UK Landlord Forum / Life

I moved house on the 28th September 2012 and before hand i gave our landlord thirty days notice from the 28th September (this then gave us thirty days to clean the property ect) and he agreed to take our deposit as the last payment. He then wanted to view the house so we gave him the keys and to our amazement he moved someone into the house within days so we couldn't then gain access to our house and get mail ect.

So i just went to our DPS account and requested for the £500 deposit to be returned with our landlord keeping one weeks rent out of it which he declined so i have contacted the DPS and they told me to start a dispute and let the DPS sort it out by us sending them our reasons and then after we don't that within a few hours the landlord put an offer in and said he wants £475 and we can have £25 which again i declined.

I don't think he can see here the deposit was for the last thirty days and in that time he moved someone in within a week so that would have meant he had our £500 deposit and then there deposit and also there rent. It just obvious he is in the wrong but he cannot see it.

Can i have members views on this please it would be appreciated.
Thank you.

Hello Monk,

I think you have teo lines of attack, both assume you have some kind of evidence.

1 - Continue with DPS.  If you can show you have been illegally evicted they will return the full deposit to you.
2 - Tell your landlord directly that you think you have been illegally evicted and you are going to persue a legal line of enquiry.  If he returns the full deposit plus compensation for illegal eviction, you will decist with your enquiry.

Hope this helps.  Please let us know how you get on.

Your deposit was obviously not protected and never has been. That I think became obvious when he readily agreed to use your deposit as last month's rent. You can't do that with a protected deposit, for it would to go through dispute resolution.

While it might seem inconvenient for you to not be able to get your mail by yourself, in the grand scheme of things it sounded as if no harm was done. You didn't have to worry about paying rent for a place you no longer lived in, your landlord could do a quick turn around and minimise his expenses.

Have you left the property in completely pristine condition (minus fair wear and tear) or might you not be able to perhaps appreciate that your former landlord did not hold you fully to account for every small detail not covered by fair wear and tear?

Overall I think LL was in the wrong to not protect deposit, T was in the wrong to deprive LL of funds to cover damages by withholding last month's rent.

Just move on is my recommendation. Life's too short.

Not sure if your replying to the wrong topic or something but i have said above its in the DPS ect. Yes the house was in a better condition when we left it than when we moved in. We even paid for new plinths for the kitchen which may i add wasn't cheap ones.

He has moved someone in before he was suppose to and he has there and our rent well ours is in the DPS but he wants that too. Everyone i have spoken to cant believe he moved someone in whilst it was still our home and we still had things to do there and post to collect ect.

I do have to admit the landlord has never let a house our before and we were the first tenants he ever had.