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Lettings deposit dispute, AKA give me my money you fucking awful cunts

Started by The Mollusk, February 01, 2021, 04:08:03 PM

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flotemysost

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on February 01, 2021, 09:53:34 PM
Have you tried Acorn? Doesn't look like there's a branch near you but I bet they'd give you some decent advice.

Everyone who rents should sign up to these, btw. Acorn fucking rule.

https://www.acorntheunion.org.uk/

Cheers, I'd never heard of them!

Are renters viewed as subhuman scum in other countries? A Swedish friend of mine is always commenting on how she can't believe what landlords and agencies are allowed to get away with here whenever I regale her with my London renting adventures.

My colleagues and some family members have made it a bit of a running joke re: how frequently I move between rented flats, sort of like they're perplexed as to why anyone would put themselves through that - but in a way, the beauty of it should be that you can move on relatively easily from somewhere if it's not working out, if you fancy a change of scene, or whatever.

As icehaven says, if you're not able to rustle up a cheeky deposit in the multiple tens of grands to buy a place (or even if you can, good luck trying to meet the minimum monthly income threshold for "affordable" shared ownership schemes if you're single!) then renting is just an inevitable reality for most people, and it's really fucked up that the current system basically punishes you for that. That's to say nothing of the logistical Cunt-22 of not getting your rental deposit back (whatever's left of it) until way after you'd have needed to have found, secured and moved into somewhere else, meaning you need to have a cool six week's worth of rent under the mattress if you ever want/need to move.

Any of the articles that came out last year about changes to eviction laws etc. had the inevitable quota of comments underneath from disgruntled landlords being all "no one's FORCING you to rent, if you don't like it then don't live there!" erm mate no one FORCED you to buy a place that you needed tenants in to pay your mortgage for you, get fucked.


holyzombiejesus

End landlordism. They're cunts. Tax the fuck out of anyone who owns more than one house.

bgmnts

My landlady is genuinely fucking lovely, to the point where I feel she only is a landlady so that massive cunts are not in her place. Otherwise, I don't get it.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on February 02, 2021, 12:40:48 AM
End landlordism. They're cunts. Tax the fuck out of anyone who owns more than one house.

Mmm, I get landlords filing formal complaints because the speed our comoany worked means that they have apparently suffered distress and financial hardship. Sadly there is no professional angle where I can tell them what I really think about that. Fundamentally if you own 2 houses, and fall into financial difficulty, what's a really easy way to solve that problem?

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: bgmnts on February 02, 2021, 01:51:55 AM
My landlady is genuinely fucking lovely, to the point where I feel she only is a landlady so that massive cunts are not in her place. Otherwise, I don't get it.

I'd be genuinely fucking lovely if you were paying one of my mortgages for me.

The Mollusk

Quote from: flotemysost on February 01, 2021, 06:21:37 PM
The fuck?! Wonder if they're still doing that at the moment... I wouldn't be surprised.

Indeed. As mentioned by someone else, the tenancy fee ban in 2019 has led to agencies bringing in various measures, swindles and clauses to try and shag people out of their money wherever possible. As I understand it, the average salary of a property manager in London is about £25-28K, which is absolutely by no means a bad wage even with the cost of living in this hellscape of a city, but obviously they're greedy pricks so if they can get away with anything without having to get off their blue-suit-and-red-tie arses, they will do it at the expense of any other human beings with their own very real lives and problems.

One of the letting agencies I used to work for introduced a clause on the landlord's tenancy agreement which made twice-annual midterm inspections a compulsory arrangement, charged at nearly £100 a pop. It was obviously snuck in with zero fanfare and as an inspector I would frequently have to be the middle person dealing with understandably raging landlords asking why they've just been charged for an inspection visit that they didn't even ask for, especially since they've had their property managed here for several years and never encountered this service until now. Of course, there are other factors to be considered, like surely when you received a new tenancy agreement, you would make sure to read the entire thing before signing it? But the overarching theme is one of slime and shit and serves to contribute to the widely held opinion that the rental industry is loathsome, evil and rancid.

The Mollusk

An update on our situation:

The agent responded via email today. Of course they offered absolutely nothing in the way of an apology for the wanton discrepancies and inconsistencies across the inventory and check out reports, nor did they even formally confirm receipt of the extensive - and I really do mean extensive - notes I sent them contesting every point of said reports. Instead, they snottily informed me that as I was only a permitted occupier in the property and not an officially registered tenant (issues we faced on moving in due to my wanky CCJ situation eating away at my life), they would not be accepting any correspondence from me, and would only be willing to communicate with my partner.

