Perhaps better in hind sight, but did you take photographs when you left the property? Not very helpful advice to your predicament but always take photographs showing the date and time on entering and leaving. Do you have any evidence as to how clean the house was on entering or leaving? My advice is photograph and document. I do not intend to offend but my experience in the rental sector in the past 3 years has led me to believe that many agents do not fulfill their job roles; that they lie to ensure landlords do not take their properties elsewhere, that they do not undertake necessary repairs to ensure landlords costs are kept to a minimum, when they do not fulfill their their roles, they are willing to threaten and bully to cover their mistakes to ensure the LL does not take their properties elsewhere. last week I was informed of a family left homeless as a property rented to them was not legally allowed to be let, the deposit was kept and is currently in dispute. I may sound cynical but this is my experience in the private rental sector. I know people who have successfully challenged county court judgements, after being threatened, I know of a letting agent who stated that Shelter and a solicitor were incorrect, they also said they were starting court proceedings in 7 days, and a single parent who was left to live upstairs in a house due to a rat problem, she stopped paying rent and the locks were changed and the house was classed as abandoned, this was not undertaken according to the law and the deposit was returned. This is of course personal experience and based on individual circumstances. I feel that many are intimidated into paying. As Mariner suggests, save up during the current is the best advice.

Hi, I wish to offer my sincere thanks to all who offered very helpful feedback, I contacted the Sheriff Court, followed all advice given and to summarise I owe the LL nothing. I shpuld not have paid him in the beginning but you live and learn. Kind Regards

first of all calm down.......... Second... there will be no bailiffs at your door on 4th feb...... You do not need a lawyer at this stage... What we need to know are the following: what is the LL saying you owe what is it for? was there an inventory when you moved in? was there an inventory when you moved out? how much was the deposit? What was the term of the AST? were you on periodic tenancy by the time you left? did you give the required notice? The LL is saying i owe a sum of £820, which I have all ready paid £400 towards in terms with a previous agreement with the LL. To which he is now going against, demanding the remainder within the week, although I was never given a pay before date. He is claiming damages, for repainting the walls, I was never told I couldnt put anything on the walls, repair of the damaged bathroom floor from when the shower broke, and for cleaning and replacing the living room carpet, which he says was stained, although in the inventory I received when I moved in it clearly states that the carpet was stained. The inventory was exactly the same when I moved out as it was when moved in. I was on a periodic tenancy and sufficient notice was given, and the move date was agreed over the phone with the LL's girlfriend, like I said I never dealt with him directly.

Can someone give me advice please. Iam receiving threatening emails and text messages from my landlord. He is threatening me with a CCJ and Bailiffs coming to my home. This would embarrass my family and I could lose my job. He is threatening me for £820 for damages, which iv already £400 towards. He says if I dont pay the remainder by the 4th Feb, then the Bailiffs will be at my door. But I have a court summons for the 3rd Feb for this amount. I only agreed to pay the full amount because i dont want a CCJ against me and i cant afford a lawyer and would have to end up paying his fees too. But when i said id pay him £200 a month till it was paid he said ok but never gave me a pay before date, and he is now requesting the rest before 4th Feb. Can someone please advice me the best thing to do, i really dont want a record. I moved into a flat in February 2010. From the off set I had constant problems. One of the radiators was broken, the shower in the ensuite (the main bedroom) leaked, flooded to the flat below, and ruined the bathroom floor, which the landlords handyman said himself the wrong type of flooring was used in the bathroom. The shower broke about a month after i moved in and was unusable untill it was fixed in June 2010. The French doors in the living room, which doubled as a window or a door, would not close properly, I spent the first 2 months in the cold with a blanket stuffed along the top to try keep warm, another of the landlords handymen then came up and jammed the door shut, i then spent the summer being unable to even open the window, the place was stuffy and sometimes so warm i had to sit in the bedroom to open the window in there and get some fresh air. This was not fixed until the end of spet/start of october 2010. I was not offered any complimentery discount on my rent during this time, even though i couldnt make full use of the facilities offered to me during my rental. When I moved in i had to take an extra 2 days off work than originally planned because the carpets were dirty and needed shampooed, and the fridge/freezer had mould growing on it. Unfortunately I lost my job in summer 2011, i fell behind rent a month and moved out. My deposit was used towards paying the last 2 months rent that i owed when i moved out in october. Which i over paid £50, and have not been reinbursed for. By 3pm on the day i was meant to hand the keys back over, i phoned the landlord to find out when the letting agency was coming to inspect the place, she didnt realise this was my move out date, at first, and asked why i hadnt organised this. I tried getting hold of the letting agency, but being a saturday i couldnt get through. By 5pm i couldnt wait anylonger, left, and returned the keys myself to the letting agency on the Monday. About one month later, after i had paid off any out standing rent etc i received the first threatening letter. I was sent pictures of the damages, no allowance was made for ware and tear. If I had not went into the court, 2 days ago, to make sure everything was ok and settled with them, and that the landlord had informed them we had an arrangement, I would not have known that i still have to be there on the 3rd Feb. When i showed the court summons to clerk, she looked at his name and immediately recognised it, saying that he had done this a few times before. Just to clarify I never once dealt directly with the landlord, all contact was and has been through his girlfriend.

