Final Accounts

• Don’t forget to notify gas, telephone and electricity companies of exactly when you are leaving, and, as you move out, take a meter reading to check against your closing accounts.
• Tell the local authority and water companies that you are leaving too.
• Give everyone a forwarding address for the sending of final accounts.
• Those of you wanting to speed up deposit returns may well consider settling final bills over the phone with a debit card and asking for a verifiable payment number. Others will visit council offices, pay their final accounts and get receipts for doing so.

 

All these things help landlords/agents make the speediest deposit refunds. If you’ve been one of the many silly tenants who believed that by keeping a low profile you’d get away with costs, think again. Landlords/agents automatically provide all the authorities and utilities with details of new tenants – in the end, your liabilities will always catch up with you.

Once You Have Left

Having left the property and given back the keys you may find that some private landlords inspect that day, and send your deposit to your provided forwarding address immediately. A few may even inspect just before you leave and pay you there and then, but this is rare. Most landlords/agents need a bit of time in an empty unit to go through the place with their own inventory and few of us appreciate having the tenant present, breathing down our necks in what must be a detailed process. It’s also likely to become even rarer with the new deposit systems.

Most agencies and private landlords, quite reasonably, not only check the building, but need formal confirmation that you have settled all your final accounts before moving on. Given the number of tenants who try to leave behind a mountain of debts, this is a sensible precaution for managers to take. As well as the work involved, no new tenant wants to move into any property which has unpaid bills outstanding, or bad payment records. Each new tenant is entitled to a ‘clean sheet’. Properties with records of County Court judgments can be a nightmare to move in to, as no one will give the new tenants any credit without immense amounts of hassle.

If you haven’t paid your own bills, don’t be surprised if your deposit is used to pay them. New systems are being brought in to protect tenants from abuse, not to allow them to avoid settling their own debts.

The Dreaded Time Lag

The new rules will insist that deposit refunds reach tenants within ten days. Unfortunately, the length of time that (even within reasonable practices) it takes to receive your original deposit back from one property, in order to make a move, can leave people trapped. If you are utterly dependent on the deposit held by one landlord to pay the deposit on the next unit, and you want to move from one to the other immediately (as most of us do), you can have real difficulty. The value of having a good relationship with your existing landlord is again obvious.

However it’s not always possible to get a landlord/agent to co-operate, and some landlords can be very oppressive about this. There are unfortunately no easy solutions to needing your deposit back from an unco-operative landlord or agent, to enable you to move to something better.

It really is a Catch 22 situation, which no amount of experience can really resolve, and one which bad practitioners can, and regrettably do exploit, leaving poorer tenants vulnerable and understandably frustrated. I’m not even certain how the new system can help those who need their deposit back to move on within 24 hours. Not everyone has a helpful bank manager, or a generous parent to tide us over a critical ten days. Let’s hope for better things after April 2007, where at least an obligation for part/full refunds becomes ten days.

For those of you using independent landlords, with whom you’ve enjoyed a good business relationship, there’s at least a chance of fast movement.

Deposits Taken From Tenants At Any Time Before 6 April 2007

There are two letters in Appendix 4 that you could find helpful if you are experiencing any difficulty in obtaining a deposit refund (under the old system, which will still affect tenants for quite some time yet). The first is a polite letter to be copied out and posted ten days after you vacate, if you are still waiting. Enclose photocopies of any receipts etc. The second is a much stronger letter to be posted within seven days of the first, if you are still waiting. Once it ever becomes necessary to start writing for your deposit, you have reached the stage when you must register all letters so that you can prove that you have written.

If Your Money Still Doesn’t Arrive

Tenants who have returned the property they have been renting in good condition, and have proof that no outstanding bills remain unsettled, should have absolutely no hesitation in both threatening and then taking action for its recovery in the Small Claims Court (see letter in Appendix 4). These are inexpensive and effective. In most cases simply sounding well informed, and writing a letter that sounds competent, will be sufficient to concentrate the mind of whoever it is who is being slow. Your Citizens’ Advice Bureau will write letters on your behalf, as will local law centres. If you have also made your own accurate provisions for proof (photos and witnesses), as suggested earlier, you will be even better protected.