Deposit Protection – look out landlords, the vultures are circling

Deposit Protection – look out landlords, the vultures are circling

15:26 PM, 28th June 2013, About 11 years ago 36

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ALL landlords and letting agents need to know that the “no win no fee” vultures are out to get you.

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Deposit Protection - look out landlords, the vultures are circling

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Deposit Protection - look out landlords, the vultures are circling


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21:46 PM, 5th August 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Peter " at "18/07/2013 - 16:32":

Sorry you can call it what you like it is a deposit.
The courts would rule against you in any dispute.
You would have a hard job convincing a judge that your clean flat refund would not have been used to clean the flat if it was needed.
It is a deposit!
Now providing you did NOT advise them as to why you are doing so; you could lie after they leave, send them a payment in recognition of the way they behaved during the tenancy.
Just because you are a bloody nice bloke.
If they ask you that would they have received it even if there had been any deductions required for cleaning etc; you state NO.
Ans yes and they've got YOU!!

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21:49 PM, 5th August 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Paul Barrett" at "05/08/2013 - 21:46":

Sorry I got the yes and no round the wrong way.

Mark could you introduce an edit facility for those of us that don't check properly the content before we press submit..................................yes I know such as myself are a bit dopey in doing that.!
All the other forums allow such editing which is very useful!!

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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21:55 PM, 5th August 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Paul Barrett" at "05/08/2013 - 21:49":

Hi Paul, yes I will look into it. I will need to put a window of opportunity in though, say 15 minutes, as we wouldn't want to give people the ability to re-write history would we?

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22:50 PM, 5th August 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "05/08/2013 - 21:55":

Yep absolutely; maybe a 30 min edit window.

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12:43 PM, 13th August 2013, About 11 years ago

@Simon
@Mark Alexander

The Ministry of Justice does not and cannot regulate these types of claims management companies. Claims under S214 of the Housing Act 2004 are out of the scope of any current legislation.

I was astounded to hear this myself but it makes sense. These types of claim do not fall into any of the 6 headings in the Compensation Act 2006. (Have a look at the MoJ guidance note http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/claims-regulation/who-needs-to-be-authorised.pdf).

Also, telling people not to respond to legitimate claims creates the wrong impression. You may be annoying the claims management company but remember, if these matters go to court, it'll be the multi track procedure (yes, that's right it's a landlord and tenant claim under part 56 CPR which means part 8 procedure).

What this means is that both court fees and solicitors costs are recoverable from the losing side. If your a non compliant landlord that ignores a legitimate claim all you're doing is causing yourself more expense.

As an aside, it's very easy and cheap to comply with the law. This is also not new news, the law has been around since 2007. Why are there still non complaint landlords and agents?

Fed Up Landlord

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19:26 PM, 13th August 2013, About 11 years ago

George this is quite an eye opener to see that they are not regulated. Does this mean anyone can do this. Mmmmm. Must be consumer law against it somewhere.

But perhaps I have missed something here. The vast majority of landlords, and I think that Property 118 posters fall into this category, do try and comply with the law. Yes Deposit Protection has been in since 2007 but with the Superstrike ruling all of us who thought we had complied - might not have. We have been retrospectively "done up like kippers".

Read the guidance from the deposit protection and letting bodies and then apply it to your portfolio / letting agency properties. Then try and decide what to do about those tenancies that have gone statutory periodic outside the 30 day window for service of prescribed information. Yes you can do it but you MAY still be liable for a fine of 3 x the deposit. You MAY not be able to use Section 21.

So to those landlords who do not protect deposits ( and I did come across one the other day) I agree- they should get fined. For those of us who have tried to comply - then the legal system should cut us some slack.

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