This is especially laughable since throughout the tenancy, whenever I raised any issues (including the similarly extensive amendment notes I submitted against the inventory when we moved in), I was communicated with as if I were a regular tenant. They're now just being as petty as possible to try and drag this out and wear us down, which isn't going to happen. My partner just copied and pasted all the disputes I'd written in the email against the checkout and sent them back from her email account. Fucking cunts.

I'm starting to worry now that even though at the start of the tenancy they told me my amendment notes would be admitted as part of the finished inventory, they're going to try and shaft us with this permitted occupier loophole and say that it doesn't count as evidence because it didn't come from my partner. I'm going to contact Citizens Advice after lunch and get all the information I can. WANK.

NoSleep

Regardless of them refusing to communicate with you, your extensive photos and notes, presumably timestamped in emails, must surely count as evidence on behalf of your partner. Slippery cunts.

Blue Jam

In the days before the TDS I once had a landlord deduct, among other things, £30 "for the cost of international phonecalls" because by moving out I was forcing him to deal with estate agents and find a new tenant. Jeez, I didn't know it was my responsibility to stay in the flat paying his mortgage forever.

They were international phone calls because the landlord lived in Thailand. Pattaya, as I later found out. The dirty old bollocks. Got arrested on a charge of making illegal porn (using trafficked sex workers, I believe).

Amazing that landlords can demand bank statements, employer references, credit scores and a whole heap of personal information on a prospective tenant but a tenant doesn't even have the legal right to know their landlord's name, never mind what illicit activities their rent might be funding. I guess a lot of dodgy landlords get around landlord blacklists by letting via agencies too.

NoSleep

I thought it was illegal for landlords not to be resident in the UK.

Blue Jam

Plenty of expat landlords let their properties in the UK. I've also had a landlady who was Australian and had moved back to Oz but kept her London flat to let. Both her and the Pattaya Perv went through an agency, and they were both dodgy as fuck. Every other landlord/lady has been fine, but those two both tried to scam me out of my deposit and seriously tested my faith in humanity.

I think landlords can let property in the UK if they're not residents, but they have to pay tax in the UK, or something. Or maybe there's some other loophole, like spending at least 30 days per year here- anyone know?

Oz landlady evicted me because her friend was moving to the UK and wanted to stay in the flat. She gave my my two month's notice two months before Christmas, and as I couldn't have moved around Christmas that meant I had to find a place ASAP. Then she complained about lost income caused by me "moving out too early" and managed to hold on to the deposit for six months over this and a couple of other spurious claims. Being on the other side of the world made it conveniently difficult for the agency to contact her by phone or get her to reply to emails in a timely manner.

The Mollusk

Quote from: NoSleep on February 02, 2021, 12:14:39 PM
I thought it was illegal for landlords not to be resident in the UK.

Nah, not at all. The aforementioned agency in my previous post has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai as well as a Mandarin speaking team in its London head office, all focused on their vast Asian landlord client base.

Blue Jam


NoSleep

Since the last time I paid rent (directly to a landlord, at least) there's been enough cunty UK governments for it to have been waived from the statute books.

Hat FM

Quote from: The Mollusk on February 02, 2021, 11:51:39 AM

This is especially laughable since throughout the tenancy, whenever I raised any issues (including the similarly extensive amendment notes I submitted against the inventory when we moved in), I was communicated with as if I were a regular tenant. They're now just being as petty as possible to try and drag this out and wear us down, which isn't going to happen. My partner just copied and pasted all the disputes I'd written in the email against the checkout and sent them back from her email account. Fucking cunts.


so they've been in correspondence with someone whose name isnt on the lease? sounds like something else your partner should complain about to the authorities...

The Mollusk

She complains about me enough as it is! I don't want the feds getting involved as well!

flotemysost

Quote from: Blue Jam on February 02, 2021, 12:10:11 PM
In the days before the TDS I once had a landlord deduct, among other things, £30 "for the cost of international phonecalls" because by moving out I was forcing him to deal with estate agents and find a new tenant. Jeez, I didn't know it was my responsibility to stay in the flat paying his mortgage forever.

They were international phone calls because the landlord lived in Thailand. Pattaya, as I later found out. The dirty old bollocks. Got arrested on a charge of making illegal porn (using trafficked sex workers, I believe).

Amazing that landlords can demand bank statements, employer references, credit scores and a whole heap of personal information on a prospective tenant but a tenant doesn't even have the legal right to know their landlord's name, never mind what illicit activities their rent might be funding. I guess a lot of dodgy landlords get around landlord blacklists by letting via agencies too.

