I have been living in London for several years now and experienced issues with one of my last letting agencies. I'm looking for your legal advice on what actions to take.
It was an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement within a shared house. The issue with this tenancy which ended almost a year ago was that the landlord never paid me back my deposit and also never protected it under the deposit scheme.
This website states that "before I start a court claim, I must send my former landlord a formal 'letter before action'. This letter must set out the detail of my claim."
I found out that the court could force my landlord to pay up to 3 times the deposit amount. Is it 3 times on top of the reimbursement of the deposit (i.e. a total of 4 times the deposit in best case scenario), or including the reimbursement of the deposit?
So I prepared the template letter as described here.
My question to you is: can I decide to take this to court if, let's say, the landlord does not agree to settle for at least 2 times the deposit amount?