Deposit Never Returned

[adstmh]

Hi guys, hope you can help.

 

I'm a little concerned that this is too old for me to claim for now but whenever I think about it I'm annoyed that it can be done.

 

I signed up to rent a house back in 2006 and paid, as you do, a months rent and a deposit of £340. Now when I'd agreed to let the property I had just split from a long term girlfriend who I lived with and was desperate to find somewhere quickly and move in asap which I did, the same day as the previous tenants moved out. Meaning the landlord had not checked it before I moved in.

 

The state of the house was terrible and I spent my first week getting it as clean as I could, fast forward 2 years and the tenancy was ended on my part to move onto bigger and better things, my problem now is that the landlord refused to give the deposit back, saying the state of the house was his reasoning, well I know myself that the state of the house was a lot better than when I'd moved in to it and on top of that I had phoned him several times to report damp in the kitchen which he checked more than once but never did anything about. The property was vacated on 31 September 2008 and I have still not received my deposit.

 

Is there anything at all I can do?

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Adam

[Planner]

Assuming you never signed a further tenancy agreement on or after 6th April 2007, then your only option is to submit a small claims to the county court.

 

Write a Letter Before Action (LBA) to the landlord stating the the reasons why your deposit should be returned. Print off and fill in a N1 county court claim form and send along with your LBA to show that you mean business. Make it clear that if you dont get the deposit back (or the portion that you think should be yours) back within 14 days, you will submit the N1 to the county court without further notice.

[want to be a happy Tenant]

Is it no N208????

 

I have read on this forum that one must submit N208 not N1 to the county court re: deposit claim. At once there was one big debat going on wether it is N1 or N208. finally as far as I remember the outcome was that it is the N208 one must use.

[Planner]

Is it no N208????

 

I have read on this forum that one must submit N208 not N1 to the county court re: deposit claim. At once there was one big debat going on wether it is N1 or N208. finally as far as I remember the outcome was that it is the N208 one must use.

 

N1 for regular deposit claims, N208 for non-TDS compliance claims.

 

This one would appear to be a regular pre tenancy deposit 'era' claim, hence N1.