Deposit Protection Scheme

When I was living up north, we had a broken oven which I complained repeatly about to the letting agency as the landlord was living in scotland, but it didnt get fixed until the month before we'd moved out, and the handyman was letting himself in without giving any notice to anyone, and he caught me coming out of my bath :/
They wanted £200 to get the carpets clean, when it was exactly same condition as it was when we moved in 6months earlier. I told them nicely to basically to go and fuck themselves, as id complained a lot about the broken oven, short lock etc etc and it didnt get fixed the month before i moved out.

We ended up not owning them anything though

[/pointless rant over]

end of the day not much i can do about it, as you say Ved, but i feel that posting here is probably some of the best therapy out there.

Ed I went through the same process mate. Its tough. Had to chase for a year for my deposit, but what saved us was the fact, I personally, put serious time into preparing our case and backing up with evidence (whole days work). So I feel for you.

There's about an 80% chance you would win to be honest mate, backed up with the proper evidence, but it is a lot of hassle, you are in the right, but like I said it weighing up whether the being screwed over for £100 is worth spending the time and effort on clawing back when you could probably spend less than half the time earning that money back working, and just learning a lesson from this situation. Make sure you don't allow yourself to get into such a position again, not blaming you here by the way, its totally their fault, and things clearly weren't done properly, but hopefully now you know a bit more about the law etc behind it, hopefully you can make sure you are better informed next time I guess, which will go some way to protecting you against arseholes like this in the future.
If you got any questions or want a bit of advice before you move to your next place feel free to shoot me a pm dude :)

I was an estate agent, and was manager of a well known branch of a national chain before setting up my own property business. It sounds here that the fault is with the agent - the check in should be done by an independent check in clerk - Ed i am in France a the mo, but back later in week, if you PM me you number, i may be able to help you with this.

If a landlord holds your deposit without placing it in an independent registered scheme for more than 2 weeks, you are entitled to take them to the small claims court, whereby if found guilty they have to pay you back the deposit, plus a fine 3 x the deposit amount as compensation - i myself have actually taken a landlord through this process, and got the money back very quickly:

                                               **Tenancy Deposit Protection**

                 ![](http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_066432.jpg)                 

                  **Tenants**



             Tenancy deposit law was introduced on 6th April 2007 and provides protection for tenants by preventing landlords and letting agents from unfairly withholding a deposit. The scheme protects all Assured Shorthold Tenancies in England and Wales (covering most tenancies since 1997).

                              **What is it?**

             Tenancy Deposit Protection is designed to ensure:

• you get all or part of your deposit back, when you are entitled to it
  
• any disputes between you and your landlord or agent will be easier to resolve
  

• landlords and letting agents who do not protect tenancy deposits will have to pay their tenant back three times the deposit

• What are Tenancy Deposit Schemes?

• Who runs the schemes?

                    **How does it work?**
  
           **Start of a new tenancy**
  

  At the beginning of a new tenancy agreement, pay your deposit to your landlord or agent as usual.
  Within 14 days
  Within 14 days, the landlord or agent is required to give you details about how your deposit is protected including:

• the contact details of the tenancy deposit scheme

• the contact details of the landlord or agent

• how to apply for the release of the deposit

• information explaining the purpose of the deposit

• what to do if there is a dispute about the deposit

If you don’t get this information, ask your landlord or agent the simple question – ‘how is my deposit protected?’
You have a responsibility to return the property in the same condition that it was let to you, allowing for fair wear and tear.

• More information on the type of schemes available

                    **What if your landlord isn’t protecting your deposit?**
  
           You can apply to your local county court.  The court can order the landlord or agent to either repay the deposit to you or protect it in a scheme.  If your landlord or agent has not protected your deposit, they will be ordered to repay three times the amount of the deposit to you.
  

• More on resolving disputes

                    **Moving Out**
  
           At the end of the tenancy, check whether you are leaving the property and its contents in the condition in which it was let to you - allowing for fair wear and tear-  and check that you have paid your rent and any other expenses. Then agree with your landlord or agent how much of the deposit should be returned to you.
  

  Within 10 days – you should have received the agreed amount of the deposit.

                                                                                                           **Additional links**
  
                                                                                        **Tenancy Deposit Protection**
  

• Tenancy Deposit home

• What are Tenancy Deposit Protection Schemes?

• Information for tenants

• Information for landlords and letting agents

• Who runs the schemes?

