Damage to our rented out property

[bebejones]

My DH has just been to show a prospective new tenant round our rented out flat. Thankfully this was someone he knew. The tenants had had a weeks notice of this & were fine about it. (It is their decision to be moving out and gave their months notice about 2 weeks ago.) Long story short they have completely wrecked the place by all accounts.

-Ripped out shelves that we had had put it & just shoved polyfilla in the holes.

-Had a gas heater & tumble dryer in without the proper ventilation causing mould & mildew from the condensation. (Which they complained constantly about )

-Have marked all the laminate in the kitchen.

-Ripped out the banister rail on one of the staircases.

-Left cigarette butts all over the floor (we didn't know they were smokers) and also have left cigarette burns in the newly fitted carpet.

The new tenant is a builder & has estimated that the damage done will cost about £3000 to fix, not including carpet. What can we do? We know we can keep their deposit but that's only £500. They aren't moving out til the 16th April, we plan to go down & inspect the property then although DH did take some pictures today. Just can't believe they would leave it in that state with a weeks notice that their landlord was coming!

Do you have an inventory relating to this tenancy giving a detailed description of the property at the start of the tenancy, with photos, date, tenants names etc?

i would get as many photos as possible and take the tenants to small claims for the rest. have you got any pics of the property before they moved in?

not sure if that is legally possible as i don't know a thing about property law, hopefully someone will be along with proper advice but thats what i'd do.

bamboo that is exactly what should happen. However, you have to prove it is damage caused by the tenants first.

That can only be done by having an inventory showing descriptions at the beginning.

If the tenants can argue "there were no shelves so we didnt use the Polyfilla" or "there was never a banister" then the OP is stuffed.

With an independent detailed inventory from the start of the tenancy it is easier to argue.

Quotes will have to be obtained and length of tenancy taken into account.

I am in property management so do know a lot about rental law.

Happy to help you fight your corner bebe

I think we have something like that (DH usually deals with it all & has gone into a 'it's the weekend I'll deal with it Monday' mood). We definately have some photos as we used to live there. I feel a bit sad about it at the moment. The place wasn't perfect & we knew there were things that needed work on but were not expecting them to leave the place in this kind of state. I haven't looked at the pictures yet as I think I'd get too upset! The carpet has been down less than a year & it was a 'gift' essentially from my Grandma to help us rent the property in the first place! These tenants have only been in there since September.

It used to be let through a letting agent friend of ours but we had a lot of problems (business & friendship don't mix). I'm fairly confident that they will have a more substantial inventory if we do not have one.

I can't find inventory although it is mentioned in the tenancy agreement. It does say in the agreement that nothing is to be removed without written permission. The bannister is kind of essential and is/was original to the property (Victorian) without it the staircase in question is open. The shelves were built in to an alcove & were I think listed as fixture/fittings. They have also drilled holes into the wall to fix a mirror on which is a breech of the agreement as well.

Will have to have a dig around in the file for the inventory but having just skimmed the agreement it would seem that there is one.

We also have a dated receipt for the fitted carpet which was prior to them moving in. I also think that it is listed under fixtures/fittings.

bebe You will need to find that inventory and it will need to be dated to coincide with teh start of this tenancy.

When your tenants check out that inventory needs to be used and a comprehensive check out report compiled based on differences between that inventory and how the property is now.

A receipt for the carpet is irrelevant.

It could have been fitted one day, you had a party that night, it got trashed, and tenants moved in the next day.

I don't mean to sound harsh but you need to get the facts if you are going to sue these tenants for nearly £3,000.

You cannot prepare a court case on the basis of "we have something somewhere".

I shall ask DH when he has his landlord hat on. I don't know where to look or what I'm looking for! It's his 'thing'!

No wonder I couldn't find it, it was in a file at his office. Along with photographs of every room. Hopefully we can get this sorted. Thanks for the advice!