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Letting agents withholding deposit to cover court costs

Started by CharliiD, August 14, 2019, 10:00:53 AM

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CharliiD

Hi,

The whole situation started in March 2019 when our letting agents text us saying that the landlord wanted someone from your move to come round to do a remortgage quote, a week later we had a text saying the landlord wanted to paint the garage, which seemed odd to us at the time so we text back asking whether the landlord wanted to sell the property, we were told no & that there was nothing to worry about.

A few weeks later we then had a voicemail left saying that the landlord wanted to sell the property & that they were serving us with a section 21, Which was fine so we proceeded looking for potential properties to move into.
Section 21 gave us 2 months to move out which is pretty difficult when you've just had a baby & there's only 1 income. Anyway we carried on looking & viewing properties and kept the landlord up to date with everything, we were rejected from a few properties which I think is down to only 1 income even though we've never missed a rent payment & have always paid £600pcm.
It was a few days before the section 21 was due to end & we still hadn't found a property & we asked the letting agents to let the landlord know where we stood at that we had a few viewings coming up & were hopeful we'd be out ASAP & we heard nothing back and continued looking.
Fast forward to 18 days past the section 21 expiry & we had a viewing with our current Lettings agents at a property so we've just taken it so the landlord can sell his house, whilst at this viewing the Lettings agents have informed us that the landlord has started court proceedings against us (we had no knowledge of this) & they were withholding £355 of our deposit.
We have yet to receive any proof of these proceedings bring started and intend to contest it as it's unfair as the landlord always got his rent on time, we've been actively looking & keeping him up to date & have kept the house in the same position it was in when we moved in.


My question is, are the Lettings agents allowed to keep some of our deposit to pay for the landlords court fees when we haven't even had proof or been able to have a defence yet?

When we told the Lettings agents we were going to contest it they turned around and said that we would lose!!

This whole situation has been horrible  >:(

TIA


Hippogriff

#1
Is it unfair that you deliberately stayed beyond the Section 21 expiry and have, effectively, forced the Landlord to commence proceedings, as required to do, otherwise the Landlord would not have any insight, at all, into when possession of the property was going to be returned.

The answer to that is "yes"... but you are within your rights to stay beyond the expiry date of the Section 21, yet if you do you must expect Court proceedings to follow on, right? Now, for the Deposit deduction... if you do not agree with it, don't fight the Agent - just tell them that you want to raise a Dispute with the Deposit Protection Scheme where it was protected.

See what comes out of that. It might be that they back down... it might be that they double-down. It might be that they have the evidence and the Dispute process finds in their favour. Or not. It might be that it opens up a whole new interesting avenue, let us know how it goes.

The answer is that Deposit deductions need to be agreed. A Landlord cannot unilaterally make deductions.

As always, it's best to agree. Quid pro quo.

There is no defence to a properly served Section 21... certainly paying your rent on time, struggling to find alternative accommodation and being good communicators is not a defence, in any regard.