LANDLORD!! ARGH!

Ok, so we moved from our last place in August. We'd been tennants of our Landlord for just short of 3 years. Originally we were just in a studio apartment but i fell pregnant while living there so we moved to one of his bigger apartments just before my daugher arrived.
with moving to a bigger pplace our landlord wanted more deposit (from £495 to £600) which obviously we paid.
When we moved out i had our Landlords Dad-who lived accross the road from us, and had dealt with anything that was wrong with our apartment- come and look around to see that he was happy with the conditionof the apartment before i handed him the keys. He said it was fine and he'd get in touch with his son to sort the deposit out for us.

After 4 weeks we still hadn't heard anything so i rang the Landlords Dad (as i didn't have Landlords phone number) to ask what was going on. He sound really pissed off that i'd rang him!! He told me he'd ask his son to get in touch.
Maybe a week later we recieved a letter telling us that out of our £600 deposit he'd deducted £120 for re-decorating and £130 to repair the boiler (and telling us not to contact his dad again regarding the matter!)

Firstly, my dad is a painter and decorator so if he'd said it needed redecorating i'd have got my dad to do it for me for free to ensure i got my deposit back.

Secondly, he said it was fine in the condition it was!!

Thirdly, the boiler worked perfectly well all the time we were there as it was a brand new boiler when we moved in.

Plus if there was a fault with the boiler whilst we were living there then that would've been the landlords responsibility anyway surely?!

Now we've sought legal advice which told us to write to him asking which Deposit scheme our deposit is in (which is a legal requirement in UK). He wrote back saying our deposit was not held in a scheme as our tennancy pre-dated the date it came in to force.
This is a lie as our tennancy started in Nov 2007 and the scheme became a legal requirement in April 2007.

I'm getting sick of all of this as we are REALLY skint now as we were relying on that money coming through. BUT i've been told through the legal advice we sought that if he hasn't paid it in to a Deposit Scheme then we will get our deposit back PLUS 3x the amount on top.
i hope to god this is the case now as i want to teach the little swindler a lesson!!

End of rant! Happy

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7 replies since 23rd October 2010 • Last reply 23rd October 2010

Reply #1:

Landlords ALWAYS find a way to screw you over. Everytime I have moved they have not given my deposit back or given me so little of it back that it's ridiculous. But when we move from this apartment I'll understand, the kids have wrecked the place. But our past apartments were just fine.

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Reply #2:

OMG, that is ridiculous!!!

Thankfully, we rent from Shlomi's parents, and they helped us clean it (previous tenants left DOG PEE ON THE WALLS, plus they smoked so much that they turned everything from white to tan). They also let us decorate however much we wanted; however, purchasing colored paint was on us (they covered the white paint, the new faucets, and the basic responsibilities, as it is THEIR apt. and responsibility). I guess we just got lucky that his parents are landlords!

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Reply #3:

WE moved here a year ago, we love it here, its awesome, but the landlord has defaulted and the house is going back to the bank, were paying him and hes not making the pymts, so were on the move again will be out by the 3rd.I had so hoped all would be good for this place.at thousand a mo its a really great place.Were moving to a smaller 4 bedroom with no trees and in a large neighborhood, here were like in the country.Will surely miss this great big house in the country setting.sigh

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Reply #4:

ewww rachie, thats gross.

my place had these black marks on the walls. I spent all day using a mr clean eraser to get them all off.

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Reply #5:

That sounds horrible and incredibly stressful. I hope they find in your favour!

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Reply #6:

Try the Citizen Advice Bureau or the charity Shelter- they'll help you with legal advice as your landlord sounds dodgy!! Also they won't charge you. I know a lot of people think that Shelter only deals with homelessness issues, but they DO offer legal advice to tenants, and because a lot of people don't think of them they are not as "busy" as the CAB.

I think you can report your landlord to the council if he hasn't complied with the Deposit scheme...

Don't hesitate to send me a message if you want more info- I'm not a lawyer but I've been in this situation- never pleasant.

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Reply #7:

well my MIL has spoken to a solicitor about it and they're gonna send a letter to him asking why he didnt put it in the sceme as the reason he gave us was in valid. Then we'll take it from there. It's gonna cost us but i'd rather that than accept his amount!

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