Question on the responsibilities of our landlady on leaving a property

[staz]

Hi one and all.

The good lady wife and I have recently signed for and moved into a new house. We wrote to our landlady at our previous address offering the 11th as the date we'd be paying till and the date we'd be leaving. She wrote back saying the 11th is fine with her, we'll owe 11 days rent. This is the amount, £xxx. She'd like us to drop the keys through her letterbox along with the final 11 days rent and our forwarding address. She'll post out what is left of our deposit within a couple of weeks. If the rent does not come with the keys it will come out of our deposit.

I'm fairly unhappy with this. We've had some problems with her in the past including fairly serious ones where she threatened to evict us unless I tackled some decaying electrics myself and neither my wife or I trust her anymore. Without trying to generalise she is very elderly, Italian and paranoid, she has selective hearing and also selective understanding of the English language. Also with language such as "what is left of your deposit" being thrown around I'm even more suspicious. So naturally I'm trying to protect myself as much as possible.

What I'm concerned about is she is flat out refusing to meet in person or carry out an inventory of the house. She is adamant that I post the keys through her letterbox and she'll take it from there. I'd like her to:

- Take the keys off me in person on the morning of the 11th, and sign something stating she has received them.
- Carry out a walkthrough and inspection and inventory of the property, date and sign something with us confirming she is happy.

We've been arguing over this for the last week. Eventually in what I think was a ploy to get me to admit defeat she offered me the 3rd. This was over the phone on the 2nd and she knew I'd be busy and unable, also despite the fact that we've paid up until the 11th. I got her to agree to sometime over the weekend, she agreed to call before the weekend and decide on saturday or sunday. This is starting to ramble a bit so I'll cut it short. She called on sunday night and did her usual routine of talking over me, refusing to listen, bringing up strange and unrelated stories and events that are unrelated to the matter at hand. She says we have to drop the keys off and she'll contact us in a week or two to arrange a walkthrough in person as a compromise. Again, she is untrustworthy and generally manipulative. I am almost certain this walkthrough in person will fail to happen.

Today she pushed a letter through the door saying that she won't meet in person because other people have let her down and waste her time. I'm to drop off the keys and let her deal with it in her own time. I am being highly antagonistic and I should refer to my tenancy agreement if I am unhappy with her decision (which does have a single line stating "deposit will be returned within a week of the keys being returned"). She also wrote that we had broken the terms of our tenancy agreement (there is a clause stating we cannot use the deposit as rent) though we were planning on handing her the cheque this last weekend when we met up and she even said we could drop it off with the keys or she'd take it from the deposit anyway.

Either way tomorrow on the 10th I'll be going over the house with a fine tooth comb to clean and leave it spotless. Anything that has been damaged we've repaired or replaced. We've even done more than we should. Filled, sanded and painted a hole in the ceiling from a boiler leak that she never had fully repaired. Painted two rooms (fair enough for one as we'd covered floor to ceiling in posters and the blue tack needed sealing and painting). Touched up the paint in a bunch of other places. Replaced some terrible 60's bakolite cupboard handles which literally dissolved in our hands with some nice metal ones. We'll be taking photos of everything when finished too. I fully expect back 100% of our deposit and I have a feeling she is seeing it as her "decoration fund".

The question I have is can I force my landlady to meet us in person? What else can I do to protect myself and what should I be doing? I know I've left it late to come here and ask seeing as there are only two days left until the handover but I'll take any advice people can give on this matter. What can I say to her? Everything I've googled on this says "your landperson should meet up with you and do the handover" but nothing says anything like "under section XX your landperson is required to". Anything I can do about this other than just drop them off, and hope she doesn't try and stitch me up on everything from not returning the keys to trashing her house and not even paying the final 11 days rent (which I'm guessing she'll want on top if she does decide to keep the deposit).

Thanks!

[bazak1]

if all goes the opposite way to how you want and you do actually end up doing what she wants, cover yourself as much as possible by firstly taking photographic and video evidence ( preferably with time and date stamp on ) of the whole property. you could supply her with a copy of them letting her know that you also have a copy and therefore you are covering yourself if "certain" defects suddenly become apparent when you have left.
i personally would have thought that you were right to request she be there and to check everything, so it does seem suspicious, but have you tried your local C A B, or housing advice centre, because they have a varied knowledge of this and dont just look after local council tenants.
keep us up to date with what happens and good luck.

