Anyone ever withheld the final months rent?

Soldato
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We get on quite well with our landlord, and the house is kept quite nicely.

Spoke to him after our frtidge died around 7 weeks ago and he had to replace it if it would effect our deposists, he said currently you'll get everything back.

Had some mates with him last year who got theres back fine. So im not to worried :)
 
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I said in my previous post that damage and loss should be paid for and I have no problem with holding onto money for those things but I refuse to believe that any responsible LL would not have his property cleaned anyway, even if the previous tenant had done it prior to leaving; Surely it it part of the overheads and should already be included in the rent?

Spurious deductions for "cleaning" and "checking inventory" etc should not be allowed.

I'm about to move into the renting arena soon and am really shocked by some of the letting agents charging £100 + for "admin fees" ..... so, isn't the LL paying the agent fees to find clients etc?

I believe that these sort of fees are "unreasonable" within the terms of the supply of goods and services act 1982.
 
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singist said:
I'm about to move into the renting arena soon and am really shocked by some of the letting agents charging £100 + for "admin fees" ..... so, isn't the LL paying the agent fees to find clients etc?

the agents we use take a 10% cut of every months rent, no extra charges that i know of so I dont see why places are charging £100 for admin, and if they are it should be charged to the landlord, not the tenants
 
Wise Guy
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A lot of agencies charge fees for drawing up contracts, checking references, etc. But what they can and can't charge fees for is controlled by the Housing Acts. Any tenant ought to get a list of any agency fees before signing up with that agency.
 
Soldato
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Out of interest, if we were to withhold the final months rent without the LL's agreement.

What could he do exactly, I mean it takes time to evict someone, and by the time he had all the paperwork through we'd be moving out anyway?
 
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Back when my parents rented a house, the landlord was really nice. We didn't damage the house at all, and got our full deposit back.

The landlord was really nice too, used to buy my sister and I chocolate when he'd come over. :) Unlucky to all of you guys who have bad land lords. :/
 
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PaulStat said:
Out of interest, if we were to withhold the final months rent without the LL's agreement.

What could he do exactly, I mean it takes time to evict someone, and by the time he had all the paperwork through we'd be moving out anyway?
If the deposit (after any justifiable deductions) was insufficient to cover the rent, he could go after you in the small claims court. If the balance left after said deductions was adequate to cover the rent, there's not much he could, or would want to, do. And if there was still an excess after deducting costs and the rent, you should get that back.

You're right about eviction, though. It takes longer than that to organise in most circumstances ...... assuming your landlord is law-abiding and not, erm ..... heavy-handed.
 
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Sequoia said:
If the deposit (after any justifiable deductions) was insufficient to cover the rent, he could go after you in the small claims court. If the balance left after said deductions was adequate to cover the rent, there's not much he could, or would want to, do. And if there was still an excess after deducting costs and the rent, you should get that back.

You're right about eviction, though. It takes longer than that to organise in most circumstances ...... assuming your landlord is law-abiding and not, erm ..... heavy-handed.

So if the place was left as we found it when we moved in and the amount of the deposit was one months rent anyway, he'd be unlikely to do anything.
 
Wise Guy
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PaulStat said:
So if the place was left as we found it when we moved in and the amount of the deposit was one months rent anyway, he'd be unlikely to do anything.
Effectively, yes .... but there's grounds for dispute in the "as we found it" bit. If you found it grotty, and didn't get it sorted at the time, it's down to you. If there is stuff missing from the inventory, and you didn't report it on moving in, you could be held to account for it and saying, now, that it wasn't there on moving in won't (or probably won't) work, for the simple reason that anybody can say that, months after the fact.

But assuming there's no problems, there isn't much he can do, and nor would it be worth doing anything. He probably won't much like it, but that's life.
 
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My sister allowed this with a tenant but if i were a landlord i dont think i would

at the end of the day if the tenant has damaged something and covered it up and you agree to do this you have basically accepted that there is no damage to the property by returning the deposit, then when they leave and you find the damage theres no simple way of requesting money for it and they can easily claim the damage occured after they left
 
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Sequoia said:
Effectively, yes .... but there's grounds for dispute in the "as we found it" bit. If you found it grotty, and didn't get it sorted at the time, it's down to you. If there is stuff missing from the inventory, and you didn't report it on moving in, you could be held to account for it and saying, now, that it wasn't there on moving in won't (or probably won't) work, for the simple reason that anybody can say that, months after the fact.

But assuming there's no problems, there isn't much he can do, and nor would it be worth doing anything. He probably won't much like it, but that's life.

