In thinking some private landlords don't understand wear and tear?

[digggers]

In my last tennancy I rented for 8 years. In that time the landlady didn't once do any renovation to the property. Even when we notified her of things breaking, she said if we weren't bothered neither was she. For instance, the surround coming off the bath and the glass on top if a table breaking. She never painted the house in eight years, never did anything to the garden.

I kept the house and garden to my standards. I am not filthy, but could never be called fastidious. I cleaned the house thoroughly when I left, scrubbed and polished the wooden floors by hand, washed paintwork and windows etc. I tidied the garden twice a year, and kept the grass mowed, but I'm no proffessional, some bushes were unruly. I kinda liked that. I washed the ( White) sofa covers, but they weren't immaculate as they'd had eight years of use. Everything was clean, but it wasn't as it had been eight years previous. Eight years without any maintenance or redecoration.

Am I unreasonable to think she has unrealistic expectations to expect that everything be in perfect condition after having been used for eight years with no maintenance? If she'd been living there herself, then she'd have upkept as she went surely?

The landlord kept all my deposit, saying she needed redecorate and have the garden professionally redone and buy new some furniture.

Am I missing something?

"stains on carpet, dirty bathroom, dusty skirting boards, scuffs on wall when furniture has rubbed "

There is no way that justfies taking an ENTIRE desposit.

A landlord is allowed a tax allowance for general ware and tear.

If there were ciggerette burns on the carpet, massive holes in the wall or had smeared feaces all over the wall then she would have a good case for keeping the desposit.

However its unreasonable to expect a show home after 8 years. A good landlord does a bit of maintaince each year.

No - she didn't need to register the deposit 8 years ago, that was the problem, landlords could play fast and loose with people's deposit money. And no, she didn't issue any further contracts so legally she didn't have to register it at all. No, it isn't illegal to be renting a house without a paper contract. If the original agreement comes to an end and isn't replaced with a new one, the tenancy automatically becomes a Periodic Tenancy.
Nowadays, the deposit has to be registered with a scheme, is released with the agreement of both parties, and in case of dispute the tenants almost always win. If a deposit isn't registered the landlord is breaking the law.
Actually diggers, if you Google Landlord Forum and join there, you will strangely enough probably get some good informed advice about whether or not it would be worth trying to get your deposit back.
Did you have a copy of a current gas safety certificate for your property covering the period when you lived there? If not there may be some pressure you could bring to bear on your landlady, as it is definitely illegal to rent a property out without having one in place, and getting a new one annually.

wonder has she declared her rent to the taxman..............

Social Butterfly, you are talking utter rubbish, and are giving letting agents a bad name. Wear and tear of course covers stuff caused by the tenant by everyday use of the property. That is exactly what wear and tear is.
After 8 years, a property needs repainting, no matter what the tenant has or has not done. The tenant can not be held responsible for such things.
And if there is no inventory, it is up to the ll to prove what was there and in what condition, not the tenant.

YANBU, she is BU and she deserves karma to bite her on the butt with the next tenant.

Our landlady took all of our deposit on the basis that the carpet was dirty. It was in exactly the same condition as when we had moved in. The letting agent was totally unhelpful and the LL even said to me 'Dont argue with me, I have your money'.

I was told by a friend who is a letting agent that your deposit should not be used for example, a NEW carpet. They can only charge you for a like for like replacement and foot the rest of the bill themselves. And it was governed by the square footage etc. Your deposit cannot be used to redecorate a flat. Only to cover damage on the old goods. If that makes sense.

