Deposit Dispute

FYI this will be a very long post - We ended our tenancy end of may - basically in April we came home to our house completely flooded. We immediately called the letting agent and their plumber as it was so bad the carpets were completely ruined. Literally like a swimming pool. The plumbers came out within the hour and were shocked about how much water had come down from the en-suite (where we believe the leak had come from).

The letting agents were awful. Literally left days on end without any communication with us chasing for updates. We were left to live in concrete and carpet grips exposed whilst having a 4 month old in the house for about 2 weeks as the carpets had been ripped up. We finally get told that the landlord is blaming us as the plumbers couldn’t find any leaks (might I add the plumbers work directly with our landlord not just the letting agents on all of the landlords properties and had done work to the house before we moved in). In their report they put “they believe it was human fault and we left the shower on with the door open”😂 it’s actually laughable. I then said I wanted an independent plumber because there is absolutely no way this was our fault and obviously we didn’t leave the shower on with the doors open.

My plumber said he couldn’t find where the original leak had come from but did find multiple leaks in said bathroom. Which their plumber never found. We were basically told if we didn’t pay for the repairs the landlord would issue a section 21 and fight through the deposit scheme (in April where s21s were still valid) so we took it upon ourselves to find somewhere else as we didn’t want to live in the conditions anymore and be more in control of the situation.

Once we had left the letting agents acknowledge they have received the keys and would send the check out inventory as soon as it was available. Now in July we still haven’t received it or received any communication. I requested our deposit with DPS on 6th June. The letting agent/landlord did not respond within the 14 days so we got a statutory declaration done which gave them another 14 days….well they have now come back requesting the full deposit for damage from the flood. Obviously we have disputed this. And sent all evidence over (emails, my independent plumbers findings etc). They haven’t sent in their evidence yet. I’m just at a loss as to why they think they can get the whole deposit back. I suppose I’m just wanting to see other peoples opinions in what our chances are. It’s a lot of money nearly 2k and we did nothing wrong!

Just want to add as well we were there 11 months and had all sorts of plumbing issues be it with the toilet,the boiler etc. we were actually left without heating for about 5 weeks at one stage because they didn’t come out to fix something. Which we chased multiple times.