days before we had to have logged our issues saying the entire deposit would be sent via BACs to "your account" so we though they were going to pay all the money back... luckily I said to my husband it doesn't make sense they haven't even taken the estate agents fees out if we don't get the money by the finish date I am still logging it... oh forgot I emailed the letting agent to ask what the email meant and got after slightly too long a delay a "out of office" stating she was not working again until after the day after our deadline. Calling got the answer oh we don't deal with those I don't know what the invoice means.
So we put it in and I estimated with all the fees, what we had agreed to pay and the £150 goodwill gesture we would owe about £700 all told and worst came to worst we would only owe what they said we owed originally... we got the dispute back and everything including the estate agents fees came to about £450 the adjudicator even reduced the price of things we had said we would pay and had no issue with.

Some really important things are you only have 3 months to do this. It is a simple process you just need the number of you deposit certificate to tell you which scheme you are in. The process is amazingly easy and quick I think it was just a month from start to finish. You have nothing to lose. They will use dirty tricks, the three a women at confirmed were the playing the were not bothered Card, she said tenants only have this occasionally and they think the estate agent knows the system inside out so drop it in a crisis of confidence. The ramping up of the costs again to make the tenant think the estate agent know they will win so might as well ask for more. And the invoice makes people think the money is imminent so they don't complete the claim then when the money doesn't come they have not followed the process so can't go back.

But before you do this if you do have a dispute you need to try and rectify this first and give a time scale I didn't and it dragged on until I woke up. This went in my favour with the dispute as I did and they did not engage.

The report was interesting reading about how they decide the costs.

On addresses I used the letting agent address as I didn't know the land lords this did not seem to be a problem.

Good luck hope you don't have the same hassle as me. But the dispute service is a piece of piss especially in these days of email.

planetclom · 10/05/2018 00:03

Oh what they wanted us to pay was a few pound off a £1000 it was well worth disputing.'

Pardalis · 10/05/2018 23:02

There is some great information online about 'betterment'. The LL cannot claim new for old. Adjudicators will decide how much certain things should reasonably last.
For example, a carpet in a rental property should last 6-10 years depending on quality, colour and the people and animals living in it.
If a carpet needs replacing earlier than the expected number of years it should last then the tenant should only pay for the lost years.
Basically it's fair wear and tear.

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