You may have real problems here, unless at the start when you paid the deposit you ensured that it was ring-fenced from the rest. This is because under the tenancy agreement you signed you no doubt agreed that you were jointly and severally linked to the other tenants. Thus the agent, unless there were specific instructions otherwise would be entitled to return the deposit to any one of the tenants to share it out amongst the rest. The agent would argue that as one or more of the original tenants instructed them to use the same deposit for the new agreement, even though some names had changed, they acted on the instructions of at least one of the joint and several tenants.

Toddie, there are some important facts that I don't think you have answered yet. Firstly, on what date did the first tenancy agreement start and when did the fixed term end? Did it then go periodic, and if not, what date did the last tenancy agreement start, and when did it end? Did the tenant leave then, or did they stay on at all. Dates are very important.

Most of what else you write, apart from there being no inventory, is irrelevant. The bit I have highlighted above is extremely important though. Unless a landlord provides an address in England or Wales where notices can be served, rent is not payable. However, he can remedy this by serving you notice, and as soon as he does, all outstanding rent becomes payable.

This is not a simple question to answer and I think you may get a better response from those with greater knowledge that tend to reside on the Swarb or landlordzone forums.

Not at all! I am finding the action you are taking really interesting. Both the scenario and because it is an individual standing up for what is right against an autocratic system that views all travellers as fraudsters unless proved to the contrary. Thank you for keeping us updated. I wish you well on this.

They are correct - no bank or lender is governed by the rate the BoE sets. However every institution has a Standard Variable Rate that will broadly follow changes to the BoE rate. You need to find out what the SVR rate is, particularly as the rate you are paying at the moment seems very high. Your original loan was with FNB, and must have been assigned to GE. My thoughts are that your terms should follow that of the original agreement - not those with GE. You say you called GE and have made an arrangement. Get this in writing, and check with the court that the case has been withdrawn. Don't assume GE is right when they tell you they have agreed an arrangement with you - they may still go to court to make this part of a possession order, and if they do and you don't show up it will not go well for you.

They are correct - no bank or lender is governed by the rate the BoE sets. However every institution has a Standard Variable Rate that will broadly follow changes to the BoE rate. You need to find out what the SVR rate is, particularly as the rate you are paying at the moment seems very high. Your original loan was with FNB, and must have been assigned to GE. My thoughts are that your terms should follow that of the original agreement - not those with GE. You say you called GE and have made an arrangement. Get this in writing, and check with the court that the case has been withdrawn. Don't assume GE is right when they tell you they have agreed an arrangement with you - they may still go to court to make this part of a possession order, and if they do and you don't show up it will not go well for you.

I have looked at the your agreement and notice firstly that it looks like your agreement was assigned to GE, as on the front page it has FNB as the lender. Secondly, on the back page I notice in particular a clause in the first column. It is the second clause (2), probably 2(2) with the 2 not scanned. I believe you said earlier that you have done a subject access request. This should, as part of the package, give you a compete statement of your account, the charges and interest added. The above clause says that if the base rate of FNB increases or decreases, the rate you pay on the front page reflects this in 1/12 increments. I suggest that you need to research the base rate of FNB, maybe using as a guide the historical rates from the Bank of England site. I don't see how they can be charging 14% now with the BoE base rate at 0.5%. Particularly as the BoE base rate when you took out the loan was 4%

I have looked at the your agreement and notice firstly that it looks like your agreement was assigned to GE, as on the front page it has FNB as the lender. Secondly, on the back page I notice in particular a clause in the first column. It is the second clause (2), probably 2(2) with the 2 not scanned. I believe you said earlier that you have done a subject access request. This should, as part of the package, give you a compete statement of your account, the charges and interest added. The above clause says that if the base rate of FNB increases or decreases, the rate you pay on the front page reflects this in 1/12 increments. I suggest that you need to research the base rate of FNB, maybe using as a guide the historical rates from the Bank of England site. I don't see how they can be charging 14% now with the BoE base rate at 0.5%. Particularly as the BoE base rate when you took out the loan was 4%

