Tenancy deposit arbitration or ADR – help at last!
Are you a landlord? Have you had a dispute over a tenancy deposit go to arbitration? Did you lose when you felt you ought to have won? If so you are no longer alone. Tom Deritt of ADR Solutions, who contacted me recently, is on your side.
ADR stands for Alternative Dispute Resolution also called arbitration. One of the selling points of the new tenancy deposit schemes, was always the free quick and easy arbitration service. No more time consuming and expensive county court claims. A quick ADR with your answer back in a couple of weeks.
But after an experience of the ADR procedure, many landlords are not happy. We have featured quite a few of these complaints on the Landlord Law Blog. However a big problems is that many landlords do not appreciate that the starting point for the arbitrator is that the tenancy deposit is the tenants money not the landlords, and they also do not understand what they need to do to prove their case.
“Until recently” Tom told me, “I worked as an adjudicator for one of the deposit protection schemes. I found myself increasingly concerned at the number of cases where I suspected that the landlord or agent probably deserved the money they were requesting, but where I couldn’t award the full amount because the evidence submitted did not justify the claim.
Only this week, My Deposits announced that landlords only succeed or partially succeed in 51% of cases. The figures unquestionably show that in 49% of disputed deposits, the landlord comes away with absolutely nothing. I don’t accept that in half of the cases referred to ADR, the landlord does not deserve anything at all. “
So he decided to do something about it. The result is a new web-site www.adrsolution.co.uk, where, for as little as £50 you can get Tom, or one of his colleagues, to check over your paperwork (as all these cases are decided just on the paperwork) and advise whether or not you have a good case.
Sounds like a good idea to me (although not perhaps if the disputed sum is only £4.20!)
What do you think? Is this service going to provide a need among landlords? Please let us have your comments. And if you use the service, let us know how you get on.
I’m amazed by this.
Having established that Landlords do not understand that the Deposit is THE TENANT’S MONEY, this gentleman concludes is really due to the Landlord failing to understand the case correctly. Without reason, he discounts the possibility that the tenant might be right – why does he find this so ubthinkable?
He says “I don’t accept that in half of the cases referred to ADR, the landlord does not deserve anything at all.” but if that’s what the evidence shows, that’s what he’s obliged to rule. Was this gentleman as biased in favour of Landlords (who are, after all, the professionals) when he was an adjudicator as he is now?
I trust that, whoever he worked for in the past, his fomer employers will be identifying his former cases and cases and correcting this bias.
Is this service available to tenants? If not, why not?
Hi Jon,
The service is not marketed at tenants as the tenant recovers some or all of the deposit in 92% of cases. The ADR process, quite correctly, places the onus on the landlord to show that the proposed deducions are justified. The default position is that the tenant receives the money back, and often tenant recovers in full without submitting much evidence. It is therefore the landlord that is most in need of assistance.
That said, tenants are welcome to use ADR Solution at the same rates as landlords, £50 for a 5 day service, should they wish to, and would be entitled to the protection of the full money back guarantee.
Anybody who is unsure about whether to use the service is very welcome to discuss their claim with us. Our contact details and more information on the service we provide are on the website.
http://www.adrsolution.co.uk
Thank you for your comment. However, although in many cases the tenant will be in the right (and Tom is not denying this), in many other cases, this will not be the case. Some tenants can be very destructive and cause hundreds, or even thousands of pounds worth of damage. Naturally in these circumstances the landlord will wish to claim the tenancy deposit.
Many landlords are not accustomed to legal procedures (after all they are not trained lawyers) and will not realise how detailed their paperwork and evidence needs to be. I do not see a problem in having a service to help them with this.
The service says it is aimed at landlords and letting agents. Again, there is nothing particularly wrong with this, although I daresay if a tenant was prepared to pay the fee, they would give assistance. However tenants are in less need of help as they start from a stronger position. The money is, after all, theirs.
Hopefully the service will also perform the valuable function of telling landlords when they have a hopeless case, so they do not waste everyone’s time by taking it forward.
Tessa, is this an April Fool ?
