In the eight years we've been running Simply Let, we've hardly ever had any difficulties over deposits. Our tenants are usually responsible folks. We visit them from time to time mid-tenancy and raise any deposit-threatening concerns we might have as a result, so that there's ample time for tenants to address them before end of tenancy, and generally it has all worked pretty well. In most cases we've been able to return deposits in full and, where retentions have been considered necessary, tenants have been happy to agree.
One tenant took us to the small claims court alleging wrongful retention of deposit (we had instructed cleaners to remove crumbs and some food residues and mould from the fridge interior) Summoned before the Sheriff to explain ourselves, production of before and after digital images soon saw her sent packing. On another occasion a young couple sought to recover from us a deposit retention to cover advertisng costs. Having specifically sought a 12-month term they then sought landlord's agreement to relinquish their tenancy mid-term, and that consent was granted conditional on their covering re-letting costs. They referred Simply Let to Landlord Accreditation Scotland alleging we weren't acting in the manner required of an accreditted agent, but declined to engage in dialogue with us as required by LAS. They declined also to pursue our Complaints Management Procedure (reference to Ombudsman) and the matter just fizzled out.
In eight years that's about it - about 1% of deposit retentions causing grief.
Why then do we now find ourselves spending many valuable hours in the completely unproductive process of transferring tenants' deposits from our client bank account (where the cash is protected by RICS Client Money Protection Scheme ) to SafeDeposits Scotland ? I accept that not all agents are as rigorous with third-party cash as Simply Let is and there is without doubt a small minority of landlords who will set out to deliberately avoid handing back tenants' deposits. But apart from those instances most difficulties will have arisen through misunderstanding and poor communication. Misunderstanding by tenants of how they should leave the property or of what their landlord may use the deposit for, and misunderstanding by landlords of what they may use the deposit for and how clear they need to make that to their tenants.
I don't grudge SafeDeposits Scotland the money. It may as well be in their bank account as ours and they're a decent cross-sector not-for-profit body who'll apply any surplus funds to the benefit of the rented sector. We wish them well.
What does grieve me is the approach taken by government, which fails to acknowledge best-practice where it exists and which seems to regard all landlords as potential criminals. Neither does government attach any relevence to the fact that Simply Let, as a firm Regulated by RICS, operates to a strict code of professional ethics and holds all third-party money in a discrete protected bank account quite separate from our own business funds. Why can't we have some government resources put into awareness-raising and capability building? A few carrots and less stick might just work wonders.
Moan over!
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