6 week DPS backlog now entering its 24th week

6 week DPS backlog now entering its 24th week

9:58 AM, 22nd February 2019, About 6 years ago 4

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On the 29th of January I posted an article on Property 118 that was titled “6 weeks backlog at the Deposit Protection scheme ?”. Click here to read the article.

In it I explained that on the 28th of August 2018 our landlord lodged a dispute with the DPS. That is now 6 months ago. He had no contract or inventory to back up his claims which were quite frankly lies and yet the dispute is still unresolved.

Every week we ring up for an update and every week we are told of this 6 week backlog. We are now entering week 24 of the supposed 6 week backlog. It would be great if someone from the DPS was reading this and could explain the situation.

Are any other Property118 readers experiencing the same backlog for disputes?

Many thanks

Onslow


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Rob Crawford

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15:36 PM, 22nd February 2019, About 6 years ago

Hi Onslow, where are you based? DPS operates out of Bristol which is an area covered by our landlord association. This seems an exceptional case and so on this occasion and in the interest of all landlords, I would be happy to try and get this resolved for you with a face to face meeting with DPS. DPS has a formal complaints process have you followed this? With over 400 members in the Bristol area I doubt I will be ignored. It would be better if you could attend, we can then talk specifics. If, however, there are others in the same position I would be happy to voice concerns more generically. DPS are exhibiting at the Bristol Landlord Expo on 2nd April, if things don't progress we can tackle them there as a back stop. I can be contacted via our website http://www.allwessex.co.uk

Rob Crawford

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15:45 PM, 22nd February 2019, About 6 years ago

Meant to read ".......in the interest of all landlords and tenants"! Also, link to DPS Complaints process: https://www.depositprotection.com/media/1408/dps_a5_complaint_handling_procedure_vd.pdf

Onslow Clough

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16:00 PM, 23rd February 2019, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Rob Crawford at 22/02/2019 - 15:36
Thanks for that Rob I will contact you via your website.

Onslow Clough

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20:00 PM, 27th March 2019, About 6 years ago

My case with The Deposit Protection Scheme has finally been resolved after a 6 month wait and we have got our deposit back.

We have subsequently made a complaint to DPS but received no satisfactory explanation of the delay.
At this point Rob Crawford the chairman of the Association of Local Landlords (Wessex) very kindly took up our case and met directly with representatives from DPS at their Bristol offices. Something i could not possibly do living in Yorkshire.
He was able to gather a lot more information regarding our case which he was able to pass on to me. Apart from a lot of obfuscation about the dates various forms were received and dealt with the crux of the problem was thus:

"Having looked at the dispute, it appears that initially the landlord may not have been responsive to the tenant’s attempt to reclaim the deposit. This resulted in the tenant using the single claims process (Statutory Declaration). The tenant’s Statutory Declaration was dated 26 October 2018; as such, the period between the claim being commenced and the final decision was 4 months and 7 days."

Although it was nice to see the DPS have acknowledged that the process took over 4 months, the truth is it took more like 6 months from start to finish.
It seems unfair that their stopwatch for the case started on the 26th October when they received our Tenants Statutory Declaration when in actual fact, from our point of view it started in August when we initially logged our dispute with DPS.

However i must add how grateful I am to Rob Crawford for taking the time to look into our case and bring it directly to the attention of DPS, hopefully his actions will persuade DPS to look at their procedures and try to give their customers a far better service

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