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    • Hi LFI, Your knowledge in this area is greater than I could possibly hope to have and as such I appreciate your feedback. In your point 1 you mention: 1] there is a real danger that some part of the appeal will point out that the person appealing [the keeper ] is also the driver. I understand the point you are making but I was referring to when the keeper is also the driver and admits it later and only in this circumstance, but I understand what you are saying. I take on board the issues you raise in point 2. Can a PPC (claimant) refer back to the case above as proof that the motorist should have appealed, like they refer back to other cases? Thanks once again for the feedback.
    • Well barristers would say that in the hope that motorists would go to them for advice -obviously paid advice.  The problem with appealing is at least twofold. 1] there is a real danger that some part of the appeal will point out that the person appealing [the keeper ] is also the driver.  And in a lot of cases the last thing the keeper wants when they are also the driver is that the parking company knows that. It makes it so much easier for them as the majority  of Judges do not accept that the keeper and the driver are the same person for obvious reasons. Often they are not the same person especially when it is a family car where the husband, wife and children are all insured to drive the same car. On top of that  just about every person who has a valid insurance policy is able to drive another person's vehicle. So there are many possibilities and it should be up to the parking company to prove it to some extent.  Most parking company's do not accept appeals under virtually any circumstances. But insist that you carry on and appeal to their so called impartial jury who are often anything but impartial. By turning down that second appeal, many motorists pay up because they don't know enough about PoFA to argue with those decisions which brings us to the second problem. 2] the major parking companies are mostly unscrupulous, lying cheating scrotes. So when you appeal and your reasons look as if they would have merit in Court, they then go about  concocting a Witness Statement to debunk that challenge. We feel that by leaving what we think are the strongest arguments to our Member's Witness Statements, it leaves insufficient time to be thwarted with their lies etc. And when the motorists defence is good enough to win, it should win regardless of when it is first produced.   
    • S13 (2)The creditor may not exercise the right under paragraph 4 to recover from the keeper any unpaid parking charges specified in the notice to keeper if, within the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which that notice was given, the creditor is given— (a)a statement signed by or on behalf of the vehicle-hire firm to the effect that at the material time the vehicle was hired to a named person under a hire agreement; (b)a copy of the hire agreement; and (c)a copy of a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that hire agreement. As  Arval has complied with the above they cannot be pursued by EC----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S14 [1]   the creditor may recover those charges (so far as they remain unpaid) from the hirer. (2)The conditions are that— (a)the creditor has within the relevant period given the hirer a notice in accordance with sub-paragraph (5) (a “notice to hirer”), together with a copy of the documents mentioned in paragraph 13(2) and the notice to keeper; (b)a period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the notice to hirer was given has elapsed;  As ECP did not send copies of the documents to your company and they have given 28 days instead of 21 days they have failed to comply with  the Act so you and your Company are absolved from paying. That is not to say that they won't continue asking to be paid as they do not have the faintest idea how PoFA works. 
    • Euro have got a lot wrong and have failed to comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4.  According to Section 13 after ECP have written to Arval they should then send a NTH to the Hirer  which they have done.This eliminates Arval from any further pursuit by ECP. When they wrote to your company they should have sent copies of everything that they asked Arval for. This is to prove that your company agree what happened on the day of the breach. If ECP then comply with the Act they are allowed to pursue the hirer. If they fail, to comply they cannot make the hirer pay. They can pursue until they are blue in the face but the Hirer is not lawfully required to pay them and if it went to Court ECP would lose. Your company could say who was driving but the only person that can be pursued is the Hirer, there does not appear to be an extension for a driver to be pursued. Even if there was, because ECP have failed miserably to comply with the Act  they still have no chance of winning in Court. Here are the relevant Hire sections from the Act below.
    • Thank-you FTMDave for your feedback. May I take this opportunity to say that after reading numerous threads to which you are a contributor, I have great admiration for you. You really do go above and beyond in your efforts to help other people. The time you put in to help, in particular with witness statements is incredible. I am also impressed by the way in which you will defer to others with more experience should there be a particular point that you are not 100% clear on and return with answers or advice that you have sought. I wish I had the ability to help others as you do. There is another forum expert that I must also thank for his time and patience answering my questions and allowing me to come to a “penny drops” moment on one particular issue. I believe he has helped me immensely to understand and to strengthen my own case. I shall not mention who it is here at the moment just in case he would rather I didn't but I greatly appreciate the time he took working through that issue with me. I spent 20+ years of working in an industry that rules and regulations had to be strictly adhered to, indeed, exams had to be taken in order that one had to become qualified in those rules and regulations in order to carry out the duties of the post. In a way, such things as PoFA 2012 are rules and regulations that are not completely alien to me. It has been very enjoyable for me to learn these regulations and the law surrounding them. I wish I had found this forum years ago. I admit that perhaps I had been too keen to express my opinions given that I am still in the learning process. After a suitable period in this industry I became Qualified to teach the rules and regulations and I always said to those I taught that there is no such thing as a stupid question. If opinions, theories and observations are put forward, discussion can take place and as long as the result is that the student is able to clearly see where they went wrong and got to that moment where the penny drops then that is a valuable learning experience. No matter how experienced one is, there is always something to learn and if I did not know the answer to a question, I would say, I don't know the answer to that question but I will go and find out what the answer is. In any posts I have made, I have stated, “unless I am wrong” or “as far as I can see” awaiting a response telling me what I got wrong, if it was wrong. If I am wrong I am only too happy to admit it and take it as a valuable learning experience. I take the point that perhaps I should not post on other peoples threads and I shall refrain from doing so going forward. 🤐 As alluded to, circumstances can change, FTMDave made the following point that it had been boasted that no Caggers, over two years, who had sent a PPC the wrong registration snotty letter, had even been taken to court, let alone lost a court hearing .... but now they have. I too used the word "seemed" because it is true, we haven't had all the details. After perusing this forum I believe certain advice changed here after the Beavis case, I could be wrong but that is what I seem to remember reading. Could it be that after winning the above case in question, a claimant could refer back to this case and claim that a defendant had not made use of the appeal process, therefore allowing the claimant to win? Again, in this instance only, I do not know what is to be gained by not making an appeal or concealing the identity of the driver, especially if it is later admitted that the defendant was the driver and was the one to input the incorrect VRN in error. So far no one has educated me as to the reason why. But, of course, when making an appeal, it should be worded carefully so that an error in the appeal process cannot be referred back to. I thought long and hard about whether or not to post here but I wanted to bring up this point for discussion. Yes, I admit I have limited knowledge, but does that mean I should have kept silent? After I posted that I moved away from this forum slightly to find other avenues to increase my knowledge. I bought a law book and am now following certain lawyers on Youtube in the hope of arming myself with enough ammunition to use in my own case. In one video titled “7 Reasons You Will LOSE Your Court Case (and how to avoid them)” by Black Belt Barrister I believe he makes my point by saying the following, and I quote: “If you ignore the complaint in the first instance and it does eventually end up in court then it's going to look bad that you didn't co-operate in the first place. The court is not going to look kindly on you simply ignoring the company and not, let's say, availing yourself of any kind of appeal opportunities, particularly if we are talking about parking charge notices and things like that.” This point makes me think that, it is not such a bizarre judgement in the end. Only in the case of having proof of payment and inputting an incorrect VRN .... could it be worthwhile making a carefully worded appeal in the first instance? .... If the appeal fails, depending on the reason, surely this could only help if it went to court? As always, any feedback gratefully received.
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Deposit being withheld. Please advise


