to think that end of tenancy inspections are just yet another way of ripping tenants off?

[Thisarmingman]

I mean, really, you can lose money from your deposit which afaik is supposed to cover damage because your extractor fan isn't taken apart and cleaned or the inside of the kitchen cupboards aren't pristine? Since when was that damage?

Seems like landlords aren't happy enough getting tenants to bankroll their lifestyle - they want tenants to prepare the property for the next person too which is surely the landlord's job.

People who own houses and sell them don't have to do this on pain of losing several hundred pounds. It's just a rip off.

Our landlords moved back in and charged us for painting, they said that they wouldn't expect to have to paint after six years, they charged us for marks on the carpet which were dents where the dining table had stood, they charged us for the oven to be professionally cleaned, I had cleaned it twice just before we left and it was sparkling. That's the short version of events, they treated us despicably and got away with it. Utter cunts.

Well, this is bollocks, or you've used some shitty agents.

I have indeed used some shitty agents. Unfortunately, they were the only ones on offer - it's hard to avoid terrible ones when a) all the local letting agents have (deserved) bad reputations and b) you're renting somewhere where if you don't say you'll take it at viewing it'll be gone. We had six different letting companies in my renting days: three were actively horrible, two were okish but hard to get hold of if you actually needed anything, the sixth were sort of lovably incompetent, but at least seemed to be actual human beings.

Agree with the above. It's just not practically possible to pick and choose which letting agent to use. When you find a house that you can afford, and that is roughly where you want to live, you just have to go for it.

You don't know what you're going to be dealing with until you're dealing with it anyway. Agents demand all sorts of information from tenants - bank statements, employment contracts etc - but tenants go into the contract pretty much blind. How on earth can you find out how good they are about repairs/deposits/inspections in advance? You can't. Plus they are about as well regulated as your average gangmaster so even when things do go wrong there's little that can be done about it.

You also have the issue of local estate agents being owned by the huge property management companies, such as Countrywide. So the property is advertised through X Estates and you deal with Sarah at X Estates for everything. Then when you're in the house, Countrywide (other national companies are available) take over and you find out how screwed you are.

I can't get the deposit scheme to refund our money after 3 months!

They extended the deadline to the landlord 3 times to raise a dispute. One minute before the last deadline he demanded one fifth of the money.

I responded to all the points with evidence to refute.

The deposit scheme still won't refund the part that's NOT in dispute, which is over two thousand pounds!

The problem with letting agents (and I'm talking as a LL here with sympathies for tenants) is that they are 100% focused on the business / financial side of property management. So all the wee jobs that a LL might do themselves at low or very minimal cost end up getting assigned to a maintenance company which charges very high fees for very small jobs. Changing batteries in a smoke alarm? Dripping tap needing a new washer? That'll be minimum of £50 a time plus parts and VAT please, thank you very much. We had a tenant move out recently who left the place in an okay condition - some skirting boards not wiped, fridge / freezer frozen up and not cleaned, cupboards not wiped out etc. The only option we had to deal with all these fairly minor things was a professional cleaner coming in for at least £250 which would then be claimed from the tenants deposit. In the event, we let it go and had my parents go in and tidy the place up. The tenant had been pretty good and with us for 5+ years, with no problems throughout that time. We didn't want to stiff him for £250 over a few unwiped shelves! But we live overseas and cannot be on hand, it all has to go through the agents and their very expensive maintenance contractors. It feels like a bit of a racket, especially when we found out that the maintenance company are owed by the same property management co. as the letting agency...

But YABU overall. There are good tenants and bad tenants, good LL and bad LL, good letting agencies and not so good ones. The deposit scheme should go a long way to helping address to poor ones on both sides.

With regard to the end of tenancy inspection & the hoops that I have had to jump through, why is it that I have never moved into a property that has been clean?! I get so sick of scrubbing my freezer, fridge, oven and then having to do it all over again in the new places.

Totally agree that you go into each tenancy blind. It is pure luck whether you get a good agent/good landlords. In my experience there is very little protection for the renter. We had a monstrous landlord in one property, she was absolutely mad as box of frogs. We were treated badly from the get go. The property wasn't ready on moving in day and when we objected we were threatened with either move in or lose our deposit and advance rent (the agent didn't care one jot) . I wish to God we'd forfeited our deposit because she ended up taking our deposit at the end anyway for spurious and unfounded reasons (this was pre-deposit protection days) and we had a miserable tenancy dealing with a crappy property, her batshit craziness and no hot water for three months before we could invoke our break clause.

