Deposit protection scheme, not recieved deposit.

[VeddyCent]

Hi,

 

 

First of all I'd like to thank in advance of any help given and to apologise if this is in the wrong section as it is my first post.

 

Last year I was on a years placement in Manchester as part of my sandwich degree.

During that time I lived in a shared house with 4 our people.

The monthly rent was £350 and £70 of that was for bills.

On the 10/07/08 I paid my deposit of £280 and started my tenancy on the 14/07/08, that is also when I signed the contract and the landlord said that he will give me a copy of it, but never did.

Just over a year later I moved out on the 16/08/09 and the landlord has kept all of my deposit.

As part of the contract I had to give him 1 months notice of when I was going to move out, but I had to bring it forward a week. So I let him know (via a text message) and he replayed and said it was OK.

 

When I contacted him (via text message again) about my deposit he said that I owed him a total of £351 and summarised to this:

- £91 for the extra week of rent as I notified 3 weeks before moving out instead of 4 weeks.

- £200 for breaking the bed by standing on it and there being a huge dip in the middle.

- £70 for redecorating because the wall paper has started to peel as a result of me drying clothes in my room and marks on the ceiling where I blue tacked a small antenna for my TV.

 

I can understand about the £91 for the rent (even though he said it was ok), but the rest is surely wear and tear. Also I do not think that there was an inventory done at the start because the person who lived in the house previously moved out the day before.

 

Also I was told that the person who lived in the room before me was charged £50 for stains on the mattress and when I was tiding the room before moving out I flipped the mattress over and what do you know I find that it was covered in stains so he never preplaced it.

 

He never sent me any kind of information about a deposit protection scheme.

 

He would enter the house as he pleased and rarely gave at least 24 hours notice before showing someone round.

 

During that period I didn't know that i should have written to him about moving out etc, but I do have a copy of all the text messages that we sent to one another and some voicemails.

 

The main question is HELP what do I do?

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Can I suggest that you read around the threads in order to find who are the TDS experts, you could then send a PM inviting them to look at your thread.

 

Andy

[Kentish Lass]

Write to the landlord and state that you know that your deposit was not protected and that unless such deposit, less the £91 week's rent that you agree you owe, is returned to you in full, you will sue him for full deposit + 3xdeposit for non-compliance with the deposit protection legislation.

 

Since your tenancy is finished, he will not be able to protect it now. To be honest, since there was no proper check-in inventory (which you agreed to and signed) at the beginning of your tenancy he doesn't have a leg to stand on. He is just the sort of landlord the legislation is supposed to weed out!!

 

You do have to be prepared to follow up if he doesn't return it. You might also consider contacting any fellow sharers and advise them that their deposits are not protected and to look into taking appropriate action.