Good morning all -
I’ve spent several days online trying to find this answer, and have also scoured our old tenancy agreement but so far, cannot find the answer I’m looking for, so I’m hoping someone on here might be a little more knowledgeable than I am!
My family and I moved out of our flat coming up on three weeks ago. The checkout report was carried out 6 days after we left - so, almost two weeks ago, and we still haven’t had a thorough, priced breakdown or any quotes regarding what deductions there will be from our deposit. It’s all still a case of ‘we’ll let you know, when we know’.
I’ve phoned the estate agent dealing with the checkout report several times over the last few days and am usually fobbed off with the 'so and so is busy right now, they'll call you back' - they never do! - but I finally received an email yesterday saying that our landlady has 4 deductions she was thinking of making, however they’re still not in a position to tell us how much any of them will cost.
Is there a time limit on how long landlords/lady’s have to present you with the deduction breakdown?
All I can find online is that once both parties (the landlord and the tenants) have agreed on X amount for the deposit, the landlord then has 10 days to release the deposit should both reach an agreement.
However, I cannot find anything about the legalities surrounding how long we’re supposed to sit and wait to actually find out what’s going on with it all. I assume there must be some sort of cut off point, right? How long are we expected to wait to hear about costs?
My other question is about one of the potential deductions.
The email says my landlady would like to make a deduction for ‘grubby decor’. We (myself, DP and three young DC’s) all lived in that small 2 bed flat for nearly 5 years, isn’t there a ‘life expectancy’ of paintwork in rentals?
For what it’s worth, yes, there are some scuffs to some skirting boards, there are a couple of ever so slight marks on the walls in the high traffic areas such as the hallway and the bottom of the stairs where two sets of pushchairs were stored, but in my eye, it’s dings and scuffs that you’d expect from a family of 5 living in a property for almost 5 years, we certainly didn't trash the place as I'm generally very house proud, so can we reasonably be charged for a ‘decor refresh’?
I’m willing to incur some cleaning charges as I unfortunately couldn’t clean all of the exterior windows (first floor flat), and the ceilings were so high in the flat that I couldn’t reach the coving and cobwebs in the corners of some rooms, but I’m not sure how I feel about covering the cost of someone to come in and paint everywhere, when surely after 5 years, that’s something that would need doing anyway?
Other than that, I left the flat as spotless as I feasibly could, so any tips or advice regarding how long we can actually expect to legally wait to hear about deductions, and also the repainting issue, would be great!
Many thanks in advance!