It states "this is the final letter before recovery proceedings will commence" and that it would harm my defence to the claim if I choose not to bring any genuine reason for non payment to their attention before court proceedings are undertaken. I was under the impression the account was closed but the DCA's say they are acting on behalf of Ikano?

The current DCA is Advantis credit, and this is the second letter from them. The OC was/is Ikano and was taken out in June 2007 and has a balance of just over £1000. Around July 2009, had difficulty paying and I offered f&F settlement, explaining my change in circumstances, this was refused and I was offered a 50% reduction, but couldn’t raise the money. DN received October 2009 requesting payment of the arrears by 19 October, if not paid, the balance would be requested in full and the account terminated. Received no communication until Ikano telephoned towards the end of November and I made payments in November and again in December. DN received in March, no payments were made. Statement of default received in April stating the account had been closed and payment in full was now required, or the account would be passed to a DCA. Received arrears notice in April requesting March and Aprils payment, but I presumed the account had been closed, as stated in the statment of default. Contacted by Collect Direct early May 2010, but OC were still charging interest and late fees in late May 2010. The account was then passed to SRJ debt recoveries and now Advantis credit. SRJ sent me a copy statement of transcations in September 2010, this statement does not match the statements I have received from Ikano and there is no record of the payments I made in November and December 2009. The account is marked as being settled in 2009 and no further additions have been made to my credit file, which I find strange. Thank you and I hope I’ve provided enough information.

I had a store cardwith Ikano, the application made in store, late 2007. I had difficulty making payments and after being past from one DCA to another, but I have now received a final letter before recovery proceedings will commence. The letter also states "it would harm your defence to our claim if you choose not to bring any genuine reason for non payment to our attention before court proceedings are undertaken against you". The OC sent an invalid DN as it did not give me enough time to comply. I have not received a TN and have since been contacted by various DCA's who presumably are acting on their behalf. Is the agreement terminated once an invalid DN has been received, would this be my defence? Shall I inform the DCA or OC? I this letter to be taken seriously or is it standard practice?

Thank you Surfer01 for sharing your experience. I informed npower I was switching suppliers and asked when I would receive a final bill, days later the warrant notice arrived! Both meters are outside so they could access the property without my being present. I'm contacting TS and seeking advice today to hopefully stop them from disconnecting or fitting a pre-payment meter.

I'm not paying anyone at the moment as I prefer to may utility bills quarterly, I always have. I've only been in the property a little over a month and was awaiting a bill. I have requested a change of supplier, informed NP and then I received the notice yestarday. They have not told me they are not accepting the TA. They told me I was to be registered and a bill would be sent. Today I have been told they will look into it and issue a bill. I expect it won't be a bill that solely includes my useage.

Before faxing the agreement npower said they'd make a note on the account and once they got the TA, register me. The TA was faxed to them on Saturday. A notice of intent to apply for a warrant of entry to either disconnect, fit a pre payment metre or pay £1700 arrived today addressed to the occupier. All previous correspondence has been addressed to the previous tenant. I managed to trace the previous tenants and they moved out of the property because the original outstanding debt belonged to the occupier before them but npower never sent a bill and the account kept being passed to different solicitors and finally back to npowers in house recovery department. They claim Npower saw their TA and the letting agent also informed them of the change and gave them the previous tenants new address. This has been confirmed by the letting agent, who also told me last week, it had all been sorted out. I contacted np and they said there is nothing that can be done as the debt is still outstanding and needs paid. Can I do anything to stop npower from fitting a pre-payment metre?

Compliants lodged and awaiting feedback. In the meantime, the account has been passed on to a DCA, and the collections department are denying receiving the account in dispute letter and the section 10 letter. My branch and risk have acknowledged receipt of their letters though. My branch have offered to pass on the letters to the collection department if I re-send them. How kind! They are blatantly giving me the run around but surely the bank must know they cannot enforce the debt without the agreement?