• Resolving disputes

• Leaflets

                          **See also...**
  

• Private renting (home and community section)

• Letting your property (home and community section)

• Rent arrears (money, tax and benefits section)

                               **Global links**
  

^ Bang on the money.

I work in an estate agents, i've worked in the property industry for just over 4 years, I deal with the marketing and photography here, but i've had formal training on all the legal stuff, and obviously you get to know a few things after a few years working in the industry.

As a prospective landlord thinking it might be less of a ball-ache using an agent than going it alone...would it? Is the service worth my 7-11%?

last week.

Thanks!

Was that in London only? didn't hear anything about it. It might explain a frame taking along time be delivered.

As a prospective landlord thinking it might be less of a ball-ache using an agent than going it alone...would it? Is the service worth my 7-11%?

Assuming you use a decent agent then yes, there is a lot of responsibility involved in being a landlord these days and more laws than ever to comply with, so it can often be far less stressful just to hand all the responsibility (or most of it) over to a third party, it also depends if you get them to provide a let only service or full management, full management can remove pretty much all the hassle entirely
(apart from occasional financial expenditure for maintenance issues obviously).
If you wanna PM me the area your property is in i'll shoot you back some links to some good agents in your area.

If a landlord holds your deposit without placing it in an independent registered scheme for more than 2 weeks, you are entitled to take them to the small claims court, whereby if found guilty they have to pay you back the deposit, plus a fine 3 x the deposit amount as compensation - i myself have actually taken a landlord through this process, and got the money back very quickly:

^ Bang on the money.

Nope, bang off the money. The OP is complaining about the fact that the deposit scheme, approved by the govt that VV is talking about seems to have "screwed him over" somehow.

@OP: what I want to know is how you think the DPS or the landlord actually and deliberately and maliciously withheld your deposit. Or was it mis-communication / or a lack of awareness about how the scheme works on his / her part? How would this have been different without the DPS?

I'd say it was the inflexibility of the systems and un-urgent/non-proffesional attitude of the landlord and agency that has led to frustration. Then the landlord get greedy. it's £500 notes between how many?

I'd go to small claims just to make their lifes that little bit more difficult, write off the £500 but make the landlord work for it. chances are he is so un-organised his lack of preparation will be seen as guilt by the court and you could well win!

I went to small claims court once for the landlord with holding £800 deposit on the grounds we left rubbish outside the house! He then claimed he was holding it because we paid our rent late a few times (one of my mates was no Warren Buffet - to put it politely) so to prove this in court he sent a photo of the house from the 1970s and a copy of his bank statement with one late cheque underlined.

The photo was so old the colour had faded (house was a different colour and shape back but looked like a work site) and his bank statement showed payments in the £1000s to holiday companies

Judge awarded full payment, costs and any expenses to be paid up in full, he even asked for us to estimate what we would spend on lunch and add that to the expenses. Happy days!

the problem with regulation is that it costs money which inevitably gets passed on to the tenant.

Some landlords were acting unscrupulously, government felt this was an easy vote-winner, passed some half baked legislation - bigger mess.

What used to happen is that you'd call the landlord and ask if the deposit could be used as the final months rent. He/she'd probably come round, take a look for carpet burns etc, and say ok.

Now, the landlord doesn't hold the deposit so you can't do this. Same thing with references, these days you almost have to have a CRB check to get a flat with some agencies.

20/30 years ago it was a lot easier and a lot less hassle, then regulation came in and made it a nightmare deposit this, guarantee this credit check here pay for credit check there, landlord pays through the nose tenant pays through the nose and gets fcuked over.

Fcuking pain in the arse.

Where is Rachman when you need him lol

@ fred it was a combination of a can't do attitude of the DPS and the landlord that has pissed me of.

They confirmed to me that we would be recieving the undisputed amount on 10 working days, after this period I chased them up to be told that they were lacking a specifc email from the lettings company and so hadn't released the funds and when challenged on why they hadn't contacted us, I was told it was due to a policy of impartiality! It took nearly a week to sort that clusterfuck out and was then sent a cheque which I had to distribute between my ex house mates. I had got over that but to get a letter informing us that as we had not returned our evidence in time all of the disputed amount had been returned to the landlord and following this with a phone call with another computer says no person I gave up as what will work out as £100 quid in my pocket isn't worth the hassle, I decided to post here to rant, hopefully warn other people and rant some more!

Just be grateful you havent got a landlord like Aran's :(