We rented a house for two years and moved out in January. As a family we've moved out of several houses before (in London, so £££) and I thought I'd got it down to a tee. I paid for the full expensive clean (was nearly 800 quid, including carpets, ovens, windows etc.). This was guaranteed, so any problems would be rectified by the company. Before moving out we allowed viewings (they were selling), which I don't normally do but they had been very good to us as LL. These viewings continued after we left and are still ongoing now as it's not sold. I had several conversations with the LL about the state of the property and offered to get an odd job man in instead of paying for the inventory (cost is about the same) but he said no they preferred to do an inventory. All fine with me. At the end of the tenancy the ll returned out deposit in full, without question. Great, I thought, and fair too, as we had paid all our rent on time and allowed unlimited viewings. Now, two months later, he has sent me a list of damages totalling 2k (including cleaning faults) and asked for my thoughts. AIBU that he has taken away my right of redress through the deposit protection scheme? I'm aware I could do nothing but it might fester on and if he really wanted to he could take us to small claims. There are some silly things on the list like two broken light fittings for 300 quid each and gardening at 50 per hour.
I would have paid reasonable deductions from the deposit, but why repay the deposit and then do this?