Hmm, I'm reading the above information quite differently: (b) is used both for the purposes of retail trade or business and for the purposes of wholesale trade and is used wholly or mainly for those two purposes considered together, is to be regarded as a shop for the purposes of this Schedule. To me, that states that the my place of work would be regarded as a shop, for the purposes of this schedule, and therefore the act would be applicable. No? Or am I just being rather foolish!?

Hi, I'm just looking for some advice here as I'm a little confused! I was hoping to use the above named acts to state that I no longer wished to work on a Sunday. However, during a conversation with a colleague at work today (I work in a wholesaler) and they said that an employee had tried to use the legislation to opt-out of working Sundays, but the request was refused on the grounds that as we are a wholesaler, and not a shop, we are exempt from the legislation. Can anyone shed any light on this as to whether this is true? I've tried searching online, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer. Thank you in advance.

Anyone able to help?

Yes, I am in Edinburgh in Scotland Does that make a difference?

Thanks for your reply! Although I technically haven't paid the FULL amount of the deposit until tomorrow when I am due to pay the last payment of £350. So far I have only paid £300 of the required £650. So would tomorrow, since that is the first day he has the "full" deposit be the day from which he is required to register it in a TDS? Or should he have registered it from the beginning when I started paying his the monthly installments? Cheers

We moved into our new house in April on a Short Assured Tenancy. We were experiencing some financial difficulties at the time, so we agreed with the landlord to "pay up" the deposit over a period of 4 months. We agreed to pay £100 extra for the first 3 months in addition to the rent, and then on the 4th month to pay an extra £350, making a total deposit payable of £650 (one months rent). Last month our landlord started to become somewhat of a nightmare - allowing his friends to enter our house with his set of keys without our knowledge to retrieve his mail, refusing to repair appliances etc. So we came on here to read up on a few issues. It was here we discovered about the TDS. We contacted our landlord to ask what scheme we were in and he said none, he'd never heard of it. After several conversations, it has transpired we are in no TDS and he says that because we agreed to "pay up" the deposit, this excludes us from the TDS and as far as he is concerned, that's it - he'll keep the deposit in his account. When I suggested to him that as we were "paying up" the deposit, surely it would have made more sense for him to take out the form of TDS insurance...he replied that as far as he's concerned the matter is closed - he doesn't have to comply with the TDS. We're read on here that you can claim 3x the amount back via the courts, but to be honest we'd be happy to just have the deposit amount we've paid back so we know he isn't going to try and keep it or anything. So, this brings me to the question. We've paid 3 months of £100, so he has £300 in deposit so far. This month we are due to pay the final installment of £350 - are we within our rights to not pay this to him? Also, can we ask him to return the £300 deposit also? Thanks in advance for your help!

Sorry - didn't mean to double post. Can someone please remove? Thanks

Thanks for your advice guys, we have been searching the internet for a while trying to find out some info, but can't seem to find out whether we can legally change the locks or not. Obviously we don't want to do anything that would compromise our tenancy. Another question now, just to complicate it even further, I have just come off the phone to our landlord, who has said that we are now due to start paying him council tax. Obviously I was confused as to what he was talking about, but it appears that he has decided to keep the council tax in his name (his excuse was that it would be cheaper for us as he could claim a single person discount!) and that we are now to pay him the council tax. I have told him absolutely no way - that is illegal! We already pay our council tax to the council. It is obvious he is still using this as his address though - why else would he still want to remain on the council tax, and probaly the electoral roll etc. He's obviously then not paying the correct council tax in London - although i'm guessing it is probably cheaper for him to commit fraud and pay Edinburgh rate council tax!!! We're obviously now very worried that this landlord is turning out to be.... well, incredibly dodgy and nothing more than a conman!

We moved into a new house in April in Edinburgh. It is a short assured tenancy agreement. Our landlord lives in London, so we very rarely hear from him. However, last week we were astounded when two Chinese men entered our property using a key. Our first reaction was that we were being burgled! The two men spoke very broken English, however we eventually established they were the landlords friends and he had asked them to come around to collect his mail! We told them to leave immediately, and that if they ever attempted to gain entry to our house again that we would call the police. We called our landlord as soon as they left, however, he seemed more annoyed that we had asked his "friends" to leave HIS house!!! His explanation for them coming was to collect his mail that is delivered to the house. We told him it was totally unacceptable to allow his friends a set of keys to access our home to collect mail - he said that he had tried to call us all day (which he hadn't at all!) and that because we hadn't answered his calls that day he was entitled to enter the house, although as he wasn't here, he is able to instruct his "agent" (to which there is no reference in the contract!) to enter. We just want some advice here...firstly, is he allowed to give his "friends" a set of the keys? He has said that as he lives in London and the property is in Edinburgh, someone needs a set of keys in case of an emergency. Obviously we are extremely reluctant at his friends having keys now! Can we insist that he takes the set of keys off his friends? Is he (the landlord) even allowed a set? What we find most disturbing is that his "friends" would have no idea where we stored the landlords mail, and so they would obviously have been searching our house going through our personal and valuables trying to locate this. Also, the mail he is getting sent to our home is ridiculous - it's about 4 or 5 letters a day. We suspect he is using our home address as his address for his correspondence. We have asked him several times to have his mail redirected to his own address and to change his address with these companies. He seems to ignore us. Can we now, after 4 months, simply put his mail back in the mail box and write "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS"? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks

I'm with RBS...would be available in my account as of Monday.

Am I right in thinking that a credit union can offer a loan to its members even if they have rubbish credit history? I have been reading some of their websites and it seems as though as you pay in a regular saving amount from your salary (deducted at source), then they don't do a credit search on you. Thanks for your help.

Let me explain the background to this... Around 2 years ago my partner and I moved into our first flat together. We had a tough few months, several things went wrong and at one point we were both out of work, and both claiming job seekers allowance. This was probably for about 2 or 3 months. We were also claiming housing benefit. After about 3 months I got a job. We ended our claim for job seekers allowance, and sent a letter to the council (who deal with housing benefit) explaining that we were no longer claiming job seekers allowance as I was now in full time employment, but that as only one of us was working full time would like to still continue claiming housing benefit, or at least part of it. We said if there were any problems to contact us. Nobody contacted us so we assumed everything was OK...things were pretty tight, and my partner wasn't able to work for a while due to health problems, so we survived on my salary as our only income. Then out of the blue we received a letter from the council saying that they were no longer paying us Housing Benefit, and that they had been overpaying us for a while, and therefore we were due them over £4000! Anyway, it turns out they never received our letter...or so they say... We just accepted it and started paying rent ourself, and we assumed that would be the end of it. We thought it had been sorted out with the council. However, a few days ago out of the blue my partner received a "Summary Cause Summons" saying that we had to go to court regarding the money we owed them. Now we are confused! Initially when we contacted the council the lady on the phone was quite rude and said that we had committed benefit fraud by not telling the council of our new circumstances. When I said to her we had, we sent them a letter at the same time we informed the job centre of my new job, she totally dismissed it. But now someone has said to us it isn't really our fault that they never received the letter, we thought we did everything right in informing them of our new circumstances, so if they ended our claim and are claiming the money they paid us is an overpayment, that isn't our fault. They also said that since we have been paying rent ourselves, that we should be able to have some sort of back claim? I'm all confused! We're slightly worried too, don't know what to do as the council seem to be intent on painting a bad picture of the situation when we try talk to them. What should we do? Thanks for your help!

Let me explain the background to this... Around 2 years ago my partner and I moved into our first flat together. We had a tough few months, several things went wrong and at one point we were both out of work, and both claiming job seekers allowance. This was probably for about 2 or 3 months. We were also claiming housing benefit. After about 3 months I got a job. We ended our claim for job seekers allowance, and sent a letter to the council (who deal with housing benefit) explaining that we were no longer claiming job seekers allowance as I was now in full time employment, but that as only one of us was working full time would like to still continue claiming housing benefit, or at least part of it. We said if there were any problems to contact us. Nobody contacted us so we assumed everything was OK...things were pretty tight, and my partner wasn't able to work for a while due to health problems, so we survived on my salary as our only income. Then out of the blue we received a letter from the council saying that they were no longer paying us Housing Benefit, and that they had been overpaying us for a while, and therefore we were due them over £4000! Anyway, it turns out they never received our letter...or so they say... We just accepted it and started paying rent ourself, and we assumed that would be the end of it. We thought it had been sorted out with the council. However, a few days ago out of the blue my partner received a "Summary Cause Summons" saying that we had to go to court regarding the money we owed them. Now we are confused! Initially when we contacted the council the lady on the phone was quite rude and said that we had committed benefit fraud by not telling the council of our new circumstances. When I said to her we had, we sent them a letter at the same time we informed the job centre of my new job, she totally dismissed it. But now someone has said to us it isn't really our fault that they never received the letter, we thought we did everything right in informing them of our new circumstances, so if they ended our claim and are claiming the money they paid us is an overpayment, that isn't our fault. They also said that since we have been paying rent ourselves, that we should be able to have some sort of back claim? I'm all confused! We're slightly worried too, don't know what to do as the council seem to be intent on painting a bad picture of the situation when we try talk to them. What should we do? Thanks for your help!

Yeah...just got off the phone to Next - apparently there is nothing I can do, they are closing the account! Eek! Can't believe that though - it's been run perfectly well! Oh well!

Thanks for your reply! I've managed to speak to a customer relations manager - she seemed nice enough and she's going to look into it and get back to me. Even if they do want to close my account/reduce credit limit I just think that they surely must have to give me some prior notice in writing...no?