"final payment" and labour costs

nickyp99 · 15th January 2007, 20:37

Dispute with landlord over deposit return.

a) He has sent reviewed cheque with increased offer "to settle". The end of the letter states that cashing the cheque would constitute our acceptance of the amount as a full and final settlement. Can we cash it and then sue him, or would this severly prejudice our case? The reason for cashing it would be fairly evident to any judge: The first set of cheques were post dated by two months, not signed and later stopped. That was before we had even started to complain about anything.

b) Landlords can't charge for their time, can they? Most of the deducted amounts are for £100, or £20, or £10. Basically, he has told us that he has fixed everything himself and charged an hourly rate. Therefore there are no receipts. Personally, I don't think he is even worth minimum wage.

Cheers, I promise when this is resolved I will stop asking questions...

callumsgran · 16th January 2007, 09:39

Hi nicky, if you cash your cheques you will be seen to have accepted their offer in full and final settlement as stated in the their letter and you will not be able to re-sue so be careful.
also even if the landlord has done the work himself he can charge no more than £7.50 per hour by law and he still must provide a breakdown of hours spent doing the work
hope this helps and good luck

nickyp99 · 16th January 2007, 10:14

Thanks.

Hmmmm. The landlord has quote an hourly rate of £30p/h. Is this £7.50 p/h some sort of accepted convention or is it actually in the law? If it is, does anyone know which law? I always like to quote the relevant Act where I can...

Personally I don't think he is worth minimum wage.

demon_x_slash · 16th January 2007, 20:57

Well, I thought landlords was £9.50 and that that was a court rate - knoxvillain, you posted in your thread that it was from the County Courts Act? I've tried looking for a copy but can't find one - do you remember where you saw that?

£30 an hour is ridiculous. My OH's an IT contractor for a blue-chip int.company and he doesn't even get £30 an hour!

StudentInDebt · 17th January 2007, 01:12

Tell him to up his rate

I do IT work for a couple of clients part-time and one of them was charged £50 per hour recently!

RCBanks · 17th January 2007, 15:53

More info on the £9.25 p/h quoted by Knoxvillain can be found in the following threads:

repairs - LandlordZONE Forums

Court proceedings started - LandlordZONE Forums

knoxvillain · 29th March 2007, 08:22

sorry, must have missed this thread. £9.25 is the rate

callumsgran · 29th March 2007, 16:37

Quite right, i was advised it was £7.50 a while ago on landlordzone but its obviously changed since.

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