UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi,
I was staying in a shared flat with two other flatmates until mid-Sept. Stayed there for roughly 9-10 months.

There was a mold issue in the whole building for which the building had put a notice on and we let the landlord know later as well. He came for inspection and had some concerns on the waste management and pests. There were few issues related to pests besides mold and waste. He was not happy about it and the issue continued for two weeks despite his first warning. This was because of lack of coordination between the flatmates and overall pest issue in the building. He told us we need to pay cleaning charges for deep cleaning which we paid and got it done. And then he asked two of us to leave the house/end the tenancy one by one as there is no fixed term in the contract and it rolls month on month basis. We paid for the end of tenancy cleaning charges and we got the deposit back minus provisional bills. He sent us the actual bills for our end of tenancy and which was 30 pounds lower than what I was charged. However, he didn't send me my refund back and instead is asking me to pay 40 pounds for pest control issue he got done after we left: when he shared actual bills there was no mention of pest control issue being done after we left or we would be charged. Further, the inspection happened in July and we paid cleaning charges then so he had good 4 months to get pest control done. He is now threatening me that he will escalate it to my current landlord and update tenant references if I don't pay him by next three days. Am I obliged to pay?

You're not "obliged" to pay. Whether you agree to or not is up to you.

I'm not sure how the landlord intends to "escalate" the issue to your current landlord. What're they meant to do?

There are two sides to every Tenancy and these are three of the most common issues.

Pest infestation - you do not say whether it was rats/mice, ants, silverfish or what??

Tenant: A Tenant can exacerbate a problem by not emptying bins regularly, leaving food out, not packing food ingredients adequately, not cleaning up spills and generally living like pigs.

Landlord:  A Landlord can exacerbate a problem by not getting rid of the pests completely, usually because they use inferior consumer remedies and fail to employ a professional to put in measures to destroy the nest, seal up access points (where they chewed through).


So if there was an inherent problem in the first place then the Tenant issue will almost certainly make things worse but the Landlord needs to be able to show what professional measures were taken immediately before your Tenancy if S/He is going to suggest the Tenants are 100% responsible (nothing is 100%).


Mould - This is somewhat clearer because you say the building had an inherent problem.

Tenant: Tenants can exacerbate a mould problem if they do not allow enough fresh air to come it, if they do not have heating on at all in winter, if they hang up wet clothes indoors without opening a window or if they do not open windows and turn off ventilation fans in bathrooms after a shower or bath.  Keeping windows closed 24/7 creates a moisture zone with condensation and can reactivate mould spores. Tenants can keep on top of mould by using anti mould sprays and thin bleach in their routing cleaning.

Landlord: Mould spores can survive in dry plasterboard, along pipes, in air ducts, around gutters and damp proof course.  To eliminate mould again it require must be treated professionally to eliminate it completely.  When treated professionally it turns black and bleach will not remove that black, you then use anti mould paint in hot spots, around windows, you also use bathroom/kitchen paint eggshell type paint with mould resistant properties.

So as you know that there was inherent problem in the first place the Landlord will again need to show not only that they took all reasonable measures to professionally treat the mould immediately before your occupancy or as soon as you reported it, then they are going to struggle to enforce a claim.  Moreover, they need to show that the source of the problem was dealt with, it may be a freeholder issue which would allow them to make a claim against the Freeholder who of course will probably charge them more in service charges. In these situations the words "right to manage" come to mind

So to the third issue, Deposits.

You do not have a problem because you were not a lodger with a live in Landlord, you had some sort of Assured Shorthold Tenancy, whether one was issued or not.  Landlords can't create a fake Tenancy and call it a license or invent some way around the legislation.

So it being an AST and your Landlord being ultra-responsible, they complied with their legal obligation to protect your deposit in one of the three approved Deposit Protection Schemes.  Each scheme provides an Alternative Dispute Resolution service that is free of charge to use.

There was no obligation for "DEEP" cleaning; the obligation is for you to return the property in the same condition as it was let to you.

Any alleged damages must take into account the age of the item damaged or any underlying cause and reasonable interventions as I have described above.  So if he alleges a carpet was ruined and you burnt the work surface in the kitchen, if those items are more than six years old then they have no value in terms of a claim and of course there may be damages from previous Tenants. 

I do not know the relevance of "he asked two of us to leave the house/end the tenancy one by one" if you are saying you left at different times then then costs can be calculated to the date of departure.