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Ok this is a long one...so apologies for the info thrown at you whislt reading it!!

 

27th Feb 2009: Tenancy agreed and deposit paid £475

 

8th Mar 2009 received paperwork from landlord re deposit secured with mydeposits

 

26th May 2010 Tenancy ended and told deposit would be returned less cleaning bill for carpet as soon as they received utility bills for the property showing nothing was owed. Remarks of "kitchen is cleaner than when you first moved in" are noted

 

20th June 2010: Mr Agent writes a letter saying kitchen needs cleaning.

 

20th June: Mr tenant refute the cleaning bill in writing and ask for a receipt for the cleaning of the carpet

 

21st June: Agent responds saying he will waiver the fee for kitchen but he refuses to answer the question

 

Emails exchange between tenant ad agent explain it is his right to see a bill for something he is deducting from the deposit

 

He then emails saying as tenant didnt agree with the cleaning bill for the carpet he has now been told by a carpet cleaner that the carpet needs renewing and tenant am liable for the whole amount

 

At no point did tenant contest the cleaning bill, as track marks were visable after they had wheeled pram into the dining room over time.

 

29th June 2010: Deposit is placed back in a scheme but with DPS now. All details are going to be sent to the address tenants moved out of!

 

Now this is where it gets messy. Today the tenants give me a letter was sent to the tenants 15th Febuary 2010 from mydeposits.com which informs the tenants the deposit cert has been cancelled by the agent and will expire within 90 days from 27th January...which is 27th April 2010.

 

In April 2010 the tenants guarantor has personla issues and can no longer be the guarantor. He write to the Agent middle of April to inform him.

 

15th April 2010 tenants receive a letter from Agents saying they have till 27th April 2010 to find another guarantor otherwise they will issue a notice to leave.

