Deposit scheme help?

How binding is the deposit protection scheme?  Keeping this general to avoid trouble, but say one had their final check out on an apartment and all was deemed to be in good order and the full deposit was refunded, is there any way the landlord can claw back any supposed "damages" after the fact?   

We've now been informed that there is a problem and they want to bill us for some items.  It's been several weeks.  I was under the impression (wrongly?) that the check out and condition statement was binding and that if we've received our money that our obligation has ended.  Is this true? 

Obviously, I am furious at what I feel to be trumped up charges, but more than that, I am deeply concerned that we are about to get sued.

Please don't quote, as I will likely remove this in short order.  But I am deeply distressed that someone is trying to take advantage of us.

Information on the Tenancy Deposit Scheme can be found here but it looks like anything legally binding to do with charges levied against you after you have moved from the property should have been detailed in your contract.

Under the terms of the TDS, if the landlord has signed the check-out, they CANNOT later claim back any damages.  Best course of action is to seek advice from the administrator of the scheme (DPS/TDS/mydeposits) and then forward that onto your landlord and ignore any requests for money.

Thank you both SO much.  Maybe I'll actually sleep tonight.  Presumably it was their signing of the checkout that got us our deposit back, right?  I have the initial check out paperwork, but not a signed copy.  We do already have our deposit in hand (well, in bank) as a result of the check out from the inspector. 

I'll definitely contact the administrator tomorrow.  My gut has said that this is all BS, and in the US, it wouldn't fly at all -- but I'm completely out of my league here (and I suspect they're counting on that) and have been panicking since we were contacted.

Ugh.

Yeah, basically if your administrator confirms what we've been saying then your landlord has no basis for their claim and there's nothing (legally) they could do to force you to pay the "charges".  The whole point of the scheme is to protect you from these sort of situations .

Oh crap.  I think maybe I am a total idiot.    We naively thought we were in a scheme when we really were not.  There's no mention of an administrator.  At the outset, we wrote a check to the estate agent and they handled all of the money and at the end, they released our deposit to us, but there was never any mention of a third party administrator.  We were under the impression that that was how the deposit scheme worked, but I am now guessing we weren't a part of it.    What utter fools we were.  Thank you all for your help.

When did you pay the deposit on the property in question?  If it was after April 2007 and you let through a company, your deposit was probably automatically a part of the scheme.

When we let our current place in September 2008, one of the things we signed that day was an agreement about the deposit protection scheme - easy to overlook if you're signing a million different pieces of paper at once!

Even if you weren't part of the scheme, the agent completed the checklist and you got your deposit back, plain and simple. They were responsible to ensure everything was in good order and since it was, you received your deposit back. If the landlord has an issue then they can take it up with the Estate Agent to get money from them. (I am sure it's a worthless claim anyway).

The whole reason why the scheme was set up was because of big, bad landlords in the UK. A lot of them (not all) will try every trick in the book to keep deposits or charge for no reason.

Note: Our landlord tried to pull a fast one on us, the lease stated a one month notice to leave the house which we gave her yet (30 days later) during the final walk through she pulled out a BLANK lease template which said two month's notice and said we owed her another month (800 pounds).  Luckily I had the original copy of the lease which said one month. Basically we told her she was flipping mad and she wasn't getting a penny more from us.   That was just one of many things she pulled on us during our time in the house.

Please don't lose sleep over this. Stay firm and tell the EA that they signed off and everything was fine as far as they were concerned (many weeks ago) that is why they gave you the deposit back so they can take up the request for money with the LL and pay (not you), it's been done and dusted as far as you are concerned.


Crossed with Meg's...good to hear that the scheme is automatic, so even better for you to get some support from it.

What Meg said...if you signed a lease post-April 2007 you are still covered.  If the agent didn't use a TDS-type scheme then they're also in legal trouble.  It doesn't even necessarily have to be a "scheme" - there's special bank accounts that can hold the money in the same way.

Even if you wind up not being TDS-protected you're probably still fine.  Your landlord's claims would never hold up in any sort of small claims court, which is where it would go if they ever had the cajones to pursue it that far.  If the EA signed off on the check-out your landlord should take it up with THEM that they're unhappy with the job, not so much with you!

Phew.  Thank you all SO much.  I worked myself into a total panic last night.  Logically, I know this is all BS, but it's definitely scary not knowing the legal ramifications the same way I do in the US.  This was our first lease in the UK and it was definitely post-2007.  I'd been so fearful from all of the check-out horror stories that I've heard that we spent an absolute fortune on a cleaner, replaced anything that might possibly have been remotely considered damaged and spent the year terrified of breathing too deeply lest we mark the walls or scuff the floors.  When we got the full deposit back, I breathed the most massive sigh of relief and then this crops up out of the blue. 

I'm sure this fear is what they're banking on.  We were really awesome tenants, if I do say so myself.  I'm really appalled that they're operating in such a slimy fashion.  I think I'd always been lucky in the US, I'd never had any sort of problem with deposits and in all cases, we left the place in the exact same (but usually BETTER!) shape that it was when we moved in.  So this is just a shock to my delicate sensibilities ( ) as much as frank outrage. 

Thanks again, I really appreciate the insight, information AND the calm down.