Please help me get my deposit back!

[markb123]

Just wondering what people's views are and what route I should take...

 

I Signed a one year short-hold assured tenancy in October 2007, the deposit paid was £3300 and rent totalled £2380pcm.

 

I have subsequently found out that the deposit wasnt protected by any scheme and that because the annual rent was greater than £25000pa it shouldnt be protected. however, in the contract signed it stipulated that this deposit should be protected.

 

Also, the landlady never completed a inventory at check-in and both parties never signed anything at check-out.

 

Five weeks after the end of the tenancy the landlady is refusing to return the deposit claiming that the house wasnt returned in an acceptable state, yet not providing an estimate for said repairs!

 

What would be the process for claiming our deposit back? So far emails, letters and phonecalls to all have been unanswered!

[labrat]

Would double check on this wait for mr shed hes propably used to correcting me by now

 

i cant advise on the protection im afraid as im not upto speed on that, i will pm mr shed and ask him to give advice if possible

 

as for there being no signed inventory, if this is the case it is down to the landlord not yourself to prove that any damage was/wasnt there.

 

if she can prove that damage was there or the condidition has worsened then she still has to provide quotes/invoices to show how much the work has cost to deduct that.

 

i would suggest writting a letter, title it letter before action if that fails then possibly a small claims apperance, its easy to do, can be started online (i think), and doesnt require lawyers,

 

send the letter by recordered delivery it costs a bit more but if she claims she never receaved it then you can get the signiture off royalmail to prove who signed for it.

[MrShed]

Difficult one. You dont have a AST(despite what the tenancy says) due to the value of the rent. As such, there is no statutory right to have the deposit protected.

 

If they have stated that the deposit SHOULD be protected, then it should. The issue is, by NOT having protected the deposit, there is no financial loss to yourself, and as such a claim for breach of contract would be pointless.

 

This one will have to go back to the "good old days" of disputing individual items. However, if there was no inventory completed at check in, the landlord will struggle to prove any damages.

[Planner]

While the tennancy may say the deposit should be protected, there is no statutory mechanism in place for it to be protected i.e. your landlord wont be able to use one of the three schemes as they are for ASTs only and wont touch this with a barge poll.

 

As far as I can see, you have no comeback. Your only option would be to sue the lanldord at the end of the tenancy through small claims, should he unfairly withold any of the deposit, as (i think) Mr Shed is suggesting.

[markb123]

sorry I don't think that I was clear enough to begin with...

 

The fact that the deposit wasnt and cannot be protected is of little concern to me; the problem I'm having is actually getting the deposit back from the landlord, since it wasnt put into a scheme i cannot go through a scheme to get it back so i assume this would be the old fashioned way.

 

Would the procedure to do this be a letter of intent to the landlord followed by a claim at moneyclaim.gov.uk?

 

cheers

 

mark

[MrShed]

Correct.