Unjustified Charges

[rusticrunes]

I have been living in a caravan for just over 6 months. We had no contract and we payed the rent in cash so have no reciepts.

 

Due to breakdown in relationship I told landlord would be moving out and he said that was ok just owed him a months rent and that would be fine.

 

The cheques went to ex who was on disability I was down as her carer and told the landlord was a few cheques that were to be cashed so would have to wait on those but he would get the full months rent. I know he always got the rent as I personally paid him it by cash.

 

I moved back to my mothers which took me about a week and a half to move all my stuff out as had to do it by hand, also my mother suffers from dementure so was having to juggle my time between moving and being there to help my mother. My ex had already moved out as she got a removal van so was a lot quicker for her.

 

Anyway have now recieved a letter from the landlord saying I owe him an additional months rent in arrears, which is false and also has charged me for £11 a day since I left the caravan. When I left he switched of the electric and the gas and was not inhabitated at all.

 

I would be gratefull if anyone could let me know where I stand with all this. I have enogh stress with my mums dementure to deal with without all this stress as well.

[rusticrunes]

Bump anyone wanna comment on this would be appreciated, thanks

[Conniff]

You can challenge him to where this is on the contract you didn't sign.

 

Personally I would wrte saying you owe nothing as all bills were paid up to date and that he will have to show justification for trying to extort money from you.

 

The other / better option is to just ignore him as there is no contract so he can't claim you did or didn't do something.

 

This is a Buzby type question - give him a pm.

Edited May 18, 2010 by Conniff

[Planner]

My view would be that if you had stuff in the caravan, regardless of whether you continued to live there or not, you owe rent until you returned vacant possesion of the caravan to the LL. The daily charge should be no more than your normal rent payment would be daily. As the electric etc was turned off, you might want to negotiate a smaller daily fee, but you cant expect your former LL to provide you with a free storage service.

 

In terms of rent arrears, only you can answer that, you either owe it or you dont - How many months/weeks did you leave there and how many months/weeks rent payments have you made? - if you have no recipts and he does take the issue further, then the onus will be on hom to 'prove' that it is owed.