Need advice please

[gallan947]

Hi guys / gals

I'm new here so I apologise if this has been discussed before, but would appreciate any advice or help.

sorry if its a bit long.

At the start of April 2006 I handed my property, a 3 bed house, to a new letting agency - the weekend the agent first viewed the house, Myself and 2 others had spent 2 days tidying, painting and fixing the garden - it's not a BBC landscaped garden but non the less it was all cut back and tidy. I said to the agent "as you can see i'm not a gardener" to which he agreed but said "its all cut back and looks low maintenance its ideal"

Towards the end of April 2006 a tenant was found, and took the house for 6 months, I received the inventory report from the agent at the time, which quoted the grass in the garden as overgrown - i put this down to the fact it was April, springtime and had been 3 weeks since i'd spent time there.

At the end of July, the agent carried out an inspection which came back saying the house was very untidy, and also the garden was 'untidy' - I raised concerns immediately with the agent, who informed me they'd written to the tenant informing them of a return visit in the next two weeks, when this was carried out, the house had been tidied up, although the garden was still said to be overgrown (garden tools, clippers, shears, lawnmower etc are all left available in the garden shed)

Start of November, the tenant gave his notice, and immediately the agent started looking for a new tenant, over the next 3 - 4 weeks, i would say 11 sets of possibles viewed the property, with non expressing an interest - this seemed odd to me as the house sits in a nice area, with nice views, and has plenty off road parking (a drive suitable for 5 cars), so one evening I drove up the country to view the house myself, I was shocked to see the front garden lawn had grown up higher than the front window, the plants on the drive had grown over the drive, to the extend the tenant was now parking on the road, you could see grass from the back garden was higher than the fence - i was amazed this had been left to get so bad, and how the agents had continued to show new tenants to a property in such a state,

I contacted the agents, who instructed a gardener to visit to rectify this problem, the gardeners bill game to just over £400, there was also an extra £80 bill for cleaning the kitchen and oven after the tenant vacated.

The next tenant to view the property took it on and moved in just before Xmas.

The problem i have now is this,

During the tenancy the tenant changed the utility card meters back to quarterly bills, which, he's not paid a single one, also he never paid council tax (i've read on the forum, i'm not responsible for these, which is a relief)

&

The ex-tenant is refusing to allow the garden or kitchen bills to be paid out of his deposit, he says the agent told him on his first viewing that "the landlord isn't bothered about the garden" so he didn't touch it, during the inspection i had with the agent, I mentioned this to the agent when they informed me that guy no longer works for them, at this point in time I said if the tenant is prepared to pay NOW to get this over and done with, i would meet him half way and pay 50%, this was the end of November.

Now, February, the agents taking our dispute to the deposit dispute services people, but has only claimed for the 50% claiming i said i'd pay the other 50%!

Where do i actually stand here? seems to me everything the agent does for me they mess it up, they certainly don't feel like their on my side - they told the guy to not worry about the garden, he originally took the house for a cpl of months, but stayed 9, during that time he didn't touch the garden once - a smoke alarm which was fixed to the kitchen has gone, the kitchen needed cleaning, the meters had been swapped and not paid, the council tax hadn't been paid etc.. but still I'm not allowed to keep part of his deposit, it seems tenants have much more rights than we do as landlords, the agents tell me they have photo's of the garden at the start and at the problematic times of the tenancy, do i just forward these onto the dispute people?

Any help or advice is greatly received.6

[GPEL]

When an offer is made to resolve an issue, this original offer is "killed-off" if you subsequently make a counter offer. It could be argued that your offer to fund 50% if the job was done immediately was "killed-off" by the delay and later offer by the agent to resolve via other means. Bottom line is that there is a legally binding contract between you and the tenant. If the agency subsequently verbally tries to vary that agreement, they are responsible for the consequences. The deposit is there for stated purposes and the resolution service should weigh up all factors.