I've combined the info from here and a DIY guide and am now confused,as I have conflicting information! As they have now provided a seperate booklet with T&C's from 2002, a document that states credit agreement with cancellation rights and payment details and a signed application form, does this indeed conform to requirements and is the agreement enforceable?

Thanks for all the advice, I'll get it copied and faxed to them

I've recently moved into a property and arrived home to find another letter (despite a previous visit) asking for £1800 from meterplus, acting on behalf of Npower. I contacted Npower and have been told they will not register me until I send a copy of my tenancy agreement and they will refuse any request to change supplier. I'm annoyed as the letting agent has already instructed Npower of a change of residency and contacted meterplus and I have already showed my agreement to meterplus when they visited. My agreement has personal information which I do not want to divulge to npower really. What I want to know is, can they request a copy of my agreement? Has anyone else had a similar experience?

It's tesco mastercard and it was taken out in 2002 in the store. Along with the application form there is document entitled credit agreement that lists the APRs, payments and right to cancel. The dates in the table states 2002. However, everything has changed with the arrival of todays post; I have received a booklet of terms and conditions, dated 2002. So I now have an application form, booklet of t&C's from 2002 and a current general conditions booklet and a current agreement with prescribed terms. I've checked my paperwork and I didn't receive the booklet they have provided now back in 2002! It would appear the ball is firmly back in their court? I obtained a SAR prior to s78 and the only part of the agreement sent was the application form. Is it worth trying to dispute it now?

I CCA'd for a credit card and I received a copy of my application form, with no prescribed terms and various leaflets and sheets with terms and conditions currently in use. The covering letter states "In terms of CCA copy document regulations the true copy requirement can be satisfied by providing a copy agreement at the date the card agreement was made and providing that plus a copy of the current terms of the card agreement". I didn't think this was acceptable, has anyone else experienced this?

UPDATE: Since sending the account in dispute letter, I have received further requests for payment so I followed this with a section 10 request, sent to 3 different departments, risk, collections and my local branch for clarity. I have now received a letter a letter from my branch, informing me they are delaing with my complaint. The letter also states they have been unsucessful in obtaining the documentation of a RBS bank loan.The page long letter makes no mention of my request to cease procesing my data and asks that I telephone the collection centre and inform the branch if I still remain dissatisfied. Mind boggling! I kept all my agreements from the bank but I too have no agreement for this loan, I don't think I ever did!

Letters in the post, thanks harrassed senior.

I will ask for a current statement of the account and arrange a meeting with a solicitor after re-checking all my documents from the bank. I am annoyed with myself as I did not realise that the bank have ommitted loan statements from 2008 to date, obtained from the SAR. This is more than likely coincidental but in 2008 I contacted the bank and raised concerns on the affordability of the loan and issues relating to the lending procedure at the time and asked them to investigate my concerns. I know now, I was as good as fobbed off!

I have my bank statements which show the loan payments which total nearly £5k over the year. Off to visit the consumer direct website now. Thanks all

I received a reply from regulatory risk stating that they could not help me and I needed to contact the branch that issued the loan. I sent the letter to the branch, the collection centre and regulatory risk. I have received another letter on the 25 May stating that I have ignored their correspondence and requesting payment of the full amount by 3 June 2010 or they will take legal action. Can they take further action, after sending the letter disputing the account? Or will they try and sell the debt on to a DCA? Again, can they do this?

thank you all so much for responding and special thanks to harrassed senior for the letter. What a relief, I paid a firm money to investigate the loan and for the past year they have been in receipt of the letter stating the bank had no agreement but did not take any further action, whilst I continued to make payments totalling nearky £6k. I wish I'd found this site earlier! I am going to write and post the letter today and post an update when I receive a response. Cheers

Hi, I'm not sure what to do next but I have arrears on an oustanding loan and the bank have issued me with notice of intention to file a default. I have a letter from the bank (to a claims company) in which it states, they are "unable to find the loan agreement". I requested a SAR and have received the documentation and there was no loan agreement included. I also complained to the bank and questioned their lending procedures, this was also missing. Could anyone advise what I should do next, I have until the 10 May to pay the arrears?

we have an outstanding loan with RBS and no credit agreement. The bank have confirmed they are unable to find the agreement. I would appreciate any advice on what to do next as the ac**** is in arrears and I have until the 10 May to respond. Also, I have made previous complaints to the bank re irresponsible lending which were ignored. I recently received SAR and believe that some documents would support what I have said. Any advice? Thanks in advance

the loan wasn't secured on anything and was taken out at a branch in 2005 during a customer review