My son rented a house with CPS Home together with 7 other students last year. Before they moved in, I asked CPS Homes for a history of the deposits that had been retained. They refused. Now I am finding out why!

The house itself was poorly maintained. For example, the kitchen units were old and worn, there were gaps between the floor boards and floor boards working loose, the kitchen worktops were working loose, the fridge/freezers were old and rusty, the arm of the sofa was badly damaged, the kitchen table leg was bent and unstable, the bathroom suites were dated, there was mould in the shower units, grouting around bathroom sink was in a poor state, the house needed redecorating throughout, the headboards in the property were cheap, fragile and a number of them were damaged, the carpets were worn, manky and frayed, electrical wires were not properly protected and the external wall by the kitchen had a large hole in the wall and was a safety hazard.

All the rooms in the house with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms were used as bedrooms and there was no living space in the house apart from a TV and single sofa in the kitchen.

Towards the end of the tenancy, they went to a lot of trouble to clean the house (they even had one of their parents come in and help with the cleaning). They were therefore astonished to receive charges of £848 for cleaning / repairs and CPS Homes were recommending that that the landlord retain the entire deposit of £800.

The tenants accepted that they had not left the oven in the same condition that they found it, that they had left blu tac marks on a number of the bedroom walls, that they had further damaged one of the headboards (that was already damaged before they moved in) and that a few of the light bulbs needed replacing, but challenged the other items.

Rather than deal with the check-out process in a professional manner, we found CPS Homes lacked integrity in the way they have handled the claim and they were not transparent about their charges:-

• In March 2022, the tenants reported to CPS Homes that mould was building up on the ceiling in one of the bedrooms. As a result, the landlord had the roof repaired, but failed to re-decorate the bedroom. When it came to the check out (at the end of June), the tenants were charged £60 towards the cost of redecorating the room. We rang and emailed CPS Homes on a number of occasions to challenge the charge. In spite of the fact that they knew very well that the mould was caused by the leak, CPS Homes insisted it was caused by “not heating and/or ventilating a space sufficiently.” It was only after several weeks of pursuing them over this matter that they eventually conceded that the damage was caused by the leak.

• In terms of cleaning, it is very clear that CPS Homes target the kitchen and bathrooms as opportunities to make additional charges regardless of the condition in which they have been left. Their comments in the check-out report are non-specific in terms of what needs addressing. For example, for the toilet on the ground floor, the Check Out report stated “Basic clean needed”. However, when studying the photos in the check-out report, it was not apparent how it could have been left any cleaner. The fact was that the toilet was left in at least as good a condition as it was found, it did not need cleaning and there was no justification for the comment in the check-out report. This is then used as justification for getting the owner's sister's company to clean the entire house at a charge of £300. We repeatedly asked CPS Homes to clarify the cleaning charges, but on each occasion CPS Homes failed to provide a response.

• The invoice for the cleaning did not specify the number of hours and the hourly rate cleaning charge. All we know is that the house was inspected by CPS Homes, cleaned and invoiced raised all within the space of a single day.

• When the tenants vacated the property, they left a handful of bin bags in the two black bins provided. However, CPS Homes carried out the Check-out inspection on the day that the rubbish was being collected and this showed that 3 black bins full of dust bin bags had been left at the front of the property and a number of bin bags had been left both within the grounds of the property and on the pavement in front of the property. It would appear that in order to avoid paying CPS Homes excessive charges a number of neighbouring student let properties had left their bin bags outside their property. In spite of the fact that CPS Homes knew very well that only two of the black bins related to the property, they charged them for all the bins to be collected, a total of 24 bin bags and at a cost of £240 (the bin men would have taken them for free). This was raised with CPS Homes, but their response was that they can only work from the condition of the property at the end of the tenancy. Clearly, treating their tenants fairly and not charging them for other households waste is not a priority for CPS Homes.

