Updating post from Reddit.
I moved out a property in January, the agent went to take their pictures 10days after I moved out, I followed up to know when I will get my deposit back.
Now with the pictures, the landlord came back to say that my cleaning was not up to per of what he wanted.
He started coming up with reasons why my entire deposit should be used for the cleaning(deposit is £2,100). I paid for the fridge in the property when he was stalling to replace it. I bought a garbage bin and maintained the garden throughout my stay there. He did not do any maintenance work in the house throughout my 2.5years there too. Even when the boiler developed fault in a December period while I was there, it took him 1week to get a technician to get it fixed.
I agreed to £500 charge for any cleaning he wants just to get things moving (trust me I know the standard of cleaning landlords always claim to need after a tenant moves out so I did that)
Not to bore anyone but I know he is wrong for claiming things and doesn’t want to refund the remainder of my deposit.
I know I have 3months period after I move to file a claim with deposit.uk
Has anyone been successful with this claim? I would love to know how you did it.
I know most tenants don’t bother to fight for the deposits due to the long process it takes. Any advice on the best way to go about it will be appreciated
Was your deposit protected? Just dispute all charges and take it to the DPS.
Yes it was protected by my deposit.uk
Go down the dispute route.
It should be registered with one of these three the DPS, the TDS or Mydeposits. If it's not then you can claim up to 3x the deposit amount as it's not adequately protected
As others said, dispute it officially. He MUST be able to justify the cost, and is not allowed to charge more than he pays. I believe there is no obligation to provide invoices or receipts, (they are a private contract between him and the contractor) but that is the easiest way for him to prove the charges. I would request copies.
Definitely fight it. Collate all the information you can, provide receipts for the fridge you supplied (assuming you left it?) and as Peters... said, lodge a dispute through the official channel. Good luck.
I'm a landlord. I would never ask for a deposit unless they damaged the place. If it's wear and tare then they should be paying for that. Its expected maintenance costs. I've only ever kept a deposit once and it's because they broke every rule in the contract including damaging the property (which costs me 3x their deposit out of my own pocket). Ur landlord sounds like an AH. Don't let him bully u. There should be an inventory of everything with pictures before u moved in. Demand to see that vs now. Also deduct the fridge and anything he should have paid for. Just make sure u ahve the receipt.
Thank you for this. The rent of the property was increase twice after I moved in yet no single maintenance was done in the house, every time I raise an issue, it feels like pulling a tooth, one of the reasons why I moved out honestly. Now he has put the house back on the market with literally the pictures I sent over after I moved out and also now managed by another agency. I guess that’s telling me something
Definitely screenshot them using your pictures to sell the place. Definitely contradicts the whole not clean enough narrative.
From my experience, you will get most of your deposit back.
Lodge a dispute with the deposit scheme immediately.
".. Now he has put the house back on the market with literally the pictures I sent over after I moved out.."
Dispute the use of the deposit, for sure. Keep proof he used your pics in the ads, as evidence to put to the deposit scheme.
Also, did you grant him permission to use those pics in adverts? You could send him an invoice for the use of the photos you took. As the photographer you own the copyright on them!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet#:~:text=The%20person%20who%20creates%20an,photograph%20was%20taken%20before%201989.
You can't ask for a deposit after they damage the place. We've kept parts of a deposit for damage and for cleaning when the tenant has left the place in a poor state. Wear and tear, as you say, the landlord has to suck up.
The items you paid for you could and should have taken otherwise LL can claim they were dumped there. I would have taken them out of spite and given to charity or someone off FB.
Garden upkeep is normally tenant’s responsibility.
Boiler can take up to a couple of weeks to fix.
So don’t use the other items to argue your LL has been rubbish etc
You should have recorded condition when you moved in and when you moved out. That’s all the deposit scheme is interested in. It’s then on LL to dispute anything else. Professional cleans aren’t recognised just needs to be to a reasonable standard.
Dispute doesn’t drag on and is resolved pretty quickly esp if you have photos of the place when you moved out
I would 100% dispute everything incl cleaning and that’s coming from a LL - hate when others like yours give us all a bad name.
So unfortunate really. Thank you for the advice
It is for the landlord to prove condition. If you have photos, that’s good to defence the landlords claims, but it isn’t hopeless if you don’t have photos. Do you have the check in inventory and check out inventory. The only things the landlord can claim for are discrepancies between those 2 documents.
A couple of weeks to fix a boiler in December when the temperature is near freezing? That's ridiculous. My mother lets out a house (which she inherited) and when the boiler stopped working, we had an engineer out the following day.