When we moved out I wrote to the letting agent, who incidently had featured in some spangly documentary at the time, massive PR exercise. I stupidly thought that they might be interested to know that one of their landlords with multiple properties was such a con artist & unfit landlord who was damaging their reputation and they couldn't have cared less.

When we moved abroad for work, we rented out our house. The tenant caused so much damage, she painted radiators, pulled out fitted wardrobes and the breakfast bar, and the place stank of cats.

I was heartbroken that someone would be so disrespectful/dirty. I auctioned the house.

If I was ever to be a LL again, I definitely would have the checks done.

And as a tenant, I do treat the place with respect and wouldn't expect any one else to clean up after me!

It's a shame anyone would disrespect anyone else's home like that @frogsgoladidahdidah that's awful!
It's a shame for tenants as well because we are amazing tenants and I think experiences like that make LLs bitter and so don't stand up for their tenants.

I can't believe how useful this thread is to me right now.

When I moved into my flat, we were expected to do the inventory, which I wasn't too happy about but I did it anyway. I didn't have the time to do it completely detailed (as in cupboards, wardrobes, floor, toilet etc) but I marked the important damage and finished off with a general comment that the place was tidy but dirty. I realise now that it was very stupid of me, but first time ever doing one and renting a flat.

They have now sent me a £200 bill to come off the deposit to clean the property. I have said multiple times that they can't justify me paying when I clearly put on the inventory that the place was dirty. There are no photos of the place from before I moved in so should I carry on arguing? I think I have a very valid case.

LL get shafted too sometimes . My mum rented out my Granny's house to help cover her care bills. Bastards used the house as a cannabis farm. Huge amount of damage in every room and insurance wouldn't cover it. The tenants full deposit (quite rightly) was used to help my mum but it didn't come anywhere near enough. Letting agents were useless.....

parking yes you should argue the case. It is up to the landlord to prove you have left the flat in a worse state than you moved in.

You can basically put forward the inventory which the landlord has agreed was noted as being dirty, then say you left the place in the same state as when you moved in. LL will not have a leg to stand on.

Well i must clearly be missing a trick as a landlord then, because I've only once claimed on the deposit (and that was for a broken window). I expect leaving tenants to take all their stuff with them (or bin it) and hoover through/wipe out the fridge but that's about it. Then I go in and deep clean before we start showing it.

I don't even charge if they've not cleaned the oven and that's my least favourite job of all time.

Parking do you have a copy of the original inventory? Did they accept it at the time? If so definitely challenge - they'll not have a leg to stand on.

I've seen both sides of this as have rented and am now a landlord myself as I rent out my old place.
I had a terrible landlord once as a student, when we gave notice we came home one day to find him painting over the mound in the bathroom, he had let himself in when we were out! We knew he wouldn't refund our deposit so some of us withheld our last months rent to balance things up. We later found out he had been blacklisted by the college.
As a landlord I do my best but some tenants really take the piss. One took me ages to get rid of, he didn't pay the rent and yes I did keep his deposit to cover that but it was in a deposit scheme and he agreed. However it didn't cover all the rent and he had trashed the place too so he left me seriously out of pocket. Now my tenants pay on time every month, I have not raised the rent in five years as a result. But I am thinking about it now given the changes to the tax law the government has brought in or I won't even break even.

I'm an accidental landlord (rent out a house I couldn't sell when I had to move) and I think from reading some of the things above that I've been incredibly lucky. I've had good tenants and the letting agents I use now seem to be pretty fair - they do a photographic inventory of the house before the tenants move in, and again when they move out, so it's very easy to see what (if any) damage has happened. I don't know why this wouldn't be standard practice.

Having said that, the previous agent ran off with six months' rent (I wasn't on the ball with checking as I was looking after my elderly father, who was in and out of hospital at the time) and I never did get it back. OK, I'll agree he was a pretty despicable letting agent...!

I've said it once I'm gonna say it again - please familiarise yourself with deposit schemes!!

A LL CANNOT just say "I'm giving you back half your deposit because of x y and z". Well, they can, but you don't have to accept it.