Quite true. We are discussing the Railway Bylaws 2005 here. However, the crux is whether Cityboy is to suffer prosecution or penalty. From his post he appears to fear that he will be prosecuted, however byelaw 24 (the strict liability offence) specifically excludes breaches of byelaw 17 (no ticket in a compulsory ticket area). This breach appears to only have the sanction indentified under byelaw 25 (interpretation). For those who are following this thread, a strict liability offence is one where no guilty mind is needed. e.g. If you go through a red light you have automatically committed an offence unless you have been directed so to do by a constable in uniform or some other exemption. However, for something like handling stolen goods, mens rea has to be proved. e.g. If you buy a car which turns out to have been stolen, you are not liable to prosecution unless at the time you knew or believed the goods were stolen.

Your comment above, besides being unhelpful to Cityboy's predicament, is wrong. To gain a successful prosecution FCC have to prove intent. It is not sufficient to simply say as the traveller "couldn't pay" the case is proved. An electron card is a means of payment (and as an aside, it should be safer to accept than a general debit card as it will only authorised payment if the account has sufficient credit - yet this card does face discrimination by the railways, as we had one for our business and couldn't buy tickets with it either) so the traveller was offering to pay. To prove intent, any prosecutor has to prove a guilty mind - "mens rea" in legal shorthand. FCC are very aggressive and will prosecute - on the basis that the majority will not contend the case - despite the fact that for stations smaller than, say Luton, St Albans or Bedford for example, buying of tickets is not made easy. And this is getting worse as they are currently in a Union dispute over reducing further booking office staff and opening hours. Mens Rea can be relatively easy to prove however if the traveller had boarded at Luton and had arrived at Flitwick and had been stopped leaving the station. This is because the booking office was likely to have been open at Luton, shut at Flitwick, and the chap was leaving the station. The only defence, which circumstantially is a flimsy one, is that maybe his wallet was stolen and his intention was to write a cheque for his journey when he arrived home - even so he should have notified the booking office staff of his intention, and maybe even have left his name and address there at the time.

Unfortunately, unless you have an address for service for the landlord you are in a fairly weak position. In order to make an claim in the county court you will need to prove service (this does not mean prove he received it). There are various methods of service, but the most relevant for you would be personally, at an address for service or his last known or usual address. An an ex-tenant you now have no legal right to require your former landlord to disclose his address. Under deposit protection there has also been a case where it failed as the housing act mentions "tenant" and the tenant sued for his 3x deposit when he was no longer a tenant.

Did you send in the statutory fee of £1? If you did, then they can't avoid providing the CCA if they want to pursue the debt - without one it's unenforceable. If you didn't then then they don't have to send your CCA, and they don't have to tell you to send them £1 before they will. They can continue to pursue the debt in this case.

Whilst 0870 (and the newer more expensive 0871) and to my mind 0844/0845 may not be factually "premium" numbers, they appear so on my phone bill if I have no other choice than use them. I have inclusive minutes to landlines and 03 numbers. I helped a neighbour a few weeks ago who was on benefits. I let him use my phone to try and deal with a mess up they have made. He was on the phone for over 20 minutes to an 0845 number, and the bill was over £1. This, to me, feels much like a premium number.

I am pleased you got a positive outcome in the end. You had to work for it though, didn't you?

I do beg to differ here, as it is not quite so black and white. Bear in mind that the OFT issued this document, the reading of it seems as though it is the law. However, it is only what the OFT thinks should be the law - some parts of it are so fanciful it is pie in the sky. I know of one case where a landlord was sued - the case was lost even though a paragraph from this document was quoted as the judge thought it most unreasonable.

Unless it it a residential tenancy under the Housing Act 1988, and contractually has rent paid weekly, there is no requirement for a rent book to be issued by the landlord. You need to be writing letters about this. Firstly to state that the arrears are disputed, and secondly ask that they provide a schedule of payments.

Rubbish or not, this aspect is one where the legislation, as written, is shown to be poorly drafted (from a tenant point of view). It's a great get out for landlords, and if they can protect late and then use the fact that it is protected now as a defence normally means that they can avoid having to refund the tenants court fee as well. In litigation, as in horse racing, there is no such thing as a sure bet. On a share dealing site I use, it says only buy shares with money you can afford to lose. I would say that this also applies to litigation.

