Hi tenants and landlords.
I’m absolutely gutted. We are in dispute with the landlady and agent on the Depositary, which is a TDS scheme for prescribed letting agents. You go back and forth with demands and counter offers in the hopes that you can reach a middle ground. I am in extreme doubt the agent and landlady are willing to be reasonable or negotiate and the amounts their requesting I think are betterment and replacement cost.
We vacated a rental property one month before date on S21 as landlady said she has to move back in due to a relationship breakdown.
We had a permitted pet. We paid £680 to a carpenter to fix and replace damage done by our dog before we left. We also paid £280 for a landscape gardener to get the garden into good shape for her moving back in. I paid a professional cleaner £225. We rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned carpets. We flea powdered the whole place before this and treated the lawns with nematodes which kill fleas. We laid a new carpet in the stairs matching quality and shade of previous carpet.
Now the agent and landlady want to keep half our deposit of £2000. They say they want £300 for professional carpet cleaners, £50 per wall to cover scuffs marks and scratches, plus various other bits and pieces like window blind where the plastic holder fell off and a house number that fell off the front of the property, and £75 to retrim the front hedge even though our gardener did that (it’s not to her liking). Theres a £50 charge for counter top work surface for damage that was there when we moved in but inventory pics from start of tenancy don’t show that part of the counter, it only shows the same part with keys all over it covering the ring damage that for some reason I could never remove when we moved in but not for lack of trying.
When I cleaned walls I used an eraser pad to scrub away some scuffs which left a lighter shade on the paintwork in the spot I cleaned. They want £50 per wall because of this.
I’ve countered with half the cost for carpet cleaning as we cleaned, so £150, and £15 per wall with the thought that it’s a fair offer based on age of paintwork (8 years approximately) less wear and tear. The agent commented that we were spuriously negligent and didn’t care for the property which is so not true, and this has really wound me and my husband up.
We provided all receipts to managing agent showing the work we paid to have done and she still wants £50 per wall and the counter top, and £300 for another carpet clean, £75 for hedge trim. She just keeps countering the original amounts, no negotiating going on at all.
I feel this will go to arbitration or I or they will have to sue.
What’s a fair cost to repaint a wall? What’s the fair cost on a counter top? Is it fair for her to ask me to pay for a retrim of the hedge when it was clearly done and she just doesn’t think it was small enough?
I have done so much and sadly I think if this ever happens again we won’t do any work other than a professional clean and let the deposit scheme arbitration decide for us. This will save us the most money in the longterm as we spent a lot of money to do what we thought was right only to have the agent and landlady demand what I consider replacement cost and betterment at the end from our deposit.
Am I in the wrong? Looking for reasonable and level headed responses. The comments by the agent have been so hurtful to me. I always try to do the right thing even if I make mistakes sometimes.