Christ on a bike. Yeah, a lot of them just provide a company bank account for the rent to be paid to - my current landlord (who I believe lives in Turkey) did this.

In a previous flat, me and my flatmates once Googled the very generic-sounding company name our landlord had provided (he lived in the UK and did exist, as he'd occasionally rock up uninvited, but we only knew him as Nick The Landlord) and the results said that the company owner had died a few years back, making us think he had faked his own death. Which seemed very plausible.

I used to do the security checks for prospective tenants (digging out yer CCJs and the like - though I've never heard of this "permitted occupier" lark), utterly loathsome job made all the more awful by the knowledge that this was what the "admin fees" tenants had to pay back then were presumably covering - but I'd love to know how half the landlords would have fared under the same scrutiny. Can anyone become a landlord? I know the property itself has to pass certain legal checks obviously but it seems any cunt can charge rent for a cupboard if they want to. I guess if the property is managed by an agency then that takes away some of responsibility (and therefore the need for them to be a somewhat trustworthy/decent person) but it still seems like a massive imbalance.

Sebastian Cobb

Every landlord I've had has been on the agreement with the agents working on behalf of them.

Maybe that's a Scotland thing though they also have to be registered/licensed by the council. I got a letter saying some action (Rent Penalty Notice) was been taken that meant it was illegal for me to pay rent to mine, as it turned out their license had lapsed. What was scary was it seems there's essentially 2 reasons this can happen - unlicensed landlord or nuisance asbo/noisy neighbour and it didn't state which, which caused me some undue stress until I spoke to someone from the council.


NoSleep

"Permitted occupier" does sounds more like jargon somebody would use in a case where someone was subletting to a third party, so it could well be just bullshit they're trying on, if it's accepted that you have been living there all this time.

Zetetic


The Mollusk

Email received today saying they're returning the deposit in full. No quibbles, no deductions.

Don't fuck with me.


the

Quote from: The Mollusk on February 04, 2021, 03:40:57 PMEmail received today saying they're returning the deposit in full. No quibbles, no deductions.

Don't fuck with me.

A-like that y'all and you don't stop

Now sue them. It'll be the last thing they're expecting!

kngen

Yep, invoice them for the interest accrued, and an hourly rate for the time spent challenging it. Then file a claim at the small claims court (do it for under 300 quid, and it will cost 25 to file online). Just fuck them where they live, basically.

mippy

We rent privately, and nothing I've read or heard about lettings agencies makes me want to have anything to do with them. They were astonishingly unhelpful when we were first looking around the area a few years ago given that both we and the landlord would have been handing them a large sum of money every month for doing almost nothing. Literally £150 to photocopy a sheet of paper and hand us a pen to sign it. It was interesting seeing how many agents disappeared from our local area's high street once the additional fees ban came in.


Bernice


Ferris

Quote from: The Mollusk on February 04, 2021, 03:40:57 PM
Email received today saying they're returning the deposit in full. No quibbles, no deductions.

Don't fuck with me.

Back of the net!

shiftwork2

Quote from: The Mollusk on February 04, 2021, 03:40:57 PM
Email received today saying they're returning the deposit in full. No quibbles, no deductions.

Don't fuck with me.

See, taking out a contract on their children really can make these people see sense.

thugler

Congrats. My understanding is they try it on like this with every single customer, as many of them just won't have the time or inclination to fight it as well as you've managed to. The main fiddle always seems to be the 'professionally cleaned' business.

Icehaven

Quote from: thugler on February 04, 2021, 07:00:06 PM
Congrats. My understanding is they try it on like this with every single customer, as many of them just won't have the time or inclination to fight it as well as you've managed to. The main fiddle always seems to be the 'professionally cleaned' business.

Tbh I've been fairly lucky in this respect, I've moved out of 6 places and only once had a deposit deduction when they withheld £50 (from £500) because the inside of the washing machine door wasn't clean enough and apparently had to be, yep, professionally cleaned. I didn't quibble because there were blutac marks all over the bedroom walls and an iron burn in the carpet which they'd either overlooked or didn't care about and which I'd anticipated resulting in a much bigger deduction so I was fine with losing £50 (although if they really paid someone to clean a washing machine door I'm the Queen of Sheba.) I'm less confident about my current agents as they've proved to be bastards at several times and as mentioned above the fees ban has led them all to be more ruthless and grasping than ever, if that's possible. That's not to knock the fees ban of course, you've still got a chance of getting your deposit back by challenging attempts to take it, but if you've had to pay it out in spurious fees it's gone forever.