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This is a very long and very boring post about myself and my mother getting bogus claims made against us, you've been warned! 
In December 2010 my mother and I moved house. We were renting it out from a married couple. The Landlords have made a claim that we have done several things which have cost the Landlords money, and that we should reimburse them for any damage to the property. This has stopped my mother from claiming her Bond back, since the Deposit Protection Service seems to be in their favour. The Bond was £480. There is a list of 8 breaches of our Renting Contract.
The house came with a small field and a garden. Our dog lived in the garden and we took in a small pony to live in the field, we erected a fence in the field in order for the horse to stay in, as well as a fence in the garden to keep the dog in.
Their claims:
We were given one ring of keys for each back door, they were never taken apart, and were handed in as they were given to us. The keys were actually given in late, as the Landlords delayed us handing the keys over because they wouldn't meet us to collect them (at either our house or theirs). The money for cleaning the carpets is pretty fair, though only one of the carpets in the house was really dirty, it's arguable that two of them were, but other than them two, the rest of the house was spotless. We never allowed the dog into the rooms that actually have these dirty carpets.
The £25 charge for removing rubbish is totally fair, my father helped me take the dog's fence down, and he threw some rubbish into the enterance of the field. The £100 charge for late rent is a little bit of a grey area, as we refused to pay the rent because of the state of the house. We had a lot of trouble with our heating and water. Our tenancy agreement included the use of a shower, oil central heating and two log burners. We tried for several months to get the log burners, with no luck.
The window in the living room of the house was jammed open, the heating in the house rarely worked, and so we complained that the house was too cold. The Landlord (husband) came to have a look at the boiler (which hadn't been serviced in several years) to identify the problem. He turned the temperature of the water up, and told us to keep the heating running 24/7. The boiler burned and became damaged, and an engineer was sent to repair and service it. He also claimed to have fixed the broken metre on the oil tank, which is supposed to indicate how much oil is left in the tank.
The metre still didn't work, and at some point during his service of the boiler, he decided to check the shower, which he broke. We went for about 6 weeks of no heating, and we never got the shower working. We had refused to pay the rent until the problems had been fixed, which is the reason for the "late payments".
To me the £60 for unblocking the soil pipe is an obvious scam. One day it blocked and we rang our Landlords and asked them to fix it. At about 11pm the husband and a group of around 5 others were standing around the pipe, I didn't get a look at what they were doing, but they all stopped and looked at me whilst I walked passed (I was walking my dog). The next day they asked us for £80 to compensate them for unblocking the pipe, which we intended to do. The wife told us that the pipe was "Full of sanitary towels that you've put down the toilet". We would never do such a thing, and I have no idea where that has come from. We talked to the man who lived next door to us (semi-detached house), and he said that the pipe blocks regularly since it is very narrow, and that he was forced to pay "Half" of the service fee, at £60. Which is a little odd seeing as they told us that £80 was half.
As said above, we weren't able to hand in the keys to the house since they couldn't/wouldn't arrange a time and place to collect them from us. When we moved out, we hadn't a single thing left in the house, we took absolutely everything, down to the last drawing pin!
The total of their claims comes to around £1090. If we gave them the £25 for the rubbish removal and some money for the cleaning of the carpets (I doubt it would cost £165 to buy brand new carpets considering the small size of the room(s)) and the £100 for late payment charges, £230 would be fair imho. There's a big difference between gaining the £250 remainder of our bond, and owing them £1090!
Very angry about this, in fact I'm glad that I haven't seen the Landlord since we moved out, as I probably would have hit him by now
My mother has given up on trying to get our bond back, but she'll have to do something otherwise she will be £1090 in debt.
I'm tempted to email our reply to the Deposit Protection Service right now to give our side, though we've already done that once. They made claims of around £250 and we objected, then they lowered their claims to £60 for the pipe, and we accepted, thinking anything is better than nothing. Then today we recieved the letter with the claims I've written about above.
Ooh btw I just remembered, about a month after we moved out of the house there was a small avalanche in the garden, which would likely have killed anyone standing under it. The garden has a small cliff face on it, and occasionaly rocks would randomly fall, because of rain/snow etc. Some of them were huge! Got a couple of pictures below:
http://www.photoshop.com/users/jordan17wales/assets/563f6d00e1904fbb8d837fc40b8983b9
http://www.photoshop.com/users/jordan17wales/assets/4a366f6954ef45daa1776c9e11ba4830
http://www.photoshop.com/users/jordan17wales/assets/a2148ca3d6374bcf925e1b55eed7a4aa
Yes the garden is a mess - that was while we were taking the fence in the garden down. They were scattered all over the garden, we brushed them in to one corner to make it easier to work in the garden, though the bulk of it was in that big pile.
Not sure what to do now, the bond would be very handy atm as I lost my job and haven't found another yet. Don't know where we stand legally though, most of this is our word against theirs. They claim to have pictures of the "damage" we inflicted on the house, I'm guessing anything that is in the pictures is of their own doing, trying to get money out of us (they own a failing business that sells railway sleepers and are known to be desperate for cash).
In December 2010 my mother and I moved house. We were renting it out from a married couple. The Landlords have made a claim that we have done several things which have cost the Landlords money, and that we should reimburse them for any damage to the property. This has stopped my mother from claiming her Bond back, since the Deposit Protection Service seems to be in their favour. The Bond was £480. There is a list of 8 breaches of our Renting Contract.
