Hi there, I am a landlord with a 2bed flat in London which was recently fully refurbished whilst I was living there. Upon renting out the property was decorated again with an almost new but entirely undamaged Wren kitchen and beautiful bespoke built in wardrobe.
The tenants basically lived like a pair of animals. They have recently left.
All of the kitchen doors are chipped and damaged. The wardrobe middle draw is broken and the there are chips throughout. There are stains and marks to the carpets which have not come out upon being professionally cleaned. The plaster to the walls has cracked in numerous places. The walls are painted white and have many many scuffs and stains which have and have not been patched up with ill matching paint.
I had a check-in inventory picking up little damage as the property was presented immaculately.
The check-out inventory, undertaken by the same company, is poorly written and vague, and it appears they are not willing to make changes to reflect and properly comment on the condition of the property in full.
I am nervous that without an adequately written check out inventory that I will not be protected.
The check in inventory should have quality photos and give a report on the general condition of each element. It sounds like they just do the same at check out and don’t do a comparison of before and after. If this is the case you will have to do the comparison yourself highlighting and making it easy for the adjudicator to identify the elements that are obviously damaged by pointing out the before and after photos.
Hi Chris, thanks so much for coming back to me. My concern is that the check out inventory is too vague to be a meaningful representation of the damage caused at my property, and I do not feel protected. I have indeed taken my own photographs and have logged the damage is specific detail, though since this is my own version and not one by an independent surveyor I feel this maybe subject to scrutiny by the tenant and/or adjudicator. A third party report should be thorough and comprehensive and this just isn’t what is being offered and I fear this is typical of the industry. If you consider Party Wall Schedule of Conditions put together by chartered RICS surveyors, these are thorough and comprehensive as maybe used as evidence in the event of a dispute.
Andy
I think that you may be expecting too much from the check out inventory. It is unlikely to be as detailed as a RICS survey. Personally, I do my own. I didn’t see an independent check-in/check-out inventory being cost effective to claim a maximum 5 weeks rent when the damage caused can be much more. Check the deposit schemes website. I’m with DPS and they have a section about how best to evidence a claim against a tenants deposit.
You could ditch the company’s check out report and write your own, but you will undermine its impact unless you have a better understanding of what tenants are responsible for and what constitutes fair wear and tear. For example, tenants are not responsible for plaster shrinkage cracks, which happen naturally.
I had a 2 bed flat rented out via a superb estate agent …she was thorough and photographed everything. There was a glass balustrade from the mezzanine ( the careful cleaning of which was discussed and covered with the check in blue folder all tenants issued with).This last tenant decided to clean the glass whilst wearing jewellery ( a pandora bracelet she wore probably) and scratched every single panel)…Agent photographed/videoed evidence, got independent glazier in who tried all remedies to no avail) replacement cost approx £2.5K
I didnt claim this …just carpet cleaning, toilet seat replacement, and £500 for the damage
Tenant objected …DPS awarded me £75…which didnt even cover carpet clean…me angry, estate agent furious…new tenant in for a year then flat sold…new tenant has been told…you break it you fix it like for like …DPS useless
Update … …damage causing.tenant owed taxman North of 15K…I got all the letters initially sending them on to the forwarding address…until they started turning up eventually addressed to occupier and I opened one…however I had a forwarding address …which I gave to the HMRC …
Karma…
Preferred the old DPS firm Openrent used …not the current bunch…as they seemed more reasonable especially when you have evidence in bucketloads…