Apologies in advance for the long read, but I'll try to make it sound the least boring possible 
In summer 2007, our flat lease in Hammersmith finished, and it was time to hand over the keys and get our security deposit back, all went through swimmingly, or so we thought.
After a few weeks of starting to lose patience waiting for our deposit to finally come through, we were told we will get it back soon, minus £250 for a cleaning bill (wtf?
).
We would not have disputed this if we left the place in a horrible state, but we left it absolutely spotless; in an even better condition than when we moved in, back in November 2006.
After several arguments with the landlord who never did an inspection himself (though we didn't know that at the time), he said he'd knock £50 off because he first claimed that the place was professionally cleaned before we moved in, when both he knew and I knew he was lying and he admitted he couldn't prove it (because obviously it didn't happen!). I even remember my part of the cleanup operation involving the scrubbing of the bathtub and cleaning out the thin layer of grime from inside & outside of all the kitchen cabinets plus worktops. Oh, and also we didn't have a working fridge for 2 months, but that's another story altogether...
So anyways, in the end, we had £200 deducted from our deposit for a supposed £250 cleaning bill that the letting agency paid for, which in turn, was paid for by the landlord out of our deposit deduction (+ £50 of his expense).
This is the part where it got interesting. I knew there was something fishy going on, but I couldn't really do anything until the day the security deposit cheque arrived, along with a copy of the cleaning invoice. And here it is! (note: this is the actual piece of paper that arrived, in all its crooked crappy facsimile-esque glory):
Notice a few things strange about it? The 2 different dates in the header & footer perhaps? Lack of date in the "Date:" field? Lack of invoice number?
What about the way our address was written, in abbreviated lettering, "125 F/P/R". Their letting agency was literally 2 doors down from our place which is why they simply refer to it as this. 100% definitely their handwriting as I've seen them write it like that many times before.
How about the lack of a "JK Cleaning Services ltd" on companieshouse.gov.uk ? And lack of VAT registration number, for that matter? Or the scribbled out telephone number underneath the cleaner's address?
Also I don't know if you can see it clearly in this digital image, but where it says £250, the "25" was written over a number "9".
When I showed this to my father, he immediately picked up the phone, rang them up, and demanded (with the threat of legal action) to know why the original cleaning bill was clearly for £90 and had £250 written over the top of it.
Their explanation? "We had it cleaned once for £90, but had to get it cleaned again". So how exactly does a cleaning company need to clean a property twice that was already spic & span in the first place? The answer? They didn't. What's more, they admitted to my father that they should not have billed the extra cash for the "second cleaning", because it isn't our responsibility that their "professional cleaner" didn't do a good enough job the first time they were round and had to be paid to do some more. ESPECIALLY if we cleaned the place up ourselves to a more than satisfactory degree anyway.
So anyways, after admitting their fault to my father, they sent me a cheque for £110 (plus they should've sent our landlord £50 but I'm sure they didn't), taking the original £200 we paid back down to the initial invoice value of £90.
With me so far?
At that point my father had to leave the country on business and this is pretty much where it was left and forgotten about by us a few months ago... Until the other day, I was sorting out all the paperwork lying around on my desk when I found the invoice and remembered there was still the matter £90 to be resolved! It's not the amount of money that matters, its the PRINCIPLE DAMMIT!
I rang up the letting agency 2 days ago asking to speak to somebody regarding the matter of an unresolved £90 owed, and was put on hold 3 or 4 times, and the guy responsible for dealing with the property told the poor receptionist lady that he didn't want to speak to me for reasons unknown, even though she already admitted he was standing next to her lol. Instead he told her to tell me to leave a voicemail at his desk (wtf).
He left me a voicemail 2 days later saying that I had to take it up with the landlord. This was all despite the fact that it is clearly the agency who owes me the cash, and this has nothing to do with the landlord anymore as he's paid his £50 and we paid our £200 (-£110). When immediately ringing him back and demanded my £90 and mentioning that his invoice was clearly a fake, he refused to answer and became irate very quickly, saying things along the lines of "I don't have time for this chit chat" and when I said I'd take him to court he actually swore down the phone to me before hanging up. Bear in mind this is a high-street letting agency, I was quite shocked and proceeded to laugh in surprise before we both hung up on each other.
Immediately afterwards I typed out the following email and sent it to their office:
Bunch of *******
In summer 2007, our flat lease in Hammersmith finished, and it was time to hand over the keys and get our security deposit back, all went through swimmingly, or so we thought.
