A Landlord, and his Letting Agent, who failed to secure the deposit paid by our tenant client has now paid nearly £3,000 by way of compensation to our client in an out of Court settlement.
The issue here was that our Janine Griffiths was instructed by Mr N in relation to a deposit paid by him in September of 2017 when he undertook an Assured Shorthold Tenancy of a property via Letting Agents in Cardiff. He was provided with a receipt in respect of the deposit but, unfortunately, the Landlord and/or his Agents failed to comply with their obligations under Section 213 of the Housing Act 2004 which requires that any deposit be protected with a Government approved Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme within 30 days of payment of the deposit. Those obligations include the need for full details of the scheme utilised to be provided to the Tenant.
Our client in this matter was never provided with any such information and, therefore, instructed our Janine Griffiths to pursue the Landlord and/or Letting Agent for damages under Section 214 of the Housing Act 2004.
Our Janine Griffiths therefore corresponded with the Letting Agents and the Landlord but, unfortunately, received no response from them. In the circumstances, proceedings were issued against the Landlord and the Letting Agents and those proceedings were served by the Court upon the Defendants.
Still, neither the Landlord nor the Letting Agent made any contact with ourselves or the Court until the Court listed the matter for a Hearing to take place. At that stage, the Letting Agents contacted our Janine Griffiths and settlement of the matter was achieved on behalf of the Tenants with the Tenant receiving compensation of three times the amount of the original deposit plus payment of his legal costs in pursuing the matter.
Our Janine Griffiths confirmed that she was delighted with the results achieved on behalf of our client and stated that, “all too often, Landlords and Letting Agents take advantage of Tenants and assume, quite wrongly, that they can get away with flouting the laws in relation to Assured Shorthold Tenancies.
This client knew his rights and I am very pleased that we were able to conclude the matter in his favour prior to the need for him to attend Court and incur any further time and costs”.