Could not happen to a nicer guy. He has caused undue trauma to so many innocent people, perhaps he may now appreciate a little of what he made so many suffer. Perhaps MPs may now realise the problems of their ill thought out Digital Economy Act.

It looks like things are hotting up for our Andrew. Perhaps he will start to understand the misery he has caused to so many people. http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/solicitor-set-pay-wasted-costs

Thanks for all your help, it is very much appreciated. I think you are right, life is too short to carry on Particularly as it seems to be becoming so surreal!!

As the ex tenant lives in France (she is an American lawyer and the husband is French) it should be interesting to see them sueing us. Particularly as they have done nothing for two years until the agent contacted them. On the other hand I may be old and grey by the time we ever sort it out otherwise, so it may be worth just getting on with our lives and taking the money offered.

We have made good on other damage and cleaning, but had left the cabling until we could sort out the deposit. Perhaps we should just say yes to their offer, as this could carry on for ever, as it does seem that the agents are either telling the ex tenants rubbish who the ex tenants are misunderstanding things or both!! I suppose at least the ex tenant is admitting liability by making an offer.

1. We haven't a clue what they are talking about on the rent. When we asked the agent he didn't know either but is checking. 2. Also it seems that the quote for the redecorating for £1,400 was nothing to do with us it was for someone else. We never asked for total decoration. 3. The agent was supposed to be performing a full management service, taking a percentage of the rent. 4. Preventing the use of the dispute scheme is totally wrong as well. It is as I explained originally. I should say the person who wrote it (the ex tenant's husband) is French so it may be a misunderstanding. 5. We are not sure what the agent said to the ex tenant which does not help. They are supposed to be giving us the details. 6. The Sky box etc are still installed so we have not carried out that work, the house has not been rented out since though. As the house is wallpapered it will make a mess uninstalling the cabling etc. The re-decoration was only for making good. 7. Also the bit about the curtains is not in the lease either. It did seem they were talking about a totally different house!! Thanks so much for your interest. I think I am more muddled now than when we started. I should say the agent has been very supportive, although he has added to the muddle I feel.

MrShed, after we sent the letter you suggested regarding going to court it seems to have woken the agents up a bit. We are now talking to a more senior person and he has contacted the ex tenant. We have just received the following from the husband. He fails to understand that they were in breach of contract by not cleaning the house on leaving and also by installing all the Sky boxes etc without permission. Goodness knows what he is talking about regarding the curtains. The last sentence is threatening!! I don't know where we go from here. This is what we got from the agent, I don't know what the agent said to the ex tenannt at the moment. As I have mentioned to you previously, we are speaking of a quote and not a document evidencing real expenses incurred by the landlord. Furthermore, none in relation to this quote points to dilapidations we would have caused. The only objective documents in this regard are the move in and move out reports The move in report clearly establishes that none of the walls had been freshly painted or fitted with new wall paper and makes also clearly mention of existing marks, nails or pins. I also understand that the landlord complains about removal of smal boxes and cables which were installed so that we could benefit from proper TV, internet and telephone access which is today a normal standard in a house. This was professionally installed and we are speaking of a box in the lounge, and a few connecting cables for the loft room and bed1/ensuite. The removal of such cables does not justify at all a complete repainting of a room. Based on these two elements, I have reviewed the quote and have come to the following conclusions. There is no justification that we should bear costs for repaintung for the hall stairs landing, dining room, kitchen/adjacent breakfast room,and bath. Some the walls were already significantly marked when we moved in (hall, stairs landing in particular) and need in any case to be replaced/repainted. For the other rooms there has not been dilapidations noted requiring a repainting and this is then simply a redocoration decided by the landlord for which we do not see why we should have a financial liability for it. For the remaing rooms there can be some discussions of a contribution to be made by us based on the move out report and for removing the cables but this can not justify more than contributing to a share of the costs for the repainting. Regarding the curtain cleaning costs, the landlord claims is that they had not been professionally cleaned when moving out. We are not disputing this but the landlord has obviously omitted that the move in report showed the curtains not being professionally cleaned when we moved in while this was a requirement of the lease. Having looked at a sample of cases decided by the dispute service, I have come accross a similar case where the dispute service decided a contribution by the tenants of 25% of such costs. Our view on the whole matter is that we should not recognize anything to the landlord considering that they should refund us some part of the perceived rent for the unacceptable importance of defects encountered during the lease period and the lack of diligent handling of the issues by the landlord (a file in this regard had been submiited during the proceedings with the dispute service). To this we would also add payment of interests for non refund of the undisputed part of the deposit (the landlord has never been able to submit claims that would have amounted to the full deposit). This being said and for the sole sake of bringing the matter promptly to an end without this further dragging on by starting a procedure in court, we are willing to offer: -to waive our claims for refund of part of the rent and for late payment interests -to contribute 50% of the painting costs for the front lounge, bedrooms upstairs and loft room which amounted to a total of £760 as per the quote that is to say £380. -to contribute for the curtain cleaning costs 25% of £140 which would correspond to 35£ but which we are willing to round up to £40. Total contribution to be deducted from the deposit would amount to £420 meaning that the amount of deposit to be refunded to us would amount to £1810. This offer is made without prejudice to our rights to claim for refund of rent and late payment interest in case of non acceptance which would result in us bringing the matter to court. It is also not any form of recognition of liability from us towards the landlord. If the landlord accepts the proposal we expect to receive a deposit release form first signed by the landlord because we do not want to experience what happened when the matter was brought to the dispute service service when the landlord just before a conclusion was reached decided to withheld its signature) Dear Fraser, I hope you will be able to convince the landlord to accept this offer and your efforts in this regard are appreciated If the landlord wished to persist in having unreasonable and unjustified expectations, the matter will end up in court. Having spoken to legal professionals, we have certainly a case for claiming a refund of the rent and the fact that the landlord has prevented the dispute service to decide on this matter a year ago is likely not to play at all in favor of the landlord. They are likely to end up with less than what we are offering. It is unnecessary to come back with a request for higher contribution since in such case we would not considering having anything to lose in going to court. Quite to the contrary the landlord is likely to end up with something less favourable than our offer. >>