Say your deposit is £700, and LL wants to keep £300. You raise a dispute with the deposit scheme and they automatically return the remaining £400 to you as it's not in dispute. Some LLs don't tell you this as they are crooks. I've been tondispute once with a tenant, I won as the flat was basically trashed and he hadn't paid rent for 2 months. It was an obvious win for me, but I still had to go down the correct route.

OP I think we may have had the same LL!! Ours did exactly that, pointed to a wee bit of fluff in a drawer 🙄 And then withheld £700 for a month I'd spent 2 days cleaning the mould infested shithole we had to live in, my mum (who could give Kim and Aggie a run for their money) helped too and was apoplectic at her cleaning being insulted, LL said it was "absolutely filthy" it really wasn't!

She also tried to charge us for skip hire - a tree had fallen down in the garden during high winds and she didn't want to pay £500 for a professional tree person to cut up the logs. So FIL (registered tradesman) offered to do it for £70, providing he could take the wood away and made it clear she'd have to dispose of the greenery herself. The skip hire she tried to charge to US was for the greenery 1 apparently it wasn't her problem to dispose of it!! And then she didn't pay FIL, still hasn't.

Ooh I tell you the restraint I had not calling the bitch up and telling her to go fuck herself, I'm quite proud of myself

My LL the opposite. I'd love to look after my place and decorate but they refuse. Even though I'm supposed to leave it in good condition but they won't let me. So doubt I'll get deposit back.

YANBU. Letting agents in my experience are bastards when it comes to check out. One house I left gleaming it was so clean. Way cleaner than when we arrived but they decided it would cost £120 to remove a spiders web from the toilet window. Bear in mind they did the check out 5 days after I left and the house was next to a field. I explained it wasn't there when I left , their answer was I shouldn't have left the spider in there
This particular agency has form for this though. The cleaners they apparently get in to remove such things as a spider web is one of the agents partners. Say no more. Bastards. Not sure how they sleep at night.

Last house was fine got full deposit back. It really depends on the ll/agent as to whether they are a dick or not.

When I rented I made sure on the first day as soon as I had keys I went in before putting any furniture or anything in it and took photos with a digital camera of EVERYTHING. Anything else I ended up paying out for I kept a ledger (master circuit breaker went when there was a power surge and I ended up paying out for it etc) then on last day after cleaning I took photos of EVERYTHING again.
LL that I had was a complete cow. Used a friend for gas safety certificates who snooped round everywhere and reported back I must have another adult there because I had 3 adult toothbrushes in the bathroom. 1 manual and 1 electric on windowsill (just in case I forgot to charge electric one,happened a few times) and 1 in the cupboard under the sink in the cleaning box I had that I used on showerhead to keep on top of timescale (hard water area)

She wanted to up the rent by 400 a month (from 875) and when I said bollox she told me good luck in getting my deposit back and get out in 30 days.
I got it back purely because of the photos and I could prove I had maintained the property of my own back.

Anyway vent over.....sorry about that. Point being when you rent it's safer to document EVERYTHING. LL or tenant. There are problem people on both sides of the fence.

There are three legit deposit schemes in England/ wales. How they work is detailed on their websites. Only disputed portions of deposits get retained

At each tenant departure I have been reminded to get a move on raising any disputes, because the money belongs to the tenant and goes back to them if I don't shift. ( as it should be). So I must be using different schemes from the ones on this thread.

One full wreck, tenant didn't argue with the claim and I got the lot. Previously newly refurbed house full of filth, complete repaint, carpet, two weeks scrubbing and fixing. Oh well.

That's business. Which is what property rental is. Social housing isn't but we sold lots of that.

I never do that. Only once in 25 yrs have I used any of the tenants money. They hadn't cleaned for months and had ripped the shower curtain and rail off. I think they were pleasantly surprised I charged them at cost.

It seems I am unusual in my honesty! Oh and the dope smokers who left many many tiny rock burns in the carpet in the living room and bedroom. He was a student and started to moan it wasn't fair so I asked him if I should explain to his dad what the burns were, that shut him up. I didn't charge him for a new carpet though. I think I took a nominal payment of £50. Would charge for new carpet now though.

Just to add what has already been said, LL can't just make deductions willy nilly. If they want to keep £300 for cleaning then they need an invoice backing that up.

Oh and I used to get my letting agents to do the check out and check in. It cost me a lot if money - several hundred but it was very convenient. I STOPPED when I found out that they also charged the tenant. I was livid. Htf can they justify that?