landlord is overcharging for the damage

[dohoo]

Hi all, I hope you could help me out here. I've lived in a flat for nearly 1.5 years and now after moving out landlord have recently provided me with a pricelist for a repairs that need to be done in the flat, which I believe is ridiculously overpriced such as:

 

- repairing a broken bed base comes to £125, when essentially it is one wooden piece broken underneath a mattress.

 

- cleaning appearantly 'heavily soiled' carpets that comes down to £240.

 

I've tried to argue the pricing but was put down by his arguments that he is actually taking the hit as the carpets will have to be replaced and that should cost a lot more as well as the new bed will have to be bought. Carpets were actually cleaned with loads of shampoo before leaving and the rest is simply the fair wear and tear. Whereas for the bed it seems that it could possibly be fixed with some nails and plywood.

 

My contra-arguments were that there was a broken couch in the lounge before I moved in and it wasn't fixed as well as a crappy window that didn't shut properly and allowed wind and rain to find way into the flat. I suppose that should be taken into consideration by making a substantial reduction. It comes down to a matter of principle now, as it seems to me he doesn't really care about the flat rather than taking money off me for the repairs that won't be carried out not in a million years.

 

I'm completely stuck now, is there anything I can do about it? I signed the initial 6m contract back in early 2007 and it was renewed in late 2007 with an informal email exchange so I'm afraid I'm not protected by the DPS. Would really appreciate any help here. Thanks

[callumsgran]

If your tenancy was renewed late 2007 then your deposit SHOULD be protected, ask your landlord which scheme he put it in

Might shake him up a bit as you can claim up to 3 times the deposit back

[dohoo]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

 

The written contract has been signed January 2007 and afterwards it was only an email exchange after six months, would that still count then? And assuming it is protected by DPS, what could be my next action?

[callumsgran]

Do you have a copy of the email?