Hi,

Can anyone offer any information or ideas to put into a response letter on the below?

We were given a new council house as we had a baby and were living in a maisonette that wasn't suitable for our circumstances anymore.

A council guy came round and told us what decorating/repairs we needed to do when we applied to move. Then when we'd done them, we were only told we had to repaint a couple of walls and a ceiling. The house was signed off as ok and we went onto the housing register. About 1 1/2 years later we eventually got told we made the top of the list for a property and so they went through the same proocedure. Making sure the house we was in was adequate and were told nothing else needed to be done and was signed off and we could proceed to go through procedures to move house. We were only told we'd have to empty house and rip up the carpets when we moved.

Just as a side note, this house was our first house and the house was a state when we moved in, we did what decorating we could to make it liveable for us and they even signed off on it when we applied to move, but we were never happy in the state of the property.

4 months down the line now after moving into our new house which has had so many problems itself being a new house that i've been sick with stress sorting it out and the council still said somethings need to be done out of our own money we have had a letter from the council telling us we have to pay nearly £700 charges on the repairs and cleaning of the house we moved out off. £200 of that fee is admin and vat.

In their charges list they've included replacing kitchen cupboards, counters etc which some were falling apart when we'd moved in there years ago and they never came to fix them.

Replacing floor tiles in the toilet which were already a state when we moved in that to live with it we'd always had carpet down. the other is a says cleaning throughout the whole property, shed etc. All we'd left in the bin shed was the rubbish bins which did need to be emptied, but as the collections are fourtnightly and we were given 7 days to move, we couldn't put them out. There were a few boxes in there too which were there when we moved in and i never wanted to touch them so i'd thought we would get a small charge for that but not £700.

In their letter they've said we have 14 days to send a written response if we don't agree, but don't know what to say except that we dont want to pay, and can't even afford to pay (why we are council tenants to start with) £700 for replacing kitchen cupboards, floorboards and even cleaning throughout when it was signed off as ok. The house was disgusting when we moved in with stuff all down the toilet walls that someone had hastily put paper over to hide so we'd cleaned it up as much as we could to make it liveable, but it was never ideal. we shouldn't have to gut a council house.

please can anyone help in what to say in a response?

Does anyone have any info on this? Can the council bill us because they've finally decided to upgrade the kitchen units, floorboards in the property that we've been waiting years for them to do while we were living there?

There is probably a load of ifs & buts about this. If the Council thought the property was good before you moved in and when you moved out it was not then yes I would say you would have to pay, in the present climate the Council will be trying anything to claw back cash. You will need the property reports that say otherwise. Probably time to involve your Councillor(s) & put your point forward direct as a Formal Complaint to the CEO.

PT

Yeah we've managed to get in touch with our local councillor and he's taking a look at it. I'm also submitting letter to say I don't agree with the charges which gives us more time as after 14 days they'll pass it to the debt collection team. It was already 7 days by the time we received the letter.

However on a side note, the property was signed off as ok twice, once when we went on the housing register and again before we moved. So these are new charges they have put on.

If anyone else has any suggestions to put to the council, i'll be happy to hear them.

well we've received a reply to our letter from the council. This also took 8 days to arrive, even though i posted the original query by written note and e-mail and they said they would get back to me by e-mail. but they didnt.

They've reduced the charges now to £260 for cleaning and clearing property. The repairs they must have taken off. Plus another £100 tax and admin charges so £360 they want now. So its a lot less.

In the letter they wrote to us, they said please see attached pictures taken after we left the property and the prelim letter we had. However these weren't attached to the letter.

Am I able to request these again as we didnt get any pictures to prove the charges even though they said they attached them. We don't believe that cleaning the property and emptying the bin shed would come to £260 without VAT as the council themselves only charge £22 for taking away up to 10 bulk items from us which we couldn't request at the time and had to move things ourselves as we were only given a week to move.

you should definitely request copies of the photos that were not included

it is difficult to say whether the cleaning and clearing charge is reasonable as i do not know how much work was actually involved