I would dismiss the concept of "provisional" bills, especially in a building with active mould the can regrow, also his failure to get the mould treated for 4 months could mean the job was worse than it would have been if it had been carried out within 2 weeks of you reporting it to the LL.

So your response could be that you wish to escalate the matter to the ADR service of the Deposit Protection Scheme, if you were never informed of which scheme he used then that in itself is a breach of the Deposit Protection legislation and can lead to a sanction of between 1x and 3x the deposit (payable to you) plus legal fees.  The Court would not be very impressed with the threats the LL has made and this is exactly why the legislation was introduced.

Any attempt to contact your current Landlord with derogatory information may lead to a claim for slander if the LL makes false statements.  Either way you have a contract with your new Landlord, no Tenant with an AST may be forcefully evicted without a Court Order and even then only by Court appointed bailiffs.  If your current LL mentions it to you ask for a copy of what was said if it was in writing (a right under GDPR called a Subject Access Request) and brush it off by saying something casually like

"oh yes we were informed by the freeholder after two weeks of occupancy that the whole building had a mould problem, we passed on the notification to him and he did not get anything done until 4 months after we left, now he wants to us to pay it when it was not caused by us and was made worse by his failure to rectify it promptly."

When a Landlord asks a Tenant to pay damages they have to show they have suffered an actual loss and they have to mitigate your costs. For example if they tell you that you left the place in an inferior condition to when let and they are spending £400 to get a professional cleaner in, they must allow you to bring your own cleansers in and reinspect or at the very least allow you to get three quotes and determine a fair cost for the alleged damages. 

You would determine the validity of the claim if the carpet was in awful condition when you moved in and in fact you had it cleaned yourself as it was so bad.

Even if a claim was valid there is the issue of the dates of leaving, an inspection should have been done with you present both before and after you took occupancy, you can't be held liable for damages after such inspections and an inventory of damages should have been provided after each inspection.  The fact that you left on different dates messes this up in terms of enforcing a claim.  The ADR service (or Court) would likely reject any claim that did not have clear evidence by way of inspection reports and inventory checklists that you signed in acceptance.

You should also be away that you and the other Tenants are joint and severally liable for damages under the contract, that means if you pay 33.3% and the others do not pay their 66.6% you are still jointly liable for the 66,6%, albeit that no enforcement is likely against you if the other persons can be found and a claim made against them, unless they go bankrupt or have a different type of insolvency such as a Debt Relief Order. 

So when you live with someone and they are causing damages make sure you explain to them in writing the behaviour they are doing that causes damage and that you will hold them liable in the event that you are required to make a claim.

You can check whether you deposit has been protected by using each of the three links below, be accurate on the dates, surname and deposit amount, if you find no record of protection then call each scheme and ask them to check, if they all say no protection found then email them asking them to confirm no protection (giving them the details of the occupancy).

http://bit.ly/depchk1

http://bit.ly/depchk2

http://bit.ly/depchk3

I suspect that if you send a reply along the lines of what I have written above (assuming the deposit was not protected and no Prescribed Information Served - both within 30 days of paying the deposit) you will put an end to this matter.



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Quote from: ShivanghiYadav on November 11, 2024, 12:14:07 PMHi,
I was staying in a shared flat with two other flatmates until mid-Sept. Stayed there for roughly 9-10 months.

There was a mold issue in the whole building for which the building had put a notice on and we let the landlord know later as well.

He came for inspection and had some concerns on the waste management and pests.

There were few issues related to pests besides mold and waste.

He was not happy about it and the issue continued for two weeks despite his first warning.

This was because of lack of coordination between the flatmates and overall pest issue in the building.

He told us we need to pay cleaning charges for deep cleaning which we paid and got it done. And then he asked two of us to leave the house/end the tenancy one by one as there is no fixed term in the contract and it rolls month on month basis.

We paid for the end of tenancy cleaning charges and we got the deposit back minus provisional bills.

He sent us the actual bills for our end of tenancy and which was 30 pounds lower than what I was charged. However, he didn't send me my refund back and instead is asking me to pay 40 pounds for pest control issue he got done after we left: when he shared actual bills there was no mention of pest control issue being done after we left or we would be charged.

Further, the inspection happened in July and we paid cleaning charges then so he had good 4 months to get pest control done.

He is now threatening me that he will escalate it to my current landlord and update tenant references if I don't pay him by next three days.

Am I obliged to pay?