After years of leaky roofs, dodgy heating and other
Rising Damp horror stories, students seemed to have stumbled into every available pitfall when moving into rented homes.
After years of leaky roofs, dodgy heating and other Rising Damp horror stories, students seemed to have stumbled into every available pitfall when moving into rented homes.
But yesterday the costly scandal of disappearing deposits, which sees hundreds of millions of deposit money disappearing each year into landlords' pockets - and reappearing (if at all) after months of delays and obfuscation - was laid bare.
A fifth of private tenants complain that all or part of their deposit has been unreasonably withheld, according to a report by the housing charity Shelter and Citizens Advice Bureaux.
The organisations said £800m of tenants' money was swilling around the system without stringent controls on how it was controlled. They have compiled a catalogue of abuse by landlords who have taken advantage of the relative powerlessness of tenants and refused to return deposits for spurious reasons.
Tenants are often unwilling to pursue cases through the courts because of the cost, the time it takes and the need for a landlord's reference to secure sought-after new properties.
Tenants, often among the less well paid and unable to get a foot on the property ladder, can be forced into crippling debt or in extreme cases forced to become homeless.
Students are among the worst hit, with 35,000 facing a summer cash crisis because of the difficulties of getting their deposits back from landlords, according to the study.
Verity Coyle of the National Union of Students said: "The arbitrary holding back of students' deposits are unfair, done with very little accountability and adds to the financial pressures students are under."
Among the cases charted in the study is a tenant who was charged £850 for "cleaning carpets and curtains and a missing saucepan". A Methodist minister who relocated with his wife and three young children was landed with a £1,346 bill that included £1,000 for cleaning and redecoration. The bill was eventually withdrawn but there was no evidence that cleaning or redecoration was needed or had happened.
Two students, aware of the problems of dodgy landlords took photographs when they moved in and arranged for the flat to be professionally cleaned before they left. Five months were needed to get their £700 deposit returned. Other stories have included a £55 bill for a broken plastic towel rail and a £250 deposit withheld because of a hole in the wall made by a drawing pin.
"Too many landlords treat rent deposits as their money, instead of money handed over to them in trust," David Harker, the chief executive of Citizens Advice, said. "Many do not even bother to give tenants a proper reason for failing to pay it back."
