Landlord not returning deposit and now demanding more money

[StressedEric]

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice please.

We moved out of the property we were renting 2 months ago now and only over the last week or so have we managed to get any responce with regards to our deposit after continuosly chasing this up.

We were initially accused by them of leaving the flat 'dirty' i.e the walls had marks on them, this turned out to be ventilation problems in the flat and after initially accusing us of this damage admitted it was a problem.

However we admitted to very slight damage to the cheap kitchen worktop. When I say cheap it means that it was basically a linoleum worktop which couldnt handle any heat whatsoever. I had placed a hot pan on a coaster on the worktop and the heat had went through and bubbled up a small part of the worktop. This then cracked and left a hole smaller than the size of a ten pence piece.

Unfortunately we never took a picture of the damage as we didnt expect this to be such a problem.

We received a letter the other day saying that their 'contracters' had been in and they were keeping our deposit (£425) to pay for the damage to the worktop. There was a copy of the invoice from their contractors.

Two days later we get another letter in saying they are wanting us to pay for the balance of what it cost to repair the worktop which in total came to £650 and attached was the same invoice but broken down to show the cost of repair to the worktop.

My partner and I think this amount is very adjustified for the scale of damage that was caused. Even if they were to repair the whole of the cheap linoleum worktop and add labour it surely wouldn't amount to that but it appears they would have paid anything that their contractors had quoted and then recharged us.

Can anyone give me advice on what we should do here? It was bad enough them keeping our £425 but now they are chasing us for a further £225. I've heard of people before who have trashed their flat and dont get their deposit back, fair enough, but to keep our deposit plus charge us extra seems very unfair and has left us feeling very annoyed.

Thank you.

[Joa]

Very similar problem happened to knoxvillian. See his post at
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...5-deposit.html
It's long but worth it.