Deposit withheld - Letting Agent/landlord collusion

SoupyNorman

Hi all,

In a real pickle here, I’ll try not to rant as I’m pretty sure I have all my facts straight.

Me and my GF have finished out a lease after two great years living there. Never had a bit of trouble, when things needed fixing they were without delay. Likewise we paid our rent like clockwork which is a godsend to landlords these days.

Fast forward to this week, we moved out all of our stuff, mopped, hovered and dusted the place…to a standard we’d be happy to live in.

The letting agent called round for the sign off, all smiles and commented on what great tenants we were and how good we kept the place. Right before we signed off for the deposit she informed us of the €120 professional cleaning charge to be taken from the deposit (over €1000)…..WOOOOOAHAAAAAA. We instantly protested but as quick as she told us to contact the Landlord (A developers company) if we disputed this. We were straight onto them who sent us back to the letting agent.

Today and in the most cowardly fashion the letting agent mailed us to say that the fridge was not scrubbed clean, either was the shower and that they’d need a ‘professional clean’. I instantly responded with the quote from the PRTB website stating that a deposit can only be help for damage above wear and tear or arrears, the letting agent is persisting that cleaning falls above wear and tear **insert Jackie Chan WTF face here**.

You’ll just have to take my work that the Apartment was cleaned by us to a general standard, I was hovering the bedrooms when the agent called!!

They say that all vacating tenants have paid this but there is nothing stated in the lease nor was it ever mentioned until the last possible moment.

Am I anyway in the wrong here? And is there anything I can do bar go to the Sloth like PRTB?

I compare us having to ‘professionally clean’ the apartment to having to pay the valet cost for a car you’ve already sold to a dealer for the next owner.

TL;DR
Landlord/letting agent want to take €120 from our deposit to ‘professionally clean’ the apartment (which was left as clean as when we moved in), I’m adamant the law is on our side here but our deposit of over €1000 is still held by them.

January

Get onto Threshold who will probably get onto the letting agent for you.

not even wrong

The mere threat of a PRTB complaint may be enough to get you your deposit back, as these scumbags are breaking the law and they know they're breaking the law --- there's no way in hell that a professional full-time letting agent doesn't know the proper definition of "wear and tear".

Graces7

Tell the agent that you are reporting this to eg IAPVI ie their professional organisation. This is illegal and unprofessional.

Aye Bosun

If I was you, I'd say right so give me a list of the cleaning that needs to done and go in and do it yourself. Take photos and if they still persist in taking money off the deposit, then lodge a dispute with the PRTB.

If they are not happy with that solution, ask them for a receipt for the professional cleaning (they can't charge you for their own time) and lodge a dispute.

I have just finished a dispute with the PRTB for a similar case, landlord withheld €400 unjustifiably, nine months later and I was awarded €400 + €100 damages + €25.00 being the charge to bring the case to the court. I'd have paid €525 just to see the landlords' face when he opened that letter!

SoupyNorman

Well done, I respect your patience for going through the PRTB.

To be honest the letting agent suggested that we can go in and clean the highlighted areas, which I may have agreed to except for the fact that it was not mentioned at the sign off where we were there, actively cleaning. The agent could have said, unless these specific areas are cleaned you’ll be charged for cleaning so then and there we could have cleaned the areas but I believe this was not said was the €120 is pocketed by the letting agent.

As I said, the landlord is a management company so they employ cleaners to do all the landings/hallways etc And the vacated apartments I would imagine.

What I noticed yesterday is that the sign off sheet has areas that were and were not cleaned on one side, on the other is our deposit paid and under ‘deductions’ there is a zero. The letting agent signed this along with us and we have a copy.

I think this may have swung it for us as they were very vocal yesterday until I pointed this out.

I got in touch with the PRTB, they mostly agree with me on this. They did say that we maybe should have gave the showers and fridge a deep clean but that there is no definition of what standard of clean is acceptable in tenancy law.

All that said, they still have 100% of my deposit :mad: