Alice unfortunately the letting agent is working for the landlord and not you, their duty is to the landlord and to represent their interests to you. If the landlord only wants tennants who sign up to 6 or 12 month contracts the Letting Agent cannot do anything about that except offer those terms to you. As other people have said it is then your choice whether or not to accept them.
I do sympathise with you and can see how frustrating this all is butI don't think for this scenario A&K could do anything different.

The cleaning is a different case entirely and good luck with your complaint on that

Indeed!!

If you have had the carpets professionally cleaned, then you should have the invoice for the work. This should be sufficient to argue your case. Make sure you have copies! If you weren't given an invoice at the time, request a copy invoice.

Good luck!!

Seems to be like some are looking at this with blinkers on.

From a 'consumer' point of view Alice is well within her rights to question everything she has had to take from that letting agency.

And the fact that she has actually asked other local agents in the area on a rolling contract seems to have been missed by others. After an initial term a contract should proceed on a rolling basis, that's standard as outlined here

"An assured shorthold tenancy gives people a legal right to live in their home, either for a fixed-duration or on a rolling contract known as a periodic tenancy."

"Tenants on fixed-terms can only end the tenancy during that time if their agreement says so, dependent upon the agreed notice period. From the date the fixed-term ends a tenant can leave, but should still give a month's notice to the landlord. If the tenant opts not to leave, the tenancy becomes a rolling agreement. Tenants on periodic tenancies or rolling agreements should give one month's notice in writing, ending on the day rent is due."

The one problem you face Alice is that you actually signed it. I know you were given little choice but fighting it retrospectively is going to be difficult. The fact that you knew what you were signing and still signed it will be difficult to argue against. In hindsight it would have been better to fight that issue at the time.

Perhaps it would be wise to focus on one battle. What's more important, the contract or not getting ripped off? I would guess the money. You want to get out of there with as much intact as possible. Maybe forget the battle on contract notice based on the difficulty of winning it and focus on getting your money?

At the end of the day you want to just get out of that agency full stop and get as much of your deposit back as possible.

Spot on.

Just thought I'd update you as we heard back from the Tenancy Disputes Service yesterday. They ruled in our favour and returned our deposit.

I'm glad to hear it.

That is a great result. Glad you got your deposit back.

It says a lot for estate agents and what they get away with unless someone stands up to it.

In the letter the TDS said that usually they would not award the landlord any money for cleaning or gardening.

I would advise anyone to challenge their landlord / estate agent about returning deposits. The process is really simple and the TDS usually sides with the tenant.

In respect of this maybe in future you should refuse to sign any contract that has the terms regarding maintaining the garden and cleaning the carpets.

That should make getting a place to live easier!

It seems bizarre to me that one agree to sign a contract with the garden and carpet terms in it but have no intention of honouring them.
Not really fair is it to deliberatly mislead the landlord.
It begs the question about the legality of the contract itself if the courts won't uphold these clauses.

You are so predictable.

Exactly, a clause that cannot be enforced, is merely 'graffiti' and something one could ignore, especially if it compromises one's ability to find somewhere to live.

In this story, it seemed to be more than just whether a tenant was willing to honour a contract or not. This was more about a landlord trying it on, in my view.

Well, you are right in that it all depends on how you translate the story as it is presented to you.

Maintaining a carpet is one thing, returning it in as new condition after a years use is impossible.

Well, how would you translate this...



In my view, the tenants took all reasonable steps, but the landlord, or their agents, tried it on.