A Salford student paid a solicitor to help retrieve her and her flatmate’s £1,750 deposit after facing “ridiculous” claims from the landlord.
Many students across the UK have to fight against ludicrous claims to get their deposit back on their student house and 22-year-old Mia from Skipton was no different.
Mia Fitton paid for a solicitor’s assistance after her landlord tried to claim 83 per cent of the total deposit back, two months after it was due to be returned.
Mia studied journalism at The University of Salford and claims that she left her student house on Highfield Road, Pendleton in a “spotless” condition when she moved out in June 2023.
Mia added: “When leaving we spent a full day cleaning the house making sure everything was spotless. We scrubbed the oven, we scrubbed all the showers, we scrubbed everything, it was literally cleaner than when we moved in.”
Listed below are a few images of the mouldy fridge and the state of the appliances in the house when the tenants first moved into the property in 2021.
Mia’s flatmate Ruby, 22, from York stated: “Well when we first moved in it was honestly just a complete mess, it was awful.
“It wasn’t really suitable to live in, we walked in and it was obvious straight away that no hoovering had been done, no sort of dusting had been done.
“I remember walking through to the kitchen and opening up the fridge, which was awful, when we first opened it up, it was green there was mould everywhere, it stank and it had obviously been turned off and not touched for weeks/ months.”
After moving out in July 2023 Mia emailed the letting agents of the house, Mistoria Estate Agents, to see if she could contact the landlord to get the deposits.
On September 28, almost three months after, they received an email to confirm the ‘Checkout Inspection’ had been completed.
The Checkout Inspection determined that the over-use of the utilities in the house would amount to a staggering £1193. The ‘general clean throughout’ would cost £215 and the cost of the rubbish removal would amount to £50.
Outraged, Mia contacted the Deposit Protection Service (DPS) to dispute the claims. Infuriated and determined to claim what was rightfully hers, Mia produced a PowerPoint Presentation that addressed every “ridiculous” claim from the landlord. The PowerPoint included the state of the rooms when they moved out and when they first moved in.
One slide in the PowerPoint also addressed the landlord’s claim of the over-use of utilities. Mia claimed that her flatmates had “no idea where the landlord got that figure from.”
“If I could give one piece of advice to any student renting a student house is to take pictures of every single room and everything that’s broken when you first move in,” said Mia.
“At first, we went round and made a list of everything that was broken and everything that was unclean. Throughout our stay we screenshotted every email that we’d ever sent as well, so we had a good bank of emails if we needed to dispute anything.”
Mia also paid for a solicitor to watch her fill out a Statutory Declaration Form to complete the dispute process.
Based on the mounting evidence that Mia submitted, Mia and her flatmates were awarded the full amount of their deposit back.
This was obviously a triumphant success for the students, however many other students across the UK are likely to experience the same thing.
Mia added: “Students are an easy target because they’re desperate to live somewhere and there’s not a lot of choice in Salford, as I’m sure there isn’t in other student areas in the UK.”
According to the CBRE Group the UK’s major university towns are facing a shortage of more than 350,000 beds. This is because demand continues to outweigh both the supply and delivery of student accommodation.
Mia added: “I think a lot of students just can’t be bothered to go through that whole process really, especially if you’re a second year student and you’ve just moved out, you don’t really have time to go through this long process.
“And to be honest most people don’t take photos of their rooms or screenshot emails but we were just lucky that we actually did and it worked out.
“If you are a student moving into a student house please take photos of everything from day one and date it, and make an inventory list, date it and sign it at the bottom. Because they can’t argue with that.”
In response to the tenants’ claims, Salford Now contacted Student Haus who is a part of the Mistoria Estate Agents group.
A spokesperson for Student Haus commented: “Tenants’ wellbeing is always a top priority at Student Haus. We provide high quality services to our tenants and aim to build longstanding relationships with them. To hear that one of our ex-tenants felt differently is naturally disappointing for us.
“In cases of disputes over deposits, it is important to note that we act as the intermediary between the tenants and the external landlord who owns the property. Ultimately, it will always be DPS’s decision, not a landlord’s or lettings agents’, to award or not to award the claims.
“We checked our records and were pleased to learn that (the tenants) stayed at the property for two years. This gives us the satisfaction that there weren’t any issues during their stay with us. The fact that they extended their stay after the first year indicates that they were happy in the property.”
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