Renting out an unfurnished house agents want to do an inventory at £250

[NeverEverSometimes]

Chargning in two parts but still essentially a £250 charge. (SW London)

Now, in my mind, it's freshly decorated and only has a few movable bits, namely wite goods and a fridge. Why would i want an inventory? The sales pitch from the grasping devil, just back from a sales course lettings manager is that:

It is a massive benefit to have a professional independent witness who can vouch for the state of the property before and after the tenancy. We now legally have to hold the tenants six weeks security deposit with a government registered scheme, we use TDS. This means that if the deposit is in dispute at the end of the tenancy the TDS adjudicate this and then make the final decision. If you have an independent inventory and check in service carried out then you have a reliable witness and a non-biased party that they will base their decision on. Without an inventory there is a huge chance that TDS will side with the tenants and I believe a less than 3% chance of a Landlord winning a case.

What do you think?

white not wite

It is a rip off I agree - but standard practice. Bear in mind they will also charge the tenants a similar amount!!

Also protects the tenants. We recently returned a 5 year rental (also unfurnished) that we left infinitely cleaner than it was given to us. Landladies were making noises about getting decorating costs out of our deposit (completely unfounded - trust me). We requested same inventory company and check-out bloke was same guy who had checked as in and he basically took our side and his report strongly recomended full deposit be returned - which it has.

I think these days you probably need it in case you get nghtmare tenants who damage the place but say it was already like that - our tenancy agreement predated TDS but we were quite prepared to go the legal route and very confident they would find in out favour. Luckil, as well as inventory, we had taken a lot of photos on the day we moved in (I woudl strongly recommend both parties always do this).

One of our batty landladies insisted that the master bedroom had been painted pale green and that we had changed it and painted it cream without permission! Sh eswore blind. Original photos and inventory proved otherwise.

Thanks

Like the 'pale green' tidbit! Mad bat indeed. Maybe we just suck it up but insist on photos being taken and attached as we are not there ourselves. (It was an investment opportunity).

I always get an independent inventory lady to do our houses, but we pay £60 a go (York, not London prices) so it seems more reasonable.

It is vastly easier at the end of the tenancy to be able to refer back to a bit of paper that tells you if the bath was chipped at the start of the tenancy or not. I would say go for it, but £250 seems a lot to me to pay for this service for an unfurnished house.

Ooh - can you let me know the details? That would be brilliant. Thank you!!

Smalltown, my DH had gone with the EA's as they used an independent assessor after all. Thank you very much though (hopefully others will see your recommendation on this thread).