Taking Landlord to Court

We have lived in our current house since last December. We switched leases in July and at that time gave our landlord a £500 deposit. We asked at the time we gave it to her to put it into the DPS and she didn't. She started claiming that the DPS was a scam to steal the money. It is now November and she has still not put our deposit into a protection scheme. We would like to go ahead and file against her for this (we checked with the DPS and we are in the type of tenancy that requires landlords to participate in a protection scheme, so I know we're in the right). 

Has anyone here done this? Is it just a matter of submitting paperwork and documents, or will there be an actual court date?  If she puts the deposit into a protection scheme now or when she sees we filed against her, are we still able to to continue our case since no matter what she does now, she didn't deposit it within 14 days or receiving it? We intend to continue living here, although I'm a bit worried she'll try to evict us on bogus charges afterward. We just don't want the hassle of moving if we can avoid it, but she's a terrible landlord for a variety of reasons and I don't trust her with the deposit at all, so I feel that we have to move forward with this. Any personal experiences or insight would be great! My husband is going to the CAB next week to talk about it, but personal stories would be very helpful

I'm sorry to hear of the issues you're having.

IMO I'd honestly speak with Citizen's Advice over this, which it looks like your hubs is doing next week.  They'd know how best to handle this or at least be able to point you in the right direction.  As I've never been a tenant I can't give any accurate advice on your rights or anything like that, however I would be more concerned for your agreement with your landlord if you're not in this scheme and also whom drew up your contract (if you have one), ie.  are you renting direct from the landlord or through an estate agency to regulate this?    

Good luck!

We found the house through the owner of an estate agency (Reeds Rains), but the actual tenancy wasn't through the agency. The owner of the agency knows the landlord and drew up the paperwork for everything. That lease was December-July 09. Our landlord found out that he'd pocketed half of our initial payment (6 months' rent) and told her that we were behind by 3 months, so when she realized he was basically stealing from her, we mutually agreed to cut him out of it when we renewed the lease. For that, in July, we basically made copies of the original lease, agreed upon a few written-in changes, and went with that. So it's a private rental with an idiot landlord.

The contract is okay, we both knew what to look for in it. It's just her completely disregarding the deposit protection that's the issue. (Although earlier this year we told her that there was a bird stuck behind our gas fireplace. She insisted we were wrong. Then the bird died. Finally I had to get nasty with her on the phone and she sent a PLUMBER out to prove me wrong. I guess the soot-covered dead bird he pulled out was a figment of my imagination D:<

You will have to apply to the County Court who will order your landlady to pay the money into a scheme, else she has to refund you three times what you paid her. There are also some additional protections from eviction for people in this situation. Perhaps if you print these out and give them to her she will think again and save you the hassle of taking her to court:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TenancyDeposit/DG_066373

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/paying_for_a_home/tenancy_deposits/deposit_protection_schemes

I've actually read all of that already and given her the information about it (and the consequences of not paying into it) several times over the last several months and she still has chosen not to. Are you saying that if we took her to court over it, they would just order her to put it into a scheme instead of fining her? Because as far as I can read, she's already broken the law by not having put it into a scheme within 14 days of receiving it, so it wouldn't make much sense for them to give her an order to put it in when she's already in violation.

I might be wrong but I don't think they will order her to pay the fine until you move out and try to recover the deposit. If she ignores the court order, she could be held in comtempt of  court which is a criminal offence. She will be advised of that so if she'd rather go to jail AND end up paying the fine as well rather than put the money in the scheme, then good luck to her!

The way I was reading it, what they do is order the deposit go into a scheme and she pay the fine to us, which would mean it didn't have to wait until the end of the tenancy (since they'd be ordering it be put into a scheme). Once my husband gets clarification at the CAB, I'll definitely make sure to post it here since the wording is a bit confusing.

I just found this which is clearer:

Failure to comply carries the following penalties:
Where the landlord does not inform the tenant of the whereabouts of the deposit, the tenant can apply to the local courts. The courts can then order the landlord to either repay the deposit or get it protected. If the courts wishes are not carried out within 14 days the landlord will be ordered to repay three times the amount of the deposit to the tenant within 10 days. Futhermore where the deposit has not been protected the landlord can not evict the tenant using a Section 21. Therefore, by not securing the deposit you will not be able to get your house back and face a large fine.

http://www.lettings-landlords.co.uk/info/deposits.html

Ah, great resource, thank you!

I know this is super old but I was wondering what the outcome of this was?  My BF is in a similar situation with his landlord, except in a house share situation, and I was specifically wondering if the landlord was able to get out of paying the fine by setting up the scheme within 14 days of the court order.