Well seeing as the place is unfurnished that's what I shall do then. I'll clean it thoroughly of course, i'm not that mean.
 
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I'm slightly worried about getting my deposit back... I'm pretty certain I won't.


The kitchen for isntance in our house is terrible. The cupboards are falling to bits and have been since I moved in at the beginning of the year. The other 3 guys had been there 3 years already however so it wasn't a new tenancy so there wasn't much point in pointing it out to the letting agent.

The house has been kept reasonably clean and will get a good cleaning before we move out, but I can think of a lot of things he might want to bill us for...

1) Kichen cupboards falling to bits.... they must be at least 30 years old, they're shoddy and of poor quality and theor time has come, surely this should come down to wear and tear, but I bet he'd like to use our deposit towards a new kitchen.

2) The oven is a joke. The gas board said it was safe, but recommend it be changed soon as it used none standard sized piping and doesn't have anything in the way of safety features. The strikers all don't work etec so you have to lean into the oven with a match!! As with the rest of the kitchen, it is years old and desperately needs replacing... I wonder if he'd like to use our deposit for a new oven.

3) The roof leaked a couple of years ago in one of my housemates rooms. The roof was fixed but the mess it made of his ceiling was left despite promises it'd get repainted.

4) The light/shaver point in the bathroom (years and years old) doesn't work. The switch became stuck in the on position and the light burnt out, we can only assume messing up the switch at the same time. Lettng agents were notified 6 months ago, nothing has been done.

5) The front gate (about the size of a 6' fence panel) is rotten, and in the heavy wind at winder came away from the bottom hinge, so it no longer hangs properly and it really beyond repair. The letting agents sent around a handyman to look who said to us (I'll paraphrase) - "I agree, it needs replacing, but your landlord won't, he's a tight git".

6) In my room there was originally a built in warderobe which the landlord ripped out a few years ago leaving patches on the wall that could really do with painting as they show the colour from the paint underneath. Ideally when the guys first moved in 3 or 4 years ago this kind of thing should have been notified to the letting agents, but as I discovered when I asked a few weeks ago, they never put any of the problems in writing (which will be our biggest problem).

7) The glass in some rooms is like a single glazed window, with a second glass panel affixed to give semi-double glazing. It's attached in a semi-perminant way and I don't think it's our place to start taking appart the landlords cheap bodge-job attempt at double glazing. However, there is a lot of damp between the two sets of glass that could really do with cleaning. If leave it, he'll say it should have been cleaned, if we take appart his dodgy double glazing we're liable to break something in the process.

To give an example of how cheap this guy is....

The florescent fitting in the kitchen died recently (it's an old one with a striker build in that you cannot replace). We had to cook in the dark with light from a desk lamp for about 2 weeks until the letting agents sent their handyman round. He said he'd speak with the landlord, but that he knows for a fact he'll not pay the £25 needed for a new flourescent unit... and he was right, the landlord instructed him to just fit a regular bulb holder... so we now have a big strip of blue paint on the kitchen showing through the newer magnolia that was painted around the strip light.

Unfortunately joning part way through the tenancy I've had no involvement with the landlord and wasn;t around at the beginning.

If I was I would have been sure to document and get signed every little problem with the place, as I have done in previous places I have lived. In my last 2 rented places I have otten my full deposit back, this time I really don't expect a penny of it, despite the fact that I thnk we are fully deserving of it.
 
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It may well state in your contract that you can't withhold the last month's payment for the purpose of getting your deposit back. I know our student agreement does.

You shouldn't worry unless you've caused damage, in which case you should pay for it anyway. We took photos of every bit of damage in our house and put them on a CD and mailed them to the landlord (keeping a copy for ourselves) as evidence.

You need to leave the house clean but you shouldn't be do any professional cleaning, the landlord should arrange for that.

Our house was so dirty when we arrived that I spent 2 days solid scrubbing the place down and then charged the landlord £100 which he happily coughed up.

The florescent fitting in the kitchen died recently (it's an old one with a striker build in that you cannot replace). We had to cook in the dark with light from a desk lamp for about 2 weeks until the letting agents sent their handyman round. He said he'd speak with the landlord, but that he knows for a fact he'll not pay the £25 needed for a new flourescent unit... and he was right, the landlord instructed him to just fit a regular bulb holder... so we now have a big strip of blue paint on the kitchen showing through the newer magnolia that was painted around the strip light.

If a flourescent tube goes you're supposed to pay for a new one yourself, just as you are with any other bulb.
 
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