Our previous tenants took us to the TDS as we withheld their deposit due to them leaving the flat in a poorly decorated state after two years (it was freshly decorated and carpeted when they moved in). We have a property management agency (full service) and they prepared our case for the TDS. The report came back from the TDS and they went in the favour of the tenants - specifically citing the fact that the check-in report “does not record the property as newly decorated”.
We feel that we shouldn’t have been penalised here because the flat was newly decorated when the tenants moved in. And the fact that this wasn’t recorded in the check-in report or provided as evidence in the TDS case is due to negligence by our lettings agency. With the correct information we don’t think we’d have “lost” this case. We are in England.
Are we right in thinking this? And is there any recourse we can take with our lettings agency? We understand that we can not appeal this any further with TDS.
I suspect that if you look at the terms of the company that did the inventory you will find that they have many clauses restricting their liability for such issues. You could raise a complaint and you might if you are lucky get the inventory fee back but personally I would just see it as lessons learnt and move on.
Leaving in a poorly decorated state? not sure what that means but tenants, especially for a newly decorated property, are not responsible for decorating. maybe you mean they did some damage? Decoration will slowly deteriorate of its own accord so not sure what the problem is here unless you mean damage.
Thanks for your reply. Well the tenants made a lot of holes in the walls from hanging pictures etc. In every room. Then just before they moved out they filled in all the holes and patch-painted over them with a completely different paint colour. So the flat just looked terrible, and we had to get every room repainted entirely.