They say it took one week to get someone out. Sometimes it’s hard to click your fingers and get an engineer out….winter’s their busiest time. Hence why most homeowners have back up options - electric shower, heaters, kettles to boil water
My landlord tried that with me but I had proof the flat was in need of refurbishment before I moved in. Always take photos and always ensure your deposit is protected.
Thank you. I took my own photos before and after. And deposit was protected
I've just had 2 end of tenancy deep-cleaning quotes: £140 and £165.
£500 would clean a pretty big house and pay for a skip for any items to be disposed of on top
Maintaining the garden is your responsibility as a tenant.
Never disputed that, given the condition the garden was before I moved in, it’s a big improvement. Never been a tenant that fuss over things I can confidently do to improve the house I live in
Claim now. Don't let him have the 500. I went down this route and they're pro tenent. Landlord needs to justify keeping every penny which they rarely can.
Please dispute asap.
100% speak to the company protecting the deposit and dispute any claims; advise hem directly when the tenancy ended and they should get the ball rolling to return you the deposit.
To add to this, you ask about success with the deposit claim; it is YOUR money. When making a deposit claim the landlord has to evidence why they should have it it is automatically and rightly in your favour and an uphill battle of providing justification for the claim by the landlord/agent.
If you fail to make the claim, just say goodbye to 2100 quid and sleep tight knowing you just made your landlords next two mortgage payments.
Of course, if you left it in a state worse than you took it on, you can expect some costs but to dispute claims and trigger release process should be free.
Thank you get on it tomorrow. It’s just so unfair and lots of tenants just let go of their deposits due to treatment like this.
Perhaps an equal number of landlords and tenants feel both cheated by the deposit system.
Speak with the deposit protection company, they have no interest in the landlord having high or low claims, so should be able to give impartial guidance. You really just want to use their free adjudication service.
Gov websites and shelter provide lots of guidance.
2100 for some cleaning is an abhorrent claim; good luck.
That isn’t the way it has worked since 2007. The tenant should expect their deposit back unless they have actually trashed the place and haven’t bothered chasing at all. 2100 deposit seems high. What was the monthly rent as the deposit shouldn’t be more than 5 weeks rent.
There are a few things wrapped up in here:
things you've repaired or replaced - not relevant to getting your deposit back, other than that if you replaced the fridge, technically he could ask you to return his own fridge. If you're planning to leave yours there, less likely he will argue but if you threw his away without his permission then he may well try to charge you for it. You can set all this out with the deposit protection scheme who generally take the tenant's side but you might end up losing your fridge to him or being charged for buying a replacement if you can't prove he knew about it.
Cleaning. If I were you I would dispute the 500pds if you left the place sparkling clean and have photos. It sounds way too much. But if you left things behind that he needed to throw out, didn't clean the oven etc it soon adds up. Deposit protection administrators in my experience only expect decently clean.
Let him know you will be pursuing this - that might well be enough for him to give in, at least to just the 500 pds (which you're already decided you are OK with losing). He will almost certainly know that he's on a losing battle there and could very well come out of it with less than 500pds. And if he settles, make sure you get it in writing that this is the final settlement, signed and dated.
Thank you
So he has photos of dust and photos of sufficiently good quality to show no dust at the start. What are we talking about exactly?
Just file the claim (and don't muddle it with stuff about the garbage bin and 1 week delay to fix a boiler over Christmas). Don't pay the £500 either. Based on what you say at least, you will have no problem.
Stop asking, just dispute it. There is zero downside for you.
DONT agree to give him £500.
Just dispute it you silly sausage; doesn't take that long and the process is fine.
I'm a former tenant and won a claim through the Tenancy Deposit Scheme under similar circumstances. The process was actually fairly quick and easy. There was an online form to fill in, in which we included photographs that we'd taken of the property and evidence that we had paid for a professional clean. They also took into consideration the photographs and evidence submitted by the landlord/letting agency. My advice would be to be really concise when answering the form: only write about the condition of the property and how the landlord's claim in unwarranted, don't include historic issues.
I noticed that you are with a different deposit scheme. It might be worth checking that it is an unauthorised one, as I believe you could make a claim for an improperly held deposit if that isn't the case.
Good luck!
Dispute it all. Unless you trashed the place, there is no way the landlord can justify 2grand. I’m not sure why you are even agreeing to £500 for cleaning, get a detailed breakdown of the cleaning required and a detailed quote so you can dispute individual items by comparing check in to check out inventories.
I’m shocked at that. Nah, just kidding. I’m not expecting to get mine back either to be honest, thankfully it’s only a grand and when I handed it over I knew I could write it off. I don’t have the time to piss around disputing it and then going down the legal route, and let’s face it we’re renting so money for that isn’t something most of us will have anyway
The current deposit rules mean you should expect to get your deposit back unless you actually damage things and don’t bother cleaning.