UK Landlord Forum / Life

 Hi everyone

So basically we have a VERY dodgy landlord and only found out a month or so after moving in, we live in an HMO (house share) with 6 other people (8 in total), our landlords live in a completely different house about 10 meters away from the house we rent, with a different house name.

Since moving in we have had numerous incidents of them bullying us, we haven't been able to address any of the issues about the house I.e. Curtain rails falling down, no fire exits, and just the general awful, unhygienic state of the house without them raising unreasonable issues with us, I.e. Not being allowed guests when others are, and being accused of vandalism when we would never dream of such a thing. (Tit for tat) Another shock was on the two occasions when we approached out landlord about a small matter, my other halves car was vandalised the same night on the drive, this happens twice!! 
It's made us incredibly unwell living here.

Our main concern is that when we moved in no inventry was taken and we requested the room unfurnished to which they replied 'no problem' and removed two sofas and a bed on the verble understanding that we'd replaced them when we move out.
We quickly became very suspicious of them and thought they might be up to something, soon enough they came for a meeting and where very abusive to us saying that they now don't want the furniture replacing and that their accountant has said we owe then £875 of our deposit, and if we want written proof of this is going to be £1200 (our full deposit coincidently)

The fact is we have a 'lodgers licence' with them NOT a tenancy agreement, but it's my understanding that if they don't live here we can't be lodgers? We move out in two weeks and don't trust these people at all after all the abuse we have got from them, they have lied to us so many times we have lost count, we're too scared to do anything and would appreciate any help at all.

Knowing what they are like we started recording the meetings we had when they came to talk to us. As they don't like to do paperwork we thought this could be handy if we needed to refer back to it. As far as replacing the sofas and bed were concerned the deal was we could put any 2 sofas and any bed as long as they were understandably clean and useable. We have a early recording of them agreeing with that deal and then a more recent conversation of them saying that don't remember that deal ever taking place. Can these recordings be used in court or is it illegal to do so?

Sorry about the huge post but there really isn't enough room to list all the things they have done (he won't even look at me when I'm talking to him, he does the same with his "missis" so that makes it ok apparently)

There are more legal beagles over on http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums try asking there as it sounds like a desperate situation you are in.  Are you in some sort of bedsit?

Feel your pain.

Do all you can to get this sorted.

Try Rip off Britain, Watch dog, etc etc, they love a bit of undercover filming??

Just be mindful, there are two sides to every story, someone who recorded my initial agreement about replacing furniture, might get my goat a little? Stay calm, get satisfaction, keep us updated as to how you get on.