TDS Claim on Verbal Agreement - No longer tenant

[CNSam]

Hello there,

 

I've been doing some digging around the Tenancy Deposit Scheme as myself and girlfriend have recently left our tenancy at a 3 month let and have sought our deposit back. The landlord has stated that he is not willing to return the full amount back due to a number of issues which we are disputing. We have had a wide range of issues with this private landlord and property during our tenancy unfortunately no contracts were ever signed and was a verbal agreement although we do have some written emails as proof of our tenancy at the property including dates etc.

 

During negotiations and decision making on the tenancy the landlord expressed that he would be running the Tenancy via an estate agents, we knew of the excessive charges that said agency charge and were moving from one end of the country to another so wanted to save a few pennies to which he agreed upon - perhaps the wrong move here.

 

This lead us to believe that the landlord would arrange the necessary documentation for us and that our deposit would indeed be put into the relevant SDS however we never received anything and have gone on with thinking that a verbal agreement was enough after all the tenanacy was only 3 months and they seemed quite genuine people (mistake here).

 

We were well aware of the SDS and that the landlord should have complied with this but it seems he hasn't. We have left the tenancy and the property now and have only just realised that the deposit we handed over of £500 has not been placed into the required schemes.

 

I am wondering as we are no longer within the tenancy or have no written contract do we have a right to claim through small claims to obtain our deposit back regardless of the 'damage claims' he is making of which he has no proof of?

 

Regards

Sam

[mariner51]

IMO you can claim for return of deposit via SCC, expect LL to counterclaim for damage.

 

What were the terms agreed verbally for a 3 month occupation?

[CNSam]

Hello there,

 

Thanks for your response. The verbal agreement was that we would pay £500 pcm for a maximum period of 3 months from January 5th 2013. The damage the LL is claiming for is 'damage to paintwork' from a large amount of damp which we notified him of and which he was aware of, apparently it was our duty to wipe this damp away - Upon raising this issue he notified that we could leave the tenancy when we liked, we took his offer from this but unfortunately we didn't find anywhere until the end of our tenancy anyway.

 

We expect a counter claim but I don't believe he has anything to stand on, we have emails as evidence of our conversation regarding the damp issues along with photographic evidence.

 

Regards

Sam