 

27th April 2010 Miss tenant went to Agents and paid months rent and gave 1 months notice.

 

26th May 2010 the tenants vacate the property

 

My thinking is:

 

* that the deposit was not secured from January 2010 even though there was no intention at that point of the tenants leaving the property.

 

* The tenants do not have to pay for a carpet as the agreement was to have it cleaned not replaced

 

* The agent had no right to place the deposit back in a scheme after the tenants had left the property and left the agents

 

All advice gladly accepted

 

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It is possible that DPS will "protect" the deposit even if the depost was protected improperly. Or they will reject the deposit once they learn the circumstances.

 

I suggest you raise a dispute with them to see what they do.

 

Maybe also write to the agent in the strongest possible terms saying that you will issue a court claim for 3x deposit unless full deposit is returned in full and final settlement.

 

If DPS refuse to adjudicate when they fully understand the details, you have good evidence for a claim for failure to protect the deposit.

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Can the tenants use the Housing Act as an argument to ask the landlord for 3 times the amount before going to court?

 

Should they go to DPS first or straight to court? Will it go against them for not going thru DPS first? Or is the fact the deposit was not protected enough to go straight to court with?

 

Thanks!!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

ok quick update

 

DPS have confirmed dep placed with them 5 weeks AFTER tenancy ended after being taken out of security 5 months earlier!!

 

Mr Agent has sent messages with a threatening undertone...all of which have been saved! He told tenant to take the dep minus carpet cleaning or this will "get messy". Needless to say Mr tenant has not taken it!

 

Claim form completed ready to take to court under The Housing Act re none secured deps....lets see how smug he is after he has to pay 3 x dep plus dep back. I really want to be the one to serve papers on him....oh to be a fly on the wall! L/L thought he would get away with bullying a young couple in their first home together..how wrong he is!

 

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Caselaw seems to suggest that now the deposit is protected, the x3 'fine' wont be awarded and your claim might be stuck out before it even reaches your day in court.

 

The best way forwad would probably now be to use the scheme arbitration if you disagree with the deductions for carpet cleaning.

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  • 1 month later...

Ok another update tooday.

 

 

Mr Agent had till 6th to file acknowledgement...which he did at 3pm! He now has 14 days in which to place his defence to the court.

In the meantime he has gone to the scheme the deposit is now with (even though the enancy no longer exists and didnt when he placed it with them) and released some of the deposit. He did this on the day he filed his acknowledgement.

Solicitor friend suggests by his actions he has conceded the claim and not to accept the deposit back at this point.

Both the old scheme and new scheme have confirmed te dates the deposit was placed and taken out with a number of months between it being taken out of the 1st scheme and being placed in the 2nd.

 

Have decided to take this all the way....if no one stands up against these bullies aand takes the chance then the law will continue to be abused....will update as and when!

 

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Even if you lose on the 3x deposit penalty, you should make sure that you point out that failing to protect the deposit within 14 days is in breach of the Housing Act and that therefore you should be entitled to all your costs.

 

You could still consider offering to settle for a compromise figure.

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Even if you lose on the 3x deposit penalty, you should make sure that you point out that failing to protect the deposit within 14 days is in breach of the Housing Act and that therefore you should be entitled to all your costs. But surely if the Housing Act has been breached it is very clear the penalty to the landlord / agent is 3x the amount of the deposit??

 

You could still consider offering to settle for a compromise figure.

 

What are your views on this? As far as I am aware the law is quite clear on deposits being secured. If it is not secured for the whole of the tenancy then the agent is in breach. I cannot see another argument to this...altho I am open to suggestions.

 

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The way the law seems to be being interpreted, the 3x penalty requires the breach to be of a specific type - namely that the deposit remains

unprotected at the time of the case. This means that LLs may get away with the 3x penalty by protecting the deposit late.

 

But even though they have protected the deposit late, they are still in breach of the law that says that it should be protected within 14 days. So you should be entitled to your costs. I am not a lawyer - this was the advice/suggestion from a lawyer at a legal website.

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Thanks Steve..I see your point. Its a shame its open for interpretation as this can often result in grey area's.

 

What are your thoughts on the fact:

1. Mr Agent only placed the deposit in a scheme once he realised there was going to be a case to answer?

2. The deposit was secured a full month after the tenancy had ended

 

Thanks for your help...its really appreciated

 

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Update

 

Have received Mr Agenst defence. In it he claims he moved the deposit from one scheme to another with immedite effect....et I have evidemce that it was 5 months later. In the event the Judge agrees the deposit was secure (even though it was not in a scheme) then I am going for them breaching the HA based on the prescribed information not being given to the tenant within 14 days.