Basically the woman robbed us and I write a letter to the property every year telling the new tenants to watch the bitch.

yanbu.
we are currently arguing with our previous letting agents about the state of the carpet in our previous house. the carpet had been there when we moved in and it clearly wasnt new-think it was the one the housebuilders had put in. we had it professionally cleaned every 3-4months, and we were there for just under 5 years (i dread to think what we spent on just that alone!) and they want to charge us for cleaning it!! I know damn well that it wont clean up properly, it was already worn when we moved in. its probably been down for nearly 10years-i know very few people who have carpets for that long!

what makes it worse is that the house next to it was owned by the same company, and it has had 2 different tenants in the whole time we were there-both were given new carpets

Have to say, the tenants deposit scheme seems to be a really good thing - something I do praise the last government for although everything else they did with housing seemed to be a disaster. I know of someone who just got awarded 3 x their deposit because the landlady played silly buggers in trying to keep their deposit and when my friends tried to use the dispute resolution scheme, it was found that the deposit wasn't protected as per the law. It went to court and the judge had no qualms in awarding in my friends favour. Whether they see the money is another question altogether as their landlady, like so many other amateurs who think, oh I'll get some property as my pension and have no proper business plan in place at all, obviously needed the depost as she has got herself into trouble, not being able to cover a void inbetween tenants to pay her mortgage.

There was a tenants from hell programme on the TV the other night, people who don't pay rent, trash the place etc..I'm sure such people must really be in the minority compared to the amount of Landlords who mess people about. Everyone I know has at least one story of deposits being stolen, maintenance not being done etc..

"Never pay your last months rent" is a stupid piece of advice.

All deposits must now be registered with the tenancy deposit scheme, and according to landlords I have spoken to it is very hard for a landlord to persuade them to not give them money back to the tenant.

Deposits around here are 1 1/2 months rent, so by not paying your last month's rent you are losing that half (because no-one is oging ot give you back your deposit if you break the contract byu refusing to pay).

And finally, it's illegal. You have signed a contract saying you will pay the rent.

If you don't pay the last months rent, couldn't the landord then take you to court, for failing to make payment under your contract, screwing you for costs and your credit file, seems a bit stupid to me!

Nowadays the deposit can't be used as the last month's rent, so that advice is not correct.

The deposit protection thing is the best!! My LL tried to take £415 from me, after literally terrorising me for months, because she wanted me to pay her management service charge.

All this after 7 months of not telling me anything about it, not protecting my deposit. She soon did though cos she realised she couldn't serve me with an eviction notice without protecting my deposit, and that I could take her to court for the 3x fine.

I had to go to the arbitration/adjudication service in the end, her claim got utterly tossed out and she got nothing and I got my money back.

Without the CAB I wouldn't have got through with my sanity still intact and without the DPS, I would have never have got my money back.

The deposit is viewed correctly nowadays as YOUR(the tenant's) money. For a LL to claim a single pence of it, the have to prove beyond all shadow of doubt that they are entitled to it. If they are trying to pull a fast one, the adjudicator will toss out the claim.

The deposit definitely didn't need to be lodged as MLP said earlier.

If an inventory wasn't issued at the commencement of the tenancy then the LL doesn't have a leg to stand on.

If I were the OP I would write a 'letter before action', a great template is here but obviously you'd leave out the paragraph about the 2007 deposit protection.

If you were feeling reasonable you could perhaps negotiate deductions for staining. But if you took it to court that's all they'd do, any actual damage would be replacing like for like - the cost of another 8 year old sofa rather than new for example.

I'd urge you to take this further, OP, I really would.

people not paying the last months rent is why I have had to pay out 2.5 time the rent as a deposit.

Thanks for nothing TOSSERS.

Reallytired - there is no tax allowance for wear and tear on letting a property on an assured shorthold or periodic tenancy. You can deduct the cost of replacing and renewing but not upgrading from the profit to reduce the tax due, but that is all. The rules are very clear and are on the HMRC website.

I would expect the walls to be cleaned if the OP had stained them with cigarette smoke.

AFAIK there is no legal requirement for a property to be redecorated every two years if it is let. I have been in my current rental for 4 years and the MoD show no sign of redecorating. I expect it will be done when we leave, and the place had been occupied for three years before we moved in.

I will be expected to have this house professionally cleaned when we move out, and I expect my tenants in the UK to do the same for us. As for redecoration - how do you get a whole house redecorated with the tenants and all their stuff in situ? I can't see my tenants agreeing to that. For that matter - who decorates their own place every couple of years anyway? In 24 years of home owning we've never done that.