Having used the adjudication service myself, I am struggling to understand what value this service will add. The deadlines for submission of evidence are tight so firstly I do not see how a landlord like myself will have the time to submit all their evidence to this company and also comply with the deposit scheme’s deadlines? And how does this money-back guarantee work? If this company say your evidence is watertight and then you do not win the full amount claimed, do they honour the disputed claim lost on the basis of their synopsis of the evidence ?
Further, in my dispute case, I lost some of the amount I claimed due to the Tenant’s evidence undermining my own – how can this company give a view on the case without seeing the Tenant’s evidence.
Finally, I would have thought he would have earned more than £50 a case as an adjudicator, why did he leave ?
Not convinced.
Hi Jane,
Thanks for you comments. By way of a reply, most ADR claims take several months to conclude, whereas the evidence is usually available pretty much straight away, so landlords should have plenty of time to use the service, which ordinarily takes 5 days. We also offer a 48-hour service for those landlords who are more pressed for time.
In 49% of claims the landlords get nothing at all, often because they submit inadequate evidence. ADR Solution is able to give a reasoned opinion on whether the available evidence is able to stand up to the standard tenant defences, and give specific advice on what is missing. Included in the cost is unlimited email support throughout the remainder of the process.
We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. If, within 7 days of receiving the service you are not satisfied, you can have your money back.
I don’t do April fools on 31 March!
No-one is being forced to use the service. It is just there if you want it. But maybe people do not want it? What do other landlords think? Would it be of benefit to you?
Interesting to see that 5 weeks on, the website is still not operational (as in “Please come back soon to see the full website”). Looks like this rather ill thought out idea has bitten the dust already…
Hi Graham,
Thanks for visiting the site. I am happy to say it is up again and I warmly invite you to take another look.
We had to take it down for a little while to make some changes. I am happy to say that we are now offering our service to landlords for just £1 per month. Take a look for more details.
I was shocked to recieve an ADR judgement from the DPS this morning, which only paid me a small proportion of the money asked for. I had thought it was an open and shut case in my favour.
The arbiter did not mention at all the main item in dispute: a damaged bath which required replacing. The tenant did not dispute that it had been damaged during their tenancy, and had even offered some money to pay for it, which I did not accept as it was less than the total cost.
I only got a small amount of money for some rent owing.
The arbiter just said I was seeking to recover “the cost of returning the Property to the same condition as at the beginning of the tenancy” which is NOT TRUE – I was only interested in making good the damaged bath, I wasnt bothered about any normal wear and tear. It seems like a stock phrase to me, and makes me wonder if the arbiter had actually read the large amount of evidence, which took me several days work to prepare.
Could I go to the courts to recover the money, on the grounds that the arbiter had ignored the item in question? Who would I take to court, the tenant or the DPS?
If a before and after inventory is required as a condition of paying out money for damage, then this ought to have been made clear at the start – I only become aware of it this morning. Similarly, it is unjust if the arbiter will not question the tenant or landlord about matters in dispute, or even seek to negiotate a solution.
I had though the ADR would negotitate a solution – however from what I’ve learnt this morning, if the landord cannot absolutely prove anything, then it goes to the tenant. This is not the “balance of probabilities” that I had expected.
The tenant in question had been living entirely off benefits for years at least, and had duped me out of rent in the past – hence the rent repayment – and it is upsetting to be dishonestly tricked out of money by them again.
Hi Landlord99,
I am sorry to hear that you have had an adjudication decision go against you. If it is of any comfort, you are not alone. Many landlords using the deposit protection schemes’ ADR services have similar experiences. The crux of the problem is that adjudication is run as a legal process, employing a legal standard and burden of proof, but participating landlords tend not to be familiar with rules of evidence and the sums involved are not sufficient to warrant landlords obtaining legal advice from a solicitor.
You have asked a number of questions in your post, which I am keen to help you with, but I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to advise you without knowing a little more about your claim and the basis for the decision. Your contact details are not available to me through landlordlawblog.co.uk, however, if you wish to get in touch with me, you can do so using info@adrsolution.co.uk
I look forward to hearing from you and I sincerely hope that the matter can be resolved to your satisfaction.