[MrShed]

The landlady has NO obligation to meet you and and do a check out. Certainly, they have no obligation to return the deposit, or give you information of potential deductions, at such a meeting anyway - read my reasons in the below thread:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...y-deposit.html

Couple of quick questions. When did you give her written notice? Did you sign a fully detailed inventory upon moving in?

With regards the keys, just ensure that you have a witness when returning them.

[demon_x_slash]

Did you have an entry inventory at the start of the tenancy?

If she's being obstructive, all you can really do is video EVERYTHING - and when I say everything, I mean everything. Chips in the kitchen worktop, behind the cupboards, in the far corners of the airing cupboard, everything. She's either as you said anticipating keeping part of the deposit, or an old lady who is genuinely going odd (my nan does similar things on the phone; rambling stories, talking over you, irrelevant comments). Either way you need iron-clad evidence that the property was spotless when you moved out, and bettered by your improvements mentioned (handles, paint etc.).

She says to put the keys and rent through the letterbox - could she come to a compromise and accept them on her doorstep, signing something to say she's received them? If not, take a couple of upstanding friends with you when you do drop them off; witness statements in case anything goes wrong can be very helpful.

This '11 days rent' is confusing me a bit - you say you're paid up until the 11th, but will still owe 11 days rent? Was your original rent date the 22nd then? Sorry, I may be reading it wrong.

[demon_x_slash]

Mr Shed, please get that mind-stealing ray pointed away from my head, I can see it y'know

[MrShed]

Lol I was awaiting some comment there demon

[staz]

Hello everyone, just a quick reply to thank you all for your replies and clear something up. The 11 days thing is because our rent day was the 31st of each month. The condition for giving notice for leaving the property stated we needed to give one months notice on rent day. The place we are in now came up quite quickly, around about the 9th of the previous month we contacted her offering to pay until the 11th of the next month so the 9th plus a couple of days for delivery = the 11th being one calender month after we'd given notice of leaving. I guess the only other ways to do it would have been to go back in time and give notice 9 days ago on rent day or wait until June was up and give notice for the end of July.

We have an inventory when we moved in. I don't think we actually signed it though. I've got it unsigned amongst my papers. It lists the furniture only which is otherwise all fine (except for what I'd say is fair, ie a white sofa three years later is now a slightly off white colour)

[MrShed]

So that inventory was never returned to her signed?

[staz]

I'm guessing so unless I've just got a copy of it and we signed another at some point. Ah its almost three years ago now. Either way I'll be taking a few hundred dated pictures tomorrows and a friend with me to witness the keys being dropped off. I'll let you know how it goes.

[MrShed]

Well, if you did not give her a signed inventory, she can make no deductions - period. Just so you know

[staz]

Well, we've moved out, we've scrubbed and cleaned and taken photos and argued amongst ourselves though after everything we've dropped off the keys with a witness present.

Landlady texts the next day saying :-

"You have given me the wrong keys"

We reply in the negative. (If you can't open a door maybe someone should be considering retirement?) But anyway. It goes back and forth for a while with her insisting she's wasted a day and we've given her the wrong keys and she's been back to the address and tried again and again. We offer to come and open the door for her and she immediately says her daughter will come and do it. I was close to telling her to have the locks changed, get a receipt for the work as evidence, but be sure to keep the old locks and keys so when I see her next I can stuff all of it up her bum.

Long story short she text'd back later in the evening saying "Checked the house, will post out your balance tomorrow" (today) so I'd assume we'll get all of it back, seeing as 2-3 hours isn't long enough to get a quote for work done though the place really was in top shape. My hands get arthritic even thinking about all the scrubbing I did. Anyway, a text isn't in writing so we'll see soon enough.

I'll update eventually!

[MrShed]

All the same, dont delete the texts

[staz]

Deposit arrived today in full!

Not very exciting conclusion I know, maybe I am just a paranoid person?

[MrShed]

Meh, you had rights to be paranoid in this case I reckon! Good result though I'm pleased

[demon_x_slash]

Congrats