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Rent reduction & Deposit

Started by JoeyBuddy27, August 02, 2021, 12:49:27 PM

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JoeyBuddy27

Hi there,

I've rented a flat with my partner for about 2 years. 5 months ago, my partner got a job in another city, and she moved. This left me with covering expensive rent.

I managed to agree a rent reduction with my landlord (via the letting agency), of £200 per month. The only stipulation they said, was that I had to vacate the property in 6 months time (October).

I have just found a new flat, and will be moving in about a month. Now the agency is telling me that the landlord intends to claim back £1000 from our deposit, in order to recover the losses, due to giving me the rent reduction.

Nowhere in our agreement about the reduction did anyone mention that we would be liable for it. The only stipulation was that I left in 6 months so that they could get a full-paying tenant in.

I am feeling very hard done by, and it seems sneaky. Can anyone with more knowledge on this shed some light? Under what grounds can the landlord withold our deposit? We will obviously leave the flat in clean, working condition upon leaving.

Thanks so much in advance.

Hippogriff

If you have the way you agreed the rent reduction in writing then isn't it very clear?

There's no way that a Landlord, or Agent, could attribute an agreed rent reduction to a Deposit deduction. Just wait for them to try it, see what the justification is, then advise them you'll dispute it with the Deposit protection scheme that they used. That will then be laughed out by the third-party adjudicator. It might take some time, of course... but you will be successful. If there is £1,000 worth of real Deposit deductions that are justifiable then they will stand on their own, won't they?

Make sure that your Deposit was protected as it should be. I assume you have all the details to-hand to check yourself?

KTC

Do you have any evidence to back up this rent reduction agreement you have with the landlord? Even if it's not a formal complete contract, just some evidence would be helpful. If so, you should be safe.

Deposit Claims

100% check your deposit was protected. The proposition of the deduction is such nonsense any landlord or agent would know that an adjudicator would throw it out, that makes me wonder ?