mosie1

[mosie1]

my sons landlord refused to return his deposit stating rent arrears.deposit not put into protection scheme.he responded by stating it wasn,t a deposit but advance rent and threatened legal action over arrears.obtained statement from council,checked against copies of rent book,2 payments missing,lots of errors on rent book and arrears miscalculated.son replied with proof it was deposit,written at top of tenancy agreement by landlord.landlord telephoned my son and offered to repay his deposit and call it quits.if my son continues the court action claiming 3x deposit and costs what are his chances of winning the case.this landlord has done this to several other tenants and got away with it because of their lack of knowledge of their situation also of the law

[45002]

my sons landlord refused to return his deposit stating rent arrears.deposit not put into protection scheme.he responded by stating it wasn,t a deposit but advance rent and threatened legal action over arrears.obtained statement from council,checked against copies of rent book,2 payments missing,lots of errors on rent book and arrears miscalculated.son replied with proof it was deposit,written at top of tenancy agreement by landlord.landlord telephoned my son and offered to repay his deposit and call it quits.if my son continues the court action claiming 3x deposit and costs what are his chances of winning the case.this landlord has done this to several other tenants and got away with it because of their lack of knowledge of their situation also of the law

 

Hello mosie1

 

Welcome to the forums,one question i can answer

 

I take it from what you posted your son getting housing benefit ?

Housing benefit is paid 2 weeks in arrears.

Edited November 18, 2010 by 45002
it

[mosie1]

yes,this was taken into account.landlord has done it before and threatens legal action if tenant still tries to get deposit back probably to scare them off.he has also made alterations to entries in my sons rent book

[Planner]

Your posts are a little confusing to look at without paragrphs and capitals but:

 

- Can you 'prove' there arent rent arrears without reference to the rent book ie bank statements for cash withdrawls?

- If the deposit is one that should have been protected then it should have been so and you should ask for it to be proptected ASAP.

- If you have documented proof it was a deposit then that is what it was.

- You can obviously claim for the deposit and the x3 BUT the x3 part will only be succesful if at the time of the court hearing the statutory TDS requirements remain uncomplied with.

- With the above in mind, you should contact the LL and accept his offer to return the deposit - what more do you want given the cirrcumstances?

- You shouldnt take on the matle of 'guardian' of previous tenants as you can never bve 100% aware of their cirrcumstances and could never bring any kind of legal action on their behalf. They would have had the oppurtunity to object to the LL deision (and likley still do - 6 year 'rule') at the time he got away with it.

[sturose]

Hi, a little late replying to this but I wanted to clear up a couple of points in this thread. I asked my mother to post on here on my behalf as I could not access the internet at my new property at the time and I've only recently been connected. With regards to the situation at the time, I had rented my house from my former LL for three years. I am in receipt of housing benefits as I am a full time carer. All rents were paid to my LL during the entire time I resided at the property, I never had any arrears. The arrears were falsified by my LL in an attempt to prevent the return of my deposit. This has been done to at least two other people who lived at a neighboring property which he also owned. When I received a copy of my rent book from LL there were numerous 'corrections' which I calculated to be the exact amount of arrears he claimed I owed him (coincidentally). I checked this against a statement from my local council and there were two rent payments missing from the rent book. My previous LL tried to claim that the money I gave him at the start of the tenancy was advance rent and not a deposit and was not liable for the deposit protection scheme. I proved this to be untrue as he had handwritten on the top of the tenancy agreement that had been photocopied by the council the date and amount of the deposit and included the words 'deposit paid' (I recommend anyone taking out a tenancy to ask their LL to do this as my original receipt had gone astray in the move). Anyway, my LL decided to back down at this point and offer me the deposit back. After leaving him to sweat for a week I accepted as I just could not be bothered to take the matter further and all I actually wanted was my money back. Stuart

[sturose]

Sorry about the lack of paragraphs I did write in paragraphs but it did not post the way I wrote it!

[Planner]

Its good to hear you recieved a satisfactory outcome.

[sturose]

Satisfactory? Maybe... Would have loved to take him for a couple of grand as it would have taught him a lesson but it's not my nature. He will cross the wrong person one day though!!! Thanks for the advice on this forum, really helped me to get this sorted. Wouldn't have had a clue where to start if it wasn't for the template letters I found here.