UK Landlord Forum / Life

This is a rather irritating story, my two former tenants are threatening to take me to court for not lodging their deposit with a tenancy deposit scheme.

At the start of the tenancy august 2021  was at the same time as my late Uncle was taken ill and subsequently died. He was a bachelor and had no family apart from me. I had to attend to all his needs and subsequent admin after he died.  Unfortunatly all this happended at the same time the tenancy started and cosnequently i forgot to register the deposit as i had so much on my plate with my late uncles death.  The tenants deposit was registered at the end of the tenancy when i realised to my hoorror that i had not resgitered it. Their deposit was returned minus £85 for some damaged property resolved by the tenancy dispute executive. The tenants have employed a legal firm of ambulance chasers who are going for x 3  the original deposit, whats more of  a problem is that the tenancy was extended by a further year and i did not register the depost for year 2. so it is in effect x 6 teh original deposit of £2250 !

The tenants were well looked after, most of the  appliances were changed new funiture purchased and their  keys replaced when they lost them.  It is gutting that they have no compassion over my family bereavement which ultimately created the situation where i forgot to lodge the deposit.

I am trying to plead mitigating circumstances by the ambulance chasers want me to pay x 5 the original deposit. they also want me to pay £1000 of my tenants costs !

any suggestions on how i should deal with this ?

best wishes

Greg

Hi Greg,
Sorry for your loss.
Hopefully, after you registered the deposit, you served the tenants with prescribed information (if not please register and serve immediately). The courts is concerned with it being served than not being served at all.

Good luck

The ambulance chasers won't care about the mitigating circumstances - although a court might reduce the penalty as a consequence. They might not, though. I've heard of landlords being told that if they weren't in a fit state to do what the law required them to, they shouldn't have started a tenancy at all. And you didn't protect the deposit for the second year either. Sorry to be blunt, but compassion isn't something you can rely on in a court.

But you don't want to go to court at all, the costs will be terrible.

Conditional Fee cases have a win bonus, so the legal firm can claim a big uplift to their costs if it goes to court (and they'll both win, because you didn't do what was required, and load the costs by bringing in a friendly but expensive barrister for a nice earner).

The trick is to accept that you're definitely going to lose and settle as quickly as possible for as little as possible. The double hit for two tenancies isn't set in law, it's something to negotiate on (but recent cases aren't in your favour). The penalty is unlikely to be 3 times the deposit, because a) you did protect the deposit when you realised your error and b) used the deposit adjudication service.

So I'd make an offer based on maybe 4 times the deposit and costs. The downside is that costs will increase as you negotiate, so as you attack on the multiples you lose on the costs. Or just accept the offer and move on.

Quote from: woodhayes on February 12, 2024, 03:16:36 PMThis is a rather irritating story, my two former tenants are threatening to take me to court for not lodging their deposit with a tenancy deposit scheme.

There's an element of delusional thinking here Greg. You appear to be thinking you're the victim in this situation. Derogatory terms like "ambulance chaser" let us know what type of firm you may be dealing with - but it also lets us know the case has merit too - they'd be less likely to take something on that has holes in it... the advice is to negotiate the sum demanded down... it is a well known fact that these firms start high and will come down to a reasonable amount, if you offer it.

There's good advice above, but you aren't forced to frame it in x deposit terms - it can just be a nice round number too.

Always remember that the Court's discretion is to the x, not whether you are penalised or not - that is a black-and-white matter.

Last bit of advice - get real, get serious.

Understand the process you are in, their goal is to hike costs by getting you to give them reasons to create a protracted case, don't play their game.

They often do this and even issue one or more Part36 offers (which you will pay for in costs) reducing the amount claimed, in my opinion they are not acting in the best interests of their clients when they do this, especially as they take up to 35% of the claim and get the uplift JPK refers to.

You are culpable for between 1x and 3x the deposit per Tenancy, so 5x does not add up as they usually start at 3x the deposit per Tenancy and then reduce slowly.  Some firms exaggerate the liability to improve their position (if you PM me the name of the firm I can tell you if they are one I have seen doing that).

There is nothing in the legislation that says Landlords dealing with exceptional circumstances or bereavement are not culpable for any failure, but there is case law you can spin arguments from for a lower amount.  However, this is a "pay to play" environment, every email that is read and/or replied to costs money as does their time.

One can also dispute the costs to a point but that can be expensive and perhaps only yield perhaps a 20% drop, something I helped achieve on a £10k costs claim.

The goal is to negotiate in one letter only to avoid costs escalating and just get to acceptance, you screwed up and the cost is similar to putting in a dodgy boiler that leaks and requires not only that you replace the boiler but pay for the water damage to the flats below.  Such costs are amortised over the length of the investment.

Quote from: woodhayes on February 12, 2024, 03:16:36 PMThis is a rather irritating story, my two former tenants are threatening to take me to court for not lodging their deposit with a tenancy deposit scheme.

At the start of the tenancy august 2021  was at the same time as my late Uncle was taken ill and subsequently died. He was a bachelor and had no family apart from me. I had to attend to all his needs and subsequent admin after he died.  Unfortunatly all this happended at the same time the tenancy started and cosnequently i forgot to register the deposit as i had so much on my plate with my late uncles death.  The tenants deposit was registered at the end of the tenancy when i realised to my hoorror that i had not resgitered it. Their deposit was returned minus £85 for some damaged property resolved by the tenancy dispute executive. The tenants have employed a legal firm of ambulance chasers who are going for x 3  the original deposit, whats more of  a problem is that the tenancy was extended by a further year and i did not register the depost for year 2. so it is in effect x 6 teh original deposit of £2250 !

The tenants were well looked after, most of the  appliances were changed new funiture purchased and their  keys replaced when they lost them.  It is gutting that they have no compassion over my family bereavement which ultimately created the situation where i forgot to lodge the deposit.

I am trying to plead mitigating circumstances by the ambulance chasers want me to pay x 5 the original deposit. they also want me to pay £1000 of my tenants costs !

any suggestions on how i should deal with this ?

best wishes

Greg