 

The defence is funny...he claims:

1. We didnt agree to the cleaning of the carpet...even tho we have written proff we did at different times

2. The deposit was protected by scheme 1 from begin of tenancy, then scheme 2 from the day the tenancy begins, even though when it wa placed in the 2nd scheme the tenanc had ended

3. We have no evidence of the deposit being moved out of scheme 1 and placed into scheme 2....even though we have had written confirmaion from both schemes for the start and end date for protection.

 

We now have AQ to complete. I am not admitting to having the evidence of the date it was placed into scheme 2 until the ver last minute...I want him to lie to the Judge during the hearing!

 

If we win this case...and I know its only IF...but I hope this will support others going thru the same thing AND b using the naional press it will give other Agents a warning that tenants cannot be messed about.

 

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Meant to ask a question:

 

1. Should I make a part 18 request for a copy of the inventory ( my son has lost his copy :| )

2. Would it be wrong for me to go to the house they rented from Agent and take pics to prove the carpet has not been cleaned. He is saing it has been but the tenants who live there now say it hasnt...or would it be detrimental to the case?

3. Would another, more reputable Agent, be ok to write a witness statement for the court giveng a detailed descritption of what should happen to a deposit?

4. Are emails from the deposit scheme 1 and 2 ok as evidence or wuld it be better for them to be in writing (headed note paper)

 

Thanks guys x

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok..another update just in case anyone is reading this thread!

 

AQ issued and completed. Mr Agent has failed to return his (1 week overdue) and so the case is going to the Judge without theirs....unless the court allows a really late one!

 

As it happens..the new tenant of the property is the daughter of a friend who is willing to let us take pics to prove there has been no new carpet (as Mr Agent is now stating). Too much?? Possible problems with that?

 

Thanks, any comments appreciated!

 

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Hi i'm still reading lol and am really hoping you win this case especially the possibility of winning a precedent case on the TDS scheme.

It doesn't seem right to me for landlords to not protect the deposits from the beginning (as required by law) and then get away with it just because they protect when they know they are being taken to court, we need a judge with some balls (and commonsense) to rule on this one.

It would be great if that were to happen, surely it must happen to someone one day and i hope it's you if only for your tenacity and sheer determination!

Photographic evidence is always a plus, always assuming LL will turn up to defend.

Good luck! :-)

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The problem we have callumsgran is the agent protected the deposit in the prescribed 14 days. It was only after 10 months he decided to cancel the insurance scheme it was protected with. He failed to place it wth another scheme until the tenants said they wanted assistance from the deposit scheme (due to the agent wanting to keep a chunk of money). Once he knew it was being questoned he placed it back into a scheme...but this was AFTER the tenance ended!

 

I hope the court sees this agent for what he is. We have a number of other ex tenants who had deposits unlawfully withheld (before TDS unfortunately) so he is known for this. Only wish we had known about him before the tenants took the property.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
How did he get it out of the protected scheme?

How can he get it out without a valid reason?

Surely this itself needs looking into?

 

It was in an insurance based policy and he just cancelled the policy...which he was perfectly ntitled to do. What he failed to do was place it back into a scheme!

Thats why were are taking this all the way. I want the Judge to say he cant deal with it and refer us to a higher court. I did it with swift (who were bigger and harder than this agent) and I beat them so I'm not worried.

Edited by mrsfoot
Late night spelling!

 

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  • 3 months later...

Well here is the update for this case

 

In short WE WON!!

 

Mr Agent has to pay 3 times the amount of the deposit plus return the deposit.

 

Number of points went in the tenants favour.

 

1.The defendant failed to send a bundle into the court

2. The defendant failed to show to the hearing

3. The defendant didnt send in any form of witness statement / letter to rely on in his absence

 

The Judge made the following comments

 

1. The deposit should have been protected for the whole of the tenancy

2. The defendant should have informed the tenant when the protection policy was cancelled

3. The defendant should have placed the deposit back into a scheme an informed the tenant

4. The defendant should have given the prescribed information of the new policy within 14 days as per HA.

5. The defendant tried to cover his actions by inferring to DPS that the tenancy was still in situe, when in fact it had ended some weeks earlier

6. The defendant failed to adhere to court orders for swapping documents he was to rely on within the set timescale

7. The defendant failed to attend the hearing to provide any verbal statement to show his actions were simply misplaced rather than purposeful

 

An order has been made for 3 times the dep plus return of dep. We dont expect this to end here. We expect the defendant to fail to pay and so involve the bailiffs....I only hope he realises that if a CCA is placed against him and his business he is unable to work as financial advisor NOR have a streamline machine for debit card payments (apparently you must have whiter than white credit history for this). I will, of course, update as and when!

 

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