The house came with a small field and a garden. Our dog lived in the garden and we took in a small pony to live in the field, we erected a fence in the field in order for the horse to stay in, as well as a fence in the garden to keep the dog in.
Their claims:
- £150 for hire of machine and labour to remove unwanted fence and fill in ditch.
- £12.99 plus time or labour to fit new letterbox to front door.
- £100 to fit new locks to both back doors, because we failed to hand in the two sets of keys for each door.
- £165 for cleaning of carpets ("Likely worn down by their dog").
- £25 service charge for removal of rubbish dumped in enterance to field.
- £100 service charge for late payment of rent 4 times during tenancy.
- £60 for unblocking soil pipe.
- £480 for keeping keys one whole month after leaving, and still having items in the house.
We were given one ring of keys for each back door, they were never taken apart, and were handed in as they were given to us. The keys were actually given in late, as the Landlords delayed us handing the keys over because they wouldn't meet us to collect them (at either our house or theirs). The money for cleaning the carpets is pretty fair, though only one of the carpets in the house was really dirty, it's arguable that two of them were, but other than them two, the rest of the house was spotless. We never allowed the dog into the rooms that actually have these dirty carpets.
The £25 charge for removing rubbish is totally fair, my father helped me take the dog's fence down, and he threw some rubbish into the enterance of the field. The £100 charge for late rent is a little bit of a grey area, as we refused to pay the rent because of the state of the house. We had a lot of trouble with our heating and water. Our tenancy agreement included the use of a shower, oil central heating and two log burners. We tried for several months to get the log burners, with no luck.
The window in the living room of the house was jammed open, the heating in the house rarely worked, and so we complained that the house was too cold. The Landlord (husband) came to have a look at the boiler (which hadn't been serviced in several years) to identify the problem. He turned the temperature of the water up, and told us to keep the heating running 24/7. The boiler burned and became damaged, and an engineer was sent to repair and service it. He also claimed to have fixed the broken metre on the oil tank, which is supposed to indicate how much oil is left in the tank.
The metre still didn't work, and at some point during his service of the boiler, he decided to check the shower, which he broke. We went for about 6 weeks of no heating, and we never got the shower working. We had refused to pay the rent until the problems had been fixed, which is the reason for the "late payments".
To me the £60 for unblocking the soil pipe is an obvious scam. One day it blocked and we rang our Landlords and asked them to fix it. At about 11pm the husband and a group of around 5 others were standing around the pipe, I didn't get a look at what they were doing, but they all stopped and looked at me whilst I walked passed (I was walking my dog). The next day they asked us for £80 to compensate them for unblocking the pipe, which we intended to do. The wife told us that the pipe was "Full of sanitary towels that you've put down the toilet". We would never do such a thing, and I have no idea where that has come from. We talked to the man who lived next door to us (semi-detached house), and he said that the pipe blocks regularly since it is very narrow, and that he was forced to pay "Half" of the service fee, at £60. Which is a little odd seeing as they told us that £80 was half.
As said above, we weren't able to hand in the keys to the house since they couldn't/wouldn't arrange a time and place to collect them from us. When we moved out, we hadn't a single thing left in the house, we took absolutely everything, down to the last drawing pin!
The total of their claims comes to around £1090. If we gave them the £25 for the rubbish removal and some money for the cleaning of the carpets (I doubt it would cost £165 to buy brand new carpets considering the small size of the room(s)) and the £100 for late payment charges, £230 would be fair imho. There's a big difference between gaining the £250 remainder of our bond, and owing them £1090!
Very angry about this, in fact I'm glad that I haven't seen the Landlord since we moved out, as I probably would have hit him by now
My mother has given up on trying to get our bond back, but she'll have to do something otherwise she will be £1090 in debt. I'm tempted to email our reply to the Deposit Protection Service right now to give our side, though we've already done that once. They made claims of around £250 and we objected, then they lowered their claims to £60 for the pipe, and we accepted, thinking anything is better than nothing. Then today we recieved the letter with the claims I've written about above.
Ooh btw I just remembered, about a month after we moved out of the house there was a small avalanche in the garden, which would likely have killed anyone standing under it. The garden has a small cliff face on it, and occasionaly rocks would randomly fall, because of rain/snow etc. Some of them were huge! Got a couple of pictures below:
http://www.photoshop.com/users/jordan17wales/assets/563f6d00e1904fbb8d837fc40b8983b9
http://www.photoshop.com/users/jordan17wales/assets/4a366f6954ef45daa1776c9e11ba4830
http://www.photoshop.com/users/jordan17wales/assets/a2148ca3d6374bcf925e1b55eed7a4aa
Yes the garden is a mess - that was while we were taking the fence in the garden down. They were scattered all over the garden, we brushed them in to one corner to make it easier to work in the garden, though the bulk of it was in that big pile.
Not sure what to do now, the bond would be very handy atm as I lost my job and haven't found another yet. Don't know where we stand legally though, most of this is our word against theirs. They claim to have pictures of the "damage" we inflicted on the house, I'm guessing anything that is in the pictures is of their own doing, trying to get money out of us (they own a failing business that sells railway sleepers and are known to be desperate for cash).
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Though I didn't take any pictures of damage not caused by me as at the time I had no reason to believe that I should.
). Even without them 3, the amount they are trying to get off us is huge.
