not receiving deposit due to key holding

[pocketfly]

My partner and I moved out of our flat on the 24th of october having given the required notice, however we are now having extreme problems getting our deposit back. We paid £693 as a deposit. The landlord we have never met i believe he lives in hong kong, we have always delt with a representative, with whom we initally viewed the flat, paid our deposit to (for which we recieved a reciept) and signed a tenancy agreement which she then sent and got signed by the land lords attorney. This representative then changed near the end of our tenancy and we had difficulty getting hold of the new one. We contacted directly the attorney, regarding our deposit who said it would be retuned when the rep had seen the room, this apparently happened a few days after we moved out, but again we heard nothing, at this point we still had the keys as we had not met with anyone to give them back. We had to make numerous calls to the rep and with the attorney to give the keys back as we were keen to get our deposit back. The upshot now is the attorney has said we will only recieve £533 due to us not giving the keys back. When i told her i was not happy with this she gave me the accountants email to discuss with. I did request the landlord but no info about him has ever been given. The accounant confirmed that was what we will be paid, i asked him to give me his details and he wrote back saying that he charged £75 for each letter/email when dealing directly with tenants. No where in our tenancy agreement is anything reagarding holding keys. Do we have a case to get our full deposit back? Also due to the landlord wanting rent paid by direct debit we had to pay a full months rent even though our agreement ended a full week before the end of the month. We were told by the representative that this would be refunded to us with our deposit. When we discussed this with the attorney we were told that we had to give a calender months notice, but again this was not in our tenancy agreement, are we entilted to that money back?

[damiencannell]

Hi

Thats a tricky one. Firstly what was the actual notice period stated in your tenancy agreement? Its usually two months or one omonth if your tenancy has rolled 'periodic'. If it was a periodic tenancy then you would have had to have given notice on a rent day IE the day you paid you rent every month for it to be valid. Either way this must be done in writing. If you paid rent after the expiration of a valid notice period then this is lawfully due back to you.

If the owner was overseas then by law (section 48 a+b Landlord and Tenant Act) he must provide an address for service of notices in the UK. If this changes then you should have been informed. This should be on your tenancy agreement.

With regard to keys its difficult. If they were not returned then the landlord is within his rights to charge you for replacement locks however as you state there was no one to hand keys back to. I would suggest you negotiate on this point.

With regard to the £75 charge for correspondence....utter crap! It would never be in a tenancy agreement as it would be seen as an unfair term.

I suggest finding out exactly who has power of attorney in the UK to act on the owners behalf and deal only with them if you think you are getting a raw deal then approach your local CAB (citizens advice) their website is quite good to start with.

Good Luck

D