Illegal eviction and deposit deductions

[nat]

Hi,Long story, but will try to keep it as short as possible.Tenant and landlord mutually agreed to end tenency early for personal reasons. Agreed date was 24th May. Actually moved out on 1st May, but kept going back and forth to previous property and was intending to fully clean and do gardening, etcetera before 24th.tenant turns up on 4th May to find locks have been changed and gets home to find an email from landlords agent advising that new locks to be charged to tenant as keys had not been retuned and that all cleaning costs and rubbish removal will be charged to tenant.tenant advises that this is illegal and they still need to do cleaning etcetera, but landlords agent dioesnt seem to care and does not respond.Tenant raises a dispute to TDS to recover deposit, meanwhile landlord makes a court claim for rent arrears up to the 24th. Court papers sent to wrong address so default judgement made, tenant makes application for a set aside and has a hearing date for next year.TDS decide to award whole of deposit to landlord for cleaning, rent arears and gardening.If this at all makes any sense, does it seem right?

[nat]

I did actually put paragraphs in my post, but they seem to have dissapeared, sorry

[raydetinu]

Was rent actually paid up to the 24th?

do have this agreed end of tenancy in writing? Hoe can they charge for rent to 24th when you not in possession, they have taken it back!!

Not only should they get the original ruling set aside, they should start their own action for return of deposit, distress, expenses and anything else they can think of.

[Snorkerz]

Were the court papers sent to the tenancy address? Had you provided a forwarding address to the landlord? If you had not provided a forwarding address then it may be difficult to get the court decision set aside (as in it is your own fault you didn't get the papers). How do you know about the court decision?

 

Do you have the agreement regarding the early surrender in writing?

 

DPS would have tried to contact you by telephone and email - did this not happen, or did they change and you didn't tell them?

[mariner51]

Is nat the T or a n other?

[nat]

Was rent actually paid up to the 24th?

do have this agreed end of tenancy in writing? Hoe can they charge for rent to 24th when you not in possession, they have taken it back!!

Not only should they get the original ruling set aside, they should start their own action for return of deposit, distress, expenses and anything else they can think of.

 

Rent was paid up th the 4th when they changed the locks.I have the date in writing.

[nat]

Were the court papers sent to the tenancy address? Had you provided a forwarding address to the landlord? If you had not provided a forwarding address then it may be difficult to get the court decision set aside (as in it is your own fault you didn't get the papers). How do you know about the court decision?

 

Do you have the agreement regarding the early surrender in writing?

 

DPS would have tried to contact you by telephone and email - did this not happen, or did they change and you didn't tell them?

 

Court papers were not sent to the tenancy address. I provided a forwarding address, but they sent them to my friends address that they heard I was staing at, but I wasnt.

As above, I have the agreement of the date in writing

Not sure what you mean by the DPS trying to contact me, it was I who started proceedings against the landlord to get the deposit back due to illegal eviction, but the TDS found in favour of the landlord, as did the courts, so they now have, in effect, been paid twice for a period where I did not occupy the property and received money for cleaning etc, even though I was prevented from cleaning myself.

[nat]

Is nat the T or a n other?

 

Yes, I am the tenant.

[nat]

Is it possible for me to get the court judgement thrown out or something similar as LL has already got the money through the TDS? I could then tackle the TDS.

[raydetinu]

You say agreed leaving date was 24th not 4th in OP?

If you have this in writing you need to sue LL for monies as he has it, you wont get anywhere with the TDS.

[Steve__M]

Might be worth clearing up some things

 

First, if you mean "TDS" then TDS do not keep the money. They only insure the money. LL or agent keeps the money. DPS are the only tenancy deposit company that actually keep the money.

 

With regard to the tenancy deposit scheme, the landlord (or tenant) can choose not to use the scheme for arbitration. If the LL went to court and won (as he did) then TDS would not be involved. Could this be what happened?

 

Or did LL additionally submit evidence to TDS in response to your claim and win this as well? (this wouldn't be the right way of doing things, note, as you are supposed to use *either* the deposit resolution scheme offered by TDS *or* the courts - not both!)

[caro]

I can see why the deposit has been paid to the LL given the court judgment, but if that is set aside it'll be a different matter. I'm not an expert in this field (or any other for that matter!) but wonder if you should counterclaim for 3 times the deposit. I think you'd need the set aside first though which would then give you the opportunity to defend the original claim.

 

I suggest you PM Ed999 with a link to this thread and get him to take a look.

[mariner51]

O{has vacated the T so 3X deposit penalty is prob not avail

[donein]

Hi Nat

 

I am sorry to hear of your difficultites. Perhaps you could clarify a couple of things;

 

Hi,Long story, but will try to keep it as short as possible.Tenant and landlord mutually agreed to end tenency early for personal reasons. Agreed date was 24th May.

 

Ok, so you moved out on 1st - locks were changed on 4th BUT you agreed to pay upto 24th - was this agreed in writing? What proof do you have you both came to this arrangement?

 

Actually moved out on 1st May, but kept going back and forth to previous property and was intending to fully clean and do gardening, etcetera before 24th.tenant turns up on 4th May to find locks have been changed and gets home to find an email from landlords agent advising that new locks to be charged to tenant as keys had not been retuned and that all cleaning costs and rubbish removal will be charged to tenant.tenant advises that this is illegal and they still need to do cleaning etcetera, but landlords agent dioesnt seem to care and does not respond.

 

 

How did they know you had left on 1st for them to change the locks on 4th? Did you send a reply to their email?

Tenant raises a dispute to TDS to recover deposit, meanwhile landlord makes a court claim for rent arrears up to the 24th. Court papers sent to wrong address so default judgement made, tenant makes application for a set aside and has a hearing date for next year.TDS decide to award whole of deposit to landlord for cleaning, rent arears and gardening.If this at all makes any sense, does it seem right?

 

What are your grounds for set aside application?