After a few weeks of starting to lose patience waiting for our deposit to finally come through, we were told we will get it back soon, minus £250 for a cleaning bill (wtf?
).We would not have disputed this if we left the place in a horrible state, but we left it absolutely spotless; in an even better condition than when we moved in, back in November 2006.
After several arguments with the landlord who never did an inspection himself (though we didn't know that at the time), he said he'd knock £50 off because he first claimed that the place was professionally cleaned before we moved in, when both he knew and I knew he was lying and he admitted he couldn't prove it (because obviously it didn't happen!). I even remember my part of the cleanup operation involving the scrubbing of the bathtub and cleaning out the thin layer of grime from inside & outside of all the kitchen cabinets plus worktops. Oh, and also we didn't have a working fridge for 2 months, but that's another story altogether...
So anyways, in the end, we had £200 deducted from our deposit for a supposed £250 cleaning bill that the letting agency paid for, which in turn, was paid for by the landlord out of our deposit deduction (+ £50 of his expense).
This is the part where it got interesting. I knew there was something fishy going on, but I couldn't really do anything until the day the security deposit cheque arrived, along with a copy of the cleaning invoice. And here it is! (note: this is the actual piece of paper that arrived, in all its crooked crappy facsimile-esque glory):
Notice a few things strange about it? The 2 different dates in the header & footer perhaps? Lack of date in the "Date:" field? Lack of invoice number?
What about the way our address was written, in abbreviated lettering, "125 F/P/R". Their letting agency was literally 2 doors down from our place which is why they simply refer to it as this. 100% definitely their handwriting as I've seen them write it like that many times before.
How about the lack of a "JK Cleaning Services ltd" on companieshouse.gov.uk ? And lack of VAT registration number, for that matter? Or the scribbled out telephone number underneath the cleaner's address?
Also I don't know if you can see it clearly in this digital image, but where it says £250, the "25" was written over a number "9".
When I showed this to my father, he immediately picked up the phone, rang them up, and demanded (with the threat of legal action) to know why the original cleaning bill was clearly for £90 and had £250 written over the top of it.
Their explanation? "We had it cleaned once for £90, but had to get it cleaned again". So how exactly does a cleaning company need to clean a property twice that was already spic & span in the first place? The answer? They didn't. What's more, they admitted to my father that they should not have billed the extra cash for the "second cleaning", because it isn't our responsibility that their "professional cleaner" didn't do a good enough job the first time they were round and had to be paid to do some more. ESPECIALLY if we cleaned the place up ourselves to a more than satisfactory degree anyway.
So anyways, after admitting their fault to my father, they sent me a cheque for £110 (plus they should've sent our landlord £50 but I'm sure they didn't), taking the original £200 we paid back down to the initial invoice value of £90.
With me so far?
At that point my father had to leave the country on business and this is pretty much where it was left and forgotten about by us a few months ago... Until the other day, I was sorting out all the paperwork lying around on my desk when I found the invoice and remembered there was still the matter £90 to be resolved! It's not the amount of money that matters, its the PRINCIPLE DAMMIT!
I rang up the letting agency 2 days ago asking to speak to somebody regarding the matter of an unresolved £90 owed, and was put on hold 3 or 4 times, and the guy responsible for dealing with the property told the poor receptionist lady that he didn't want to speak to me for reasons unknown, even though she already admitted he was standing next to her lol. Instead he told her to tell me to leave a voicemail at his desk (wtf).
He left me a voicemail 2 days later saying that I had to take it up with the landlord. This was all despite the fact that it is clearly the agency who owes me the cash, and this has nothing to do with the landlord anymore as he's paid his £50 and we paid our £200 (-£110). When immediately ringing him back and demanded my £90 and mentioning that his invoice was clearly a fake, he refused to answer and became irate very quickly, saying things along the lines of "I don't have time for this chit chat" and when I said I'd take him to court he actually swore down the phone to me before hanging up. Bear in mind this is a high-street letting agency, I was quite shocked and proceeded to laugh in surprise before we both hung up on each other.
Immediately afterwards I typed out the following email and sent it to their office:
I did the right thing, right? I mean surely, should I submit this to moneyclaim online, they don't have a hope in hell of winning, right?
Bunch of *******
. Doesn't bother me to spend a quid to confront a bunch of cowboys, if it helps him out.