Bit of advice/experience needed.
We are in the process of buying a house. Currently in rental and have been for 18 months (I am also a landlady for a house I own in another city- so I have an idea what I would do in the below situation).
When we moved into the rental it was in poor state of decoration and was filthy. We took photos and complained to the agency. They noted our concerns. Some of the issues were that the fridge freezer had not been fully emptied and just turned off so it was black with mold. The stair case was only half painted. Where things had been painted it was a botch job i.e. they hadn't used masking tape around the edges so there were blobs of coloured paint on the white ceiling. Some of the walls had mould on and lots of wear and tear scuff marks. Most of the doors on the kitchen cabinets were wonky.
We had to find somewhere to rent quickly and needed somewhere that would accept our cat. We ended up being an extra half month deposit for our cat.
When we moved in we got permission from the landlord and we painted most of the rooms, neutral colours only. I had to steam clean the entire house. We snagged some of the half done plaster and re hung the doors in the kitchen. All of this came at our own expense. The house is now loads better and the landlord had the cheek to put up our rent when he saw how nice we made it.
Anyway we will be moving out. We have not damaged anything except 2 small areas of carpet where the cat scratched it and made it look a bit fluffy. And another area where the cat got in a corner and scratched the corner of the carpet nearly bare without us realising. It's a small amount and barely noticeable as there is a big wardrobe almