Stumbled onto a Deposit Dispute

 

I have lived in the UK for seven and a half years. One of those was in student accommodation and since then I have lived in three different houses. My first house was in Guildford, it was small, old, but sweet and cosy nonetheless. Our landlord loved that property; it was his family home and he very much appreciated how we took care of the place. He was also not very fond of housing agencies and we quickly agreed to communicate amongst ourselves for any issues around the house; we even discussed terms of contract renewal independently. This experience spoiled me for any future experience with UK housing.

My next house was in London through a small agency, with offices right underneath our house. We had some dispute over the deposit, but most of their claims for damages to the property were well-founded; overpriced, but at the very least, present. Other than a childish dispute about the recycling space we shared, we did not leave the tenancy with numerous complaints about the agency. Our last house, however, proved a horrible experience that has caused to me to wonder if me and my immediate friends are the only people in England that are so frustrated by the tenancy agreements, the complete lack of support by the housing agencies and the complete imbalance of tenant and landlord responsibilities.

I understand that if you are renting in the UK, you are very likely a student and I do realise that landlords’ feel uneasy about students occupying the property as they are more likely to do damage. That along with, surely, unfortunate events has caused housing contracts to be very, very protective towards the landlord. However, in 2020, I cannot but stress that some of these terms are unreasonable. I have seen terms such as ‘If, during your tenancy, an infestation occurs that is due to the pre-existing condition of the property, the tenant is liable’. I completely condone protecting the landlord; I am not suggesting the landlord should be treated as a piggy bank, or that tenants shouldn’t be respectful towards the property. But having recently dealt with a stingy and unreasonable landlord, we tenants need some protection also.

This last property was very old and not in good shape. The location was excellent, though, and there was a homey feel, for lack of a better word, that we gravitated towards in comparison to all the other properties we had seen. There was a lot of aesthetic damage, the bathroom ceiling was mouldy and the paint had cracked, some endings on the kitchen counter were broken and all the windows were greasy. We came to an agreement with the landlord that he would lower the price and we wouldn’t ask for the apartment to be repainted. The one thing that we initially clashed over was a crack on the living room ceiling that looked more serious than old paint. We had to insert a clause in our contract that we would not be liable for rent or a tenancy agreement until an engineer had ensured us in a written form that the ceiling was safe. Luckily, the landlord eventually agreed. You might be wondering why I am even mentioning this, if, after all, it was resolved. Because I cannot believe this was an issue to begin with. I am from Greece, an earthquake prone country, so I understand that my worry was probably greater than that of a British tenant, but the fact that I had to ask and insert as a special clause in my contract that the landlord had to ensure the ceiling wouldn’t fall onto my head is insane. Either that, or I am.

This might have been a good indication that this was not going to be an easy relationship. We moved in about a month and a half later and found the house in a state. It was far from professionally clean; it was filthy. Dirty carpets, stained mattresses, broken appliances, no working lightbulbs, the whole nine yards. It was nothing like the house we saw at the viewing. It was also filled with old, rusty items that we had no reason to keep in the property. We spent three days tirelessly cleaning the property. Thankfully, we immediately emailed the agency to let them know that we are in no way obliged to professionally clean the property when we leave, considering the state we received it in. They assured us that we were indeed not expected to professionally clean the property. We also decided that after the landlord’s approval for each and every item, we would give these away to a charity and get the landlord some tax credit. Then, we found out the radiators didn’t work. Yes, we did bleed them. No, that made no difference. Then, we moved around some furniture only to find a pest infestation underneath anything wooden. For my own bedroom, there was a nice bed, a broken chest of drawers and a broken closet, where the back panel was coming right off, all wooden.

The landlord was again very reluctant to spend money to check our radiators, we were of course given no help with the infestation and the agency would only verbally agree with us that these are real issues, but explain that the landlord was not willing to do anything about it. Then came the mistake on my part; not being demanding enough. I knew I needed to ask for a new chest of drawers, as the current one would not open or close, but figured I could make do with the cupboard if i use some duct tape to stabilise the back panel. Let me jump forward to when we were asked to pay 300 pounds for its replacement! More on that later.

During any tenancy, people from British Gas need to inspect the property for gas leaks etc. Twice in our tenancy they found that the boiler was not positioned correctly and was likely to leak gas and, interestingly enough, explode! Apparently it was not well sealed outside the property and an air shaft would have made our end of tenancy a lot more imminent and dramatic. Of course the landlord refused to pay for any private contractor and we had to shut down the warm water and heat supply for about two weeks each time. It might not sound like much, but bear in mind this was England; the weather was mainly cold.

Towards the end of our tenancy there was a drainage blockage in the kitchen sink, where we called a private contractor after the landlord initially refused to pay as this was most likely our doing. We thought that was reasonable and did book a plumber ourselves. Only to find out it wasn’t our doing and the plumber had to actually come back and replace the ancient valves underneath our sink and charge us over a hundred pounds for it. He did however leave a report stating that this was due to faulty valves and needs to be covered by the landlord. I will let you guess whether he did indeed cover the cost or not.

I have written so much mostly because thinking about our tenancy made my blood boil and resulted in me rage-typing, but also to paint a picture. In my view we did nothing wrong; we were always on time with payments, we had the customary direct debit set up, we never caused any trouble to the building and left the property in a cleaner state than we received it; as even stated in the check-out report. In return, we had a landlord who systematically ignored obvious issues with the property, which made our living situation very difficult, and an agency that would simply convey the messages: ‘It is an old property’, ‘I understand but he doesn’t’ etc.

Let’s get to the cherry on top of this cake. The deposit dispute. After all of these experiences and after leaving the property clean and well sustained over the years, the landlord requested holding two thirds of our deposit. The demands included professional cleaning of the carpets, replacement of a stained mattress, replacement of a broken closet and numerous missing items. We could hardly believe it; there was an email clearly stating that we were not required to professionally clean the property, there were pictures of the stained mattress in the inventory as well as a description of the broken closet and an email regarding a lot of these missing items to be given to charity. A lot of the other missing items, though, were surely in the property. During our dispute we saw the breakdown of this last holding and realised that these missing items rounded up to a price of 700 pounds, which did not correspond to any thought out calculations. Not to mention that one of those missing items was a lightbulb. Which, considering that we walked into a property with no working lightbulbs means they owed us about 14 lightbulbs instead, as far as I am concerned. Other missing items included a bed stand that was simply in a different room but visible in the check-out report, the closet doors (as a separate charge to the closet that would supposedly need 300 pounds for replacement) and a plastic (broken) bin which was, regardless, in the property.

We began emailing the agency explaining exactly how unreasonable these claims were and I, in all my English-learnt politeness, urged them to remove the duct tape and return the closet to its original broken glory if they wanted. They didn’t find that amusing, nor recognise our well-placed frustration. Nor, by the way, inform us that we had a limited amount of time to go forward with a formal dispute. When we did go forward with a formal dispute, the agency provided written support for the landlord, ignoring all our previous evidence to the contrary; emails, photos, inventory and check-out report segments. We couldn’t believe that with what we considered hard evidence, we were still asked to leave more than half of our deposit behind. Luckily, whoever made a choice on our dispute took our side. We were charged 50 pounds for damages to the walls that the landlord could have claimed but didn’t, 50 pounds for the closet, I am assuming to deal with the duct tape that kept pests out of my closet, and half of the amount for the missing items as they weren’t visible in the checkout pictures. From what I understand, this is the ‘Tenants are right, but let’s find some middle ground’ approach.

Our outcome was not bad, we loved that property because of all our memories there, but this sort of treatment cannot be standard. I understand that coming from Greece, I am used to the exact opposite behaviour. In Greece, if you renew your contract the landlord will lower rather than raise the rent, because he saves money on advertising and dealing with agents. Apparently, that is unheard of in England. Secondly, if a tenant fails to pay rent, he cannot legally be kicked out of the property; a lot of Greek landlords are actually having tons of trouble because of how unprotected they are. I am not suggesting that the English renting market is turned upside down, but there cannot be that much of a gap between landlord and tenant rights. For the time being, we will relish on the little damages the check-out report didn’t pick up on that hopefully future tenants will, and ask the landlord to pay for. It’s small bits of justice that get you through your tenancy.