You have to remind yourself that the agent acts for the seller, not the buyer. They are required, particularly in repo cases, to achieve the best price. If you feel that a supposedly higher offer is spurious, then you would need to approach trading standards. The higher offer might have come from a speculative visitor to the agent's office. I've done it: "Got any good value properties at the moment?" "Got this one. It's under offer and exchange is expected in about a week." "How much?" Can't tell you that, but you can make an offer and I'll see if the seller will accept."

I would suggest though, that you address the letter to his lawyer and change it slightly e.g. 'telephone conversation with your client on 1 November ...' This way the lawyer will charge the landlord for relaying the information in your letter to him.

IMPORTANT When replying to the solicitors letter. ALWAYS put "Without Prejudice" at the top of the letter. This prevents it, except in rare occasions, being used in a court of law as evidence. try to think of a question for the lawyer to ask his client, then reply to you with the answer - this again costs money! e.g."May I ask you to enquire of your client if he might be willing to negotiate on the sums in dispute." (The most letters I got by doing this was six. If they were charged at £20 a time, plus reading my letters sent in, it cost the other side more money in legal fees than the amount in question!!!)

It appears then that this is yet another aspect where solicitors can act abhorrently and their victim has little redress. I will recount this, even though slightly off-topic. Two years ago as a prospective property buyer I sent £500 by BACS to a solicitor firm (so that they could act quickly and without delay for a purchase I was negotiating). After 2 months the negotiations were successful, so I e-mailed them to get the ball rolling. I got an automatic reply saying that the e-mail facility was no longer available and to visit the website for more information. The firm run by lawyer Brian Stuart had cease to trade, and my money had disappeared (as well as him - AFAIK). A claim was made against the Solicitors Compensation Fund for the £500. Amazingly, my claim was eventually rejected because I was unable to prove "hardship" as a result of the missing money. Sheesh, I run a lettings agency, with a bonded client account. If I go bust and had raided the client account, all landlords and tenants monies would be covered by the bond - nobody would lose money. And I am a mere letting agent, not in a profession that is meant to have the highest standards of probity and professionalism. Coming back to the original post, then if there is no redress available then at least a complaint to the OP's member of parliament should be made. I firmly believe that lawyers cannot police themselves, and parliament needs to legislate to control them (not that I hold out much hope - many MP's started life having qualified as lawyers).

And you may well be successful. It matters not a jot what you or I think, or how fair the law is. It rests with whatever the judge thinks on the day. Sadly, to my knowledge, no DPS case has yet been appealed to a higher court. Thus there is no precedent for this aspect or others where the legislation appears to be poorly drafted.

No mention of compensation? They may regard the matter as closed, but in my view this is so far below an acceptable standard by a business, as well as a serious breach of the Debt Collector authorisation within their Consumer Credit Licence, that it does need taking further. Think of all the upset and worry it caused you. Do you think you are the only person they would have tried this on? I bet they have done this numerous times - and successfully getting money for their clients - which is why you were also subject to this. I too hold a Consumer Credit Licence to operate as a money lender. There are such strict criteria for being a "fit and proper person" to hold a licence. I would say that this company are neither fit nor proper!

There is a big principle that nobody has mentioned yet. It was the first thing I said to my wife when it happened to her (after she had phoned the help line and was told it was a "computer glitch" and the money would be refunded within a day or so). My wife's purchased was made using chip and pin, and the receipt has an authorisation code in response to the pin being entered successfully, and the bank having agreed to the deduction (it will be declined if there are no funds - it happened to me when my company paid me a day late). The system is supposed to be secure. If so, how on earth did the company manage to circumvent the security of the transaction by creating a duplicate transaction that repeated both the successful input of a pin and the negotiation with the paying bank that there were sufficient funds? To me this has shown a gaping hole in the so-called security of chip and pin. There needs to be an explanation of how this has occurred and the steps taken to resolve this vulnerability. Am I the only one that thinks this?