Can I charge tenant for the time I spent repairing damages post-tenancy?

Hi - our tenants moved out over a week ago and the walls need repainting due to holes they had created and then filled in but not painted over. The bathroom floor is also water damaged so we are having to replace the floor covering but when husband lifted it he found the floor underneath is saturated and we need to let it dry out before he can carry out the repair and also replace a wooden baton under the floor. My questions is - we are doing the work ourselves rather than pay a contractor, we still have the tenant’s bond at the moment and have to work out how much to retain - can I charge the tenant for our time to carry out the work and if yes, is there a standard recognised labour rate I can use? I don’t want any come-back or dispute.
Any advice appreciated
Gina

Yes you can. You will need to ask the deposit scheme your with for information on what you can charge.

this will also be classed as income and taxable

Thanks for that advice. I thought the gov.uk website might offer a standard suggested rate but haven’t been able to find anything. Their bond is secured with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme so I’ll see if they can offer any advice.

seeing as the minimum wage rate is about £10 hr . That would be very reasonable

Thanks Colin that sounds fair. If I can get any ‘official’ reference source to back it up that will be really helpful, I want to make the returned deposit explanation as water tight as possible so I don’t end up with a dispute on my hands.

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The question is whether you can claim anything for the bathroom, because:

  1. A bathroom is meant to withstand water on the floor. If the bathroom is substandard then that is not the tenant’s responsibility.

  2. Can you prove that the tenant, and not the previous tenant etc. caused the problem? As you must lift the floor to find the problem I’m not so sure.

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Hi Per, yes we can prove was not like that when tenant moved in as we have photos. We did not need to lift the floor in order to establish the damage, we had to remove the flooring BECAUSE it was water damaged and then we saw how saturated the wood and area beneath the floor were - indicating a regular and prolongued ingress of water. We lived there ourselves for 4 years with 2 children and then had several tenants in after that but have only had a problem with most recent tenant. Thanks for your feedback.

So the point I was making was that the floor is SUPPOSED to be able to handle water for a sustained period of time. If it doesn’t it’s not the tenant’s responsibility to fix. It was poorly built. The fact that you lived there and was careful doesn’t mean anything.

Also, how can you prove if something is or isn’t wrong underneath the floor with a photo of the surface?