To raise a dispute against my ex landlord

[baffledbeyondbelief]

Posting for traffic and hopefully some advice.

Background: Family of 4, rented a 3 bed house for almost 6 years. £900 bond held by the tenancy deposit scheme.

I've just received an email from the estate agents informing me the landlord will be keeping £250 for carpet cleaning and £350 for painting the property.

I guess what I'm asking is what is reasonable wear and tear over that period?

The carpets are the originals from 2008 (and cream), none of the rooms were freshly painted when we moved in and we have decorated a couple of rooms in the requested colour scheme (gardenia and white).

I don't mind paying something but 2/3 of our deposit seems steep when nothing was new when our tenancy started and the carpets hadnt been professionally cleaned.

I have before/after photos so need some suggestions of how to word it in our dispute or whether to just agree to pay?

that's a lot our old property had a 1000 pound deposit and we got charged for cleaning, painting the walls, replacing the entire lino in the kitchen because of a small tear at the back of under the cupboard from when the washing machines back leg was and replacing a sink in the bathroom which was already cracked when we moved in. we did the lino on the insurance and the rest came to about 400 pounds. i believe that the entire clean of the flat was maybe 130 top

You work out dilapidations by original cost divided by expected life of carpets then charge for the amount of years that they can no longer use them. I'd say 10 years for cream carpets is fair and they'd had their full life and the landlord should expect to replace them after a 6 year tenancy. Same goes for repainting.

I'd argue you owe nothing, if they don't have a full photographic professional inventory to dispute services on deposit schemes are always heavily weighted in favour of the tenants so I'd def challenge it.

I'd ask for the independent assessment thing, after 5 years redecoration would be neeeded!

Oh FFS, why do landlords nearly always DO this?

It's soooo hard to prove what it was like before, unless you went round taking pics of every single part of the house, every door, every skirting board, every wall, every ceiling, every floor, every fucking thing, when you moved in (which most people do not!)

Our private-let landlady (some 10 years ago,) robbed £550 of our £800 deposit; citing cleaning, rubbish removal, and gardening, (none of which was needed!) We were so pissed off, but had been going through such a rough time, and were emotionally drained, that we couldn't be arsed to fight it. When complaining about it to people I know, I discovered she had done it to 3 other tenants at the house we lived in, and 2 other tenants in another house she rented out... over about 7 years. Conning people out of several 1000s.

Have to say, I was thrilled when the landlady had a tenant who moved in, paid 2 months rent in advance (as well as their bond/deposit,) and then never paid anything else. She struggled massively to get them out. They absconded one night, leaving £4000 rent arrears, and approximately £5000 worth of damage to the property..

Had it coming to her. Glad we don't private-let now, so this shit no longer happens.

Definitely dispute it @baffledbeyondbelief

Thanks all, it's so stressful! £600 is a hell of a lot of money to us.

I've looked through the agreement and it doesn't say anywhere that we are responsible for updating decor so I'm going to raise a dispute.

The check in document done by the estate agents actually states that carpets are marked in heavy traffic areas and paint touch up marks are visible. Loads of before photos too.

I kind of know the previous tenant so I might message them and ask if any of their deposit was kept, or is that really rude?

Definitely raise a dispute! This is exactly what should be considered as wear and tear.
From what I understand, the tenancy deposit schemes dispute assessments usually come down in favour of the tenant.
Fight it!

Raise a dispute. This exact thing happened to us, it was a state before we moved in and the landlord wanted to take £350 from us to replace carpet and paint walls. It was entirely wear and tear on what was already really awful. We took it to the TDS as a dispute. It takes a little time and effort but if you have evidence of check in and photos when you first moved in you have a very strong case. We won and got our entire deposit back.

Tell you what though, the last place we rented they told us they were making a deduction on our deposit. £1. For a lightbulb that had blown whilst they were doing the check out. You can't make it up...

Dispute logged on the website!

Thank you for your responses, I feel so drained I could've easily given up but I'm going to fight my corner.

He’ll never get to keep that much, if any. We moved out of our last rented place last year and the landlord tried to keep 80% of the deposit. He actually accused my husband of spraying coke or deodorant on the ceiling which caused the brown marks 🤦‍♀️ They were actually caused by damp in the loft which we reported but nothing was done. Anyhow, we got 100% of our deposit back, sure you will too.