This is a question to the blog clinic from Sally (not her real name), who is a tenant in England.
I have been going through a problem with my past estate agency, they have a bad reputation already, but they took so long to provide any responses regarding my deposit that I went to them, requesting my deposit certificate; otherwise, I would take them to court. This took around 2 weeks for them to provide.
After that they were really unresponsive about the deposit that need to be returned to me, and then I have said that I would go in dispute as they were not replying after that they provided the checkout report, and randomly charged me giving me a offer of £300 for the work that would need to be carried out for cleaning and repainting some areas, I have provided the professional cleaning that they are requesting and I have stated that some of the marks would be reasonable wear as I have been living in the place for 4 years.
They didn’t provide any receipts or invoices regarding their charges, stating this charge was based on standard market price quotations, and if I disputed this the landlord would go for a more detailed review of the report to increase the values of the damages. Are they allowed to do this after sending the first one?
They also provided the deposit certificate from My deposits, which is different from the one that was stated in the contract, which is TDS.
Answer
Probably the first thing to do is to find out where your deposit is protected. You will need to check with all three schemes – the links to do this are below:
For the DPS
For TDS
For My Deposits
If you are unhappy with the proposed deductions, you can ask for the matter to be referred to adjudication. Your deposit scheme website will have detailed guidance on how to do this. There is a time limit, so don’t delay.
The agents will need to back up their claim for deductions with proper evidence. For example, receipts for money paid. Or evidence that the property has deteriorated from the condition shown in the inventory (unless any deterioration is down to ‘fair wear and tear’ when no claim can be made).
If they don’t prove their claim to the satisfaction of the adjudicators, then it will fail, and you will be entitled to the whole of the deposit. Or such portion as the adjudicators consider fair.
If this is a dodgy agency, it is always possible that they have not protected your deposit at all.
In this case, you can bring a claim against them for the return of the whole of the deposit plus up to 3x the deposit sum.
This is a fairly complex claim to bring though, so look to see if you can find a solicitor’s firm which can help you. Some will offer no-win no-fee agreements.
Surely any deposit-penalty claim would have to be against the landlord rather than the agent, then it would be up to the landlord to sue the agent in turn if the latter was at fault, or have them written into the proceedings?
The agent would be acting on the landlord’s behalf. Which I understand they usually do on tenancy deposit adjudication issues.
Although they would not have capacity to represent the landlord if the matter was to be dealt with through the courts (unless they were regulated by the SRA!).