A little or a lot? Uploading evidence in a dispute
At SafeDeposits Scotland we always emphasise the importance of evidence in disputes relating to the repayment of tenancy deposits. An adjudicator's decision will ultimately be based on the evidence that is submitted to them.
A discussion we often have with letting agents and landlords relates to the quantity of evidence submitted.
Our online portal currently allows for a letting agent or landlord to submit up to 10 items of evidence for claims relating to cleaning and up to five items of evidence each for other heads of claim, i.e. damage, redecoration, rent arrears, gardening and "other".
Longer term customers of SafeDeposits Scotland who have used our free alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service in the past will be aware that this is a change to the previous option to upload unlimited items of evidence to the portal. The limit on the number of evidence items provides users with benefits, namely a reduction in their time spent on admin and the opportunity to strengthen their case by being more precise in linking the most compelling evidence to the specific claim(s) they are making. It is often the case that images which bear no relation to the claim are uploaded and are surplus to requirement.
We firmly believe that a small selection of relevant images is sufficient in the majority of dispute cases, however we are also well aware that not every case is as straightforward and recognise that the limit on items may be restrictive in extreme instances where there have been multiple issues throughout a property. Our advice to any letting agents or landlords who believe that they really do need to submit more than five (10 for cleaning) items of evidence is to get in touch - our door is open and we will be happy to discuss any specific cases and, where appropriate, accommodate submission of additional evidence via alternative means. If you have such an enquiry, please contact us on ADR@safedepositsscotland.com
Another piece of advice on evidence submission relates to the size of evidence files. The limit on our portal is 20MB per item of evidence. Original file sizes can often exceed this, particularly in an age of ever-advancing phone cameras with higher resolution. This is an issue that can be resolved easily - there are both in-built programmes on computers and websites where you can compress the size of an image. This will reduce the number of megabytes without affecting the sharpness of the image, and allow you to upload the evidence you want to.
