My friends and I recently paid almost £2000 to hire a cottage for a 3 night hen weekend. Upon booking, the group leader paid a £300 deposit by cheque, which she was told would be returned 2 weeks after check out. The cottage was advertised as ideal for hen and stag parties and offered a reasonable rate for a 10 bedroom property, (hence the reason we booked it). Conscious that one of our frineds had paid this deposit, we took great care to ensure the property was left in the same condition in which it was found, including cleaning and checking the property several times before departure. However, she has since received a letter advising that the landlord has deducted £115 from this deposit for professional cleaning costs due to staining on one of the carpets. He enclosed a cheque for the remainder. When we disputed this and pointed out that the cottage had been checked before departure, the landlord sent an aggressive letter claiming that there was extensive damage to the property including vomit on the carpet and walls, hoisin sauce on the carpet and up the stairs and stolen toilet roll and washing powder from a locked cupboard?! He implies that we mistreat the cottage and claims that he does not encourage "larger lout" behaviour in his property! My friends and I are professional women in our 30's and our hen weekend consisted of a dinner party and a quiz! He writes that he was generous in giving back the amount he did and says that if we want any further correspondance then this will be done through his solicitor at our own expense. Not sure where we stand with this - can he get away with such dishonesty? Is it appropriate for him to send letters accusing us of disorderly and dishonest behaviour?
Thank you all so much for your fantastic answers. I should mention that I did ask in my initial letter of dispute that if he wasnt going to reconsider this decision then we wanted copies of all receipts detailing the charges made and photographic evidence of the damage. In his abusive response he included neither.
Just got off the phone to citizens advice who advised that unless we are willing to take this matter to a small claims court (at our own expense) then there is little else we can do. As this is a relatively small amount of money we dont wish to spend anymore time or money dealing with him or his company. They have advised that we write to the British tourism board informing them of our experiences and leave factual feedback on travel review sites. They also said we could sue for deformation of character as his reply is very unprofessional and directly attacks our group leader. Not happy to leave this but it would appear that we would have difficulty proving that we didnt damage the property. Thanks again for your help.
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