Whoops, seems like ACS Law are no longer involved in harrassing innocent people, Andrew Crossley is concentrating on his other customers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12275913 http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?291530-ACS-Law-ACS-Law-withdraw-from-ALL-cases-BBC-NEWS dx siteteam

I have just read through what the judge said and it seems that ACS-Law did an appalling job for their client, missing info, incomplete submissions etc. You would have thought that at least AC could have got this bit right, as a solicitor supposedly specialising in this field.

Found Crossley's (or one of his) websites. http://www.wal-sca.com/home a bit of a skeleton though. Strange the only thing he has apart from his address is a link to the SRA!

I see Davenport Lyons are having a hearing with the SRA in March, so ACS Law may be a year away. http://www.legalsupportnetwork.co.uk/index.php/news/details/sra_says_davenport_lyons_lawyers_knowingly_targeted_innocent_web_users_in_a/ It also looks like ACS may have problems if they are fined for Data Protection, if the gravy train has dried up. Does anyone know what has happened to the ACS website?

Looks like our Andrew has had his day in court at last http://www.myce.com/news/acslaw-copyright-infringement-case-ends-in-epic-fail-37579/

The agent did email today to say she is holding onto the deposit until told to give it up by the courts. So I was wrong about her giving it to the tenant. It amazes me as it is not theirs to keep. I do suspect that she is actually not terribly competent. Will keep you updated, the letter went out to them today asking for the deposit by 15 November.

Will let you know what happens next!! Thank you so much for all your help, you have no idea how much it is appreciated.

O sounds good. I have a strong suspicion, although I may be wrong, that the agent will just send the deposit back to the tenant. I can't believe that we were their client and we were the ones who weere paying them. I suppose all the agent wants is to be rid of it, as they are not making any money out of it.

We are back and we have had an e-mail from the agent saying that she has now had a reply from the ex-tenants who are still lving in France who say they want the deposit back (surprise, surprise). Whose money is it, is the agent in a position to give them the deposit back We have not actually complained to ARLA or applied to small claims yet as we were away.

Forensic Expert - Aren't they called oxy-morons?

Perhaps AC prefers mountains to silver things.

Well, well, well, ACS's Terence Tsang seems to have left his new job with Cramer Pelmont after only six months. Looks like Cramer Pelmont are not going to go down the ACS path. http://www.techeye.net/business/terence-tsang-figure-behind-acs-law-letters-leaves-cramer-pelmont I see that ACS have got rid of the snow capped mountain scene on their website www.acs-law.co.uk and replaced it with some silver wave or something, quite weird.

I think it is a really good idea to write to the SRA and your MP, we do need to make a lot of noise about what is happening and the misery that has been caused to so many innocent victims. Also Vince Cable MP should be made aware of the problems of his Digital Economy Bill which was rushed through by the previous government last April, after Peter Mandelson was lobbied by the music industry. I see that AC is now designing a new website at http://www.wal-sca.com/ and http://www.acs-law.co.uk. For some unknown reason it has got snow capped mountains on it. There is nothing else, so nothing to attack for the moment as the website is empty apart from the fact that he is regulated by the SRA number 513065. I wonder for how long.

Strangely Andrew Crossley seems to have purchased himself some new domain names http://www.wal-sca.co.uk and http://www.wal-sca.net on 6 October 2010 (wal-sca=acs-law backwards!) if you go to http://www.acs-law.co.uk/ it mentions http://www.wal-sca.com too.

Thanks so much. We will try that. Away for a couple of weeks but will phone them when I get back.

I have told the agent we are taking them to court. They talked to the TDS solicitor for some unknown reason who said we should sue the tenants. The solicitor said we would be wasting our time taking them to court. I said if they can't even get hold of the tenants to give back the deposit, we won't have much luck taking them to court, particularly as the tenant is an American Attorney. I said what happens to the deposit and the agent said they sit on it forever!! We have written a letter of action, are we wasting our time?

The new Legal Ombudsman Adam Sampson was on the BBC Today programme this morning http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/ I assume everyone can complain to him now. Apparently he can impose compensation from a law firm for which there is no appeal.

Looking at all those recent e-mails from Terence Tsang it seems strange that his new boss says (Playing down Tsang's links with ACS, Brassley told reporters:) "He is not under any contract with ACS Law and has not worked for them or with them since joining our firm." Seems strange, as those e-mails are dated August 2010 and hadn't TT joined Cramer Pelmont in April? http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/10/4/acslaw-man-tips-new-law-firm/