Tips On Tenancy Deposit Disputes 35: Seeing The Tenant's Evidence

Tip 35: Seeing The Tenant’s Evidence

Sometimes, for whatever reason, the tenant will start the process and give their evidence first. Being in the position of responding to their claim can be an advantage.

If the tenant submits their evidence before you, you should be able to see a copy of their actual evidence in time to draft a response. At least one of the schemes posts electronic copies of the evidence to a web page that you can view and download at your leisure. Another scheme will routinely send you a summary of the claim against you. 

The summary tends to be just one or two paragraphs and isn’t always that helpful for analysing the evidence against you. If you ask, and sometimes you have to ask more than once, they will email you the actual statement and evidence. 

Once you have copies of the evidence and detailed information about the claim, you are in a much better position to formulate your defence. Use your knowledge of the tenant’s claim to draw attention to shortcomings in their arguments and to point out any holes in their evidence.

Tom Derrett is the Principal of Deposit Claim, an experienced deposit protection adjudicator and an expert on the Deposit Protection Schemes. Tom helps landlords to claim money through the deposit protection schemes.

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