My landlord wants my entire deposit and has made several unfair claims. OpenRent gave me a week’s time to dispute. But then made it so difficult for me, asking me to provide evidence against each claim. I thought the onus of proof is on the party making a claim. I finally managed to submit a dispute for each of the claims with attached proofs. But it made me feel that OpenRent is not a neutral party.
One claim is £1000 to clean the carpet to remove a stain they found after I left. It’s a one bed flat. They have provided no photo of it. Apparently, the stain arrived after the handover when they vacuumed the carpet. The carpet was already clean, but they insisted on cleaning it. Ironically, the flat was dirtier when I moved in than the state I left it in. “The evidence” provided by the landlord was a written comment next to the carpet in the inventory list that it needed vacuuming.
Well the deposit scheme (not Openrent) rightly asks LLs to supply evidence to support any claim. How is it unfair to give you opportunity to dispute that with your own evidence? It would surely be unfair if they didnt?
Wait and see how deposit scheme decides, if you can show stain was there (or likely not seen) when you moved in because carpet wasn’t clean you may well have the LLs claim rejected as they won’t be able to prove stain happened during your tenancy… have a look at move in inventory
You’re right. The onus is on the landlord to prove it. If you have evidence of your own it would be worth sending it though, along with your side of the story.