• The headboards are made of chipboard with a cardboard front. They are cheap and fragile and would have cost only a few pounds. CPS Homes priced a replacement headboard at £250. When we queried this with them, they immediately reduced the amount to £130. How can it be that a business that handles hundreds of check-out inspections each year still does not know the cost of a headboard!

• The tenants were charged for an item in the check-out report that was recorded as fair wear and tear.

They take fewer (less than half as many) photos of the property in the Inventory (check-in) report compared to the Check-out report to conceal the less attractive parts of the house. For example, there are no photos of the inside of the fridge and the freezer, inside of the kitchen cupboards, inside of the shower units, around the windows to avoid highlighting the damp/mould caused by broken window seals and general poor condition of the windows, etc.. Also, in our case, they took very much lower resolution photos in the Inventory report that made it harder to see the marks / stains giving a false impression that the property has been left in a worse state than when the tenants found it. This is to get a favourable outcome from the DPS (an independent body that adjudicates over the deposit when the letting agent and the tenants are in dispute). CPS Homes are familiar with the process and they know the limits of what the DPS will accept in terms of charges and they exploit this to their maximum advantage knowing full well that those charges are not proportionate. For example, the first operator that we found quoted £54 to remove the dust bin bags from the front of the property (within 24 hours) compared to CPS Homes charge of £240.

However, the DPS did not make any further awards to the letting agent over and above the £50 the tenants offered for cleaning of the oven and £54 for the collection of the bin bags. But don't think you will necessarily get a fair outcome from the DPS. In our case, in their original adjudication, they failed to properly consider the evidence and simply accepted CPS Homes statements. They initially awarded £697.60 to CPS Homes. However, after we complained, a second adjudicator reviewed the same evidence, but with a very different outcome. They accepted that they had made a number of errors in their original adjudication and awarded just £84 to CPS Homes (in addition to the £184 that we had already offered).

CPS Homes uses the owner's sister's company to do the cleaning of the house and the sister's husband to do the odd jobs such as collection of bins. The owner of the business, Mr James, won't accept that there is a conflict of interest between treating tenants fairly and wanting to pass on work to family members. He claims that the retention of the deposit is a matter for the landlord and tenants and that they do not benefit in any way, but this is nonsense. It is CPS Homes that inspect the properties; it is CPS Homes that prepare the check-out report; it is CPS Homes that determine what needs cleaning/repairing/replacing and it is CPS Homes that employs their own family members to carry out the work.

Channel 4 investigated CPS Homes practices in retaining tenancy deposits. This was featured on TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EnsQx4--pw

We encountered the same issues as the students shown in the program. In response to the program, CPS Homes put out a statement on their website in defence of their procedures, but we found many of their comments were simply not true. For example, the following comments were made:-

“Those who have been tenants of ours will know that we always invite them to accompany us during our end-of-tenancy inspection, which is when we visit to document the condition of the property and take photos as evidence.”

and

"That system has now been changed, and we have brought forward the process of working with departing tenants to better manage the hand-back process, specifically giving them a greater opportunity to put right themselves any damage that goes beyond 'reasonable wear and tear'.”

Neither of these statements are true. The tenants vacated their rented property and returned the keys to CPS Homes 4 days earlier than the end of the tenancy agreement. In spite of this, CPS Homes had the property inspected, cleaned and the dust bin bags collected all on the same day (again before the end of the tenancy agreement). They were not invited to attend the check-out inspection. Given the situation with the quantity of bin bags left outside the property, the tenants questioned why they were not given the option to remove the bin bags themselves. In response, CPS Homes made it very clear that this is not an option:-

“Ultimately, having any tenants present on the check out would not have been different to this as the inspection is completed after keys are returned and there would not be the option to complete any remedial works at the property.”

Had they done so then they could have avoided much of the bad feeling and the lack of trust that now characterises the relationship.

Also, in terms of employing the owner's sister's company for house cleaning, the statement says:-