If this ever went to court I am sure it would be thrown out and the landlord would get nothing.

The bottom line is that a landlord cannot use the deposit to replace used items with new items and there is always a mark down for wear and tear so after 8 years a worn out carpet, chipped paint and so on is to be expected. As long as you have not left rubbish in the house, ripped out teh boiler and destroyed the front door I dont see a problem.

Unfortunatley, as the tenancy is from 8 years ago so the deposit will not be in the TDS and the tenancy was not renewed. It would indeed be interesting to see if the rent had bene declared for tax or if she had told her mortgage company. It would be even more interesting to see if she tells HMRC that she had been living at the property all the time and hence claiming it as her principle residence when she sells it.

Oh and asking her where the gas certificate is would definitely be another good one. I used that on a letting agant that was not managing a property properly.

As I explained to them, upon my death for CO poisoning a very large insurance contract would be paid out and then the insurance company would come after them for compensation - not only bankrupting the company but putting the Directors in jail for manslaugter.

That worked a treat. Had a properly qualified plumber there in 2 hours.

We had this. Our landlords claimed that everything was perfect when we moved in and they should keep all of our deposit. In reality the kitchen was 23 years old and mouldy when we moved in. It took months but I got ALL the deposit back.

What you did wrong was to not have a proper tenancy agreement/contract for the rental.

Gentleman's Agreements are not worth the paper they are written on.

So you send her the letter before action, and add a paragraph stating that you note that by law
"Landlords must also arrange for an annual gas safety check to be carried out every 12 months by a Gas Safe Registered engineer.
Landlords must keep a record of the safety check for 2 years and issue a copy to each existing tenant within 28 days of the check being completed and issue a copy to any new tenants before they move in."
You do not recall being given a copy of annual certificates and therefore request that she provides copies for the last two years of your tenancy within, I dunno, 14 days.
That might do for a start do you think?

we rented a flat out for years, when they left it was ina dreadful state, but the only thing we kept their deposit for, was the kicked in front door that we had to replace, no one can say a kicked in door is normal wear and tear!
YANBU

I dont think its a case of them not understanding wear and tear, just that some of them are scoundrels and have already decided they are keeping your deposit regardless.

I posted about this recently. We left our last house in a far better condition than we found it but the LL is still keeping £1000 of our deposit. We had the place professionally cleaned, the carpets cleaned and the chimney swept. While we were there we had repainted (it hadnt been done for years and the textured wallpaper was virtually falling off the walls).

We have taken the matter to the TDS but I'm still not sure how things will go.

He has statements from his workers saying they had to use a tractor to remove rubbish I had left in the garden (namely a barbecue, garden table and bike rack). They are obviously false as the said items are in my new back garden but how I can argue my point when I dont have employees to back up my story.

Eejits like him are the ones who give decent landlords a bad name.

Och I not sure that I can be bothered now, it was last year and life has moved on. The thing that upset me most was that she refused to give me a reference, making it difficult for me to get another flat.

TBH for that alone I'd make her life hard

"What you did wrong was to not have a proper tenancy agreement/contract for the rental.

Gentleman's Agreements are not worth the paper they are written on."

Er, not strictly true. Once the initial term of a tenancy has lapsed, it goes automatically onto a Statutory Periodic contract. The LL has to give the tenant 2m notice, the tenant gives the LL 1m notice. Otherwise all reasonable clauses of the original signed agreement still stand.

You don't have to be covered literally by a current tenancy agreement to be bound by its terms. The fact that you remain in the property once the original agreement has lapsed, with the full knowledge and agreement of the LL means you are still contractually bound.

Digggers, please make an appointment with the CAB, see if there are any actions you can take?

I think you get problems with wear and tear on 2 fronts. Firstly you have the ones that want to rip you off and will use any excuse to keep your deposit, then you get the ones who lived in your house, so the house you are renting, they see as their home. So they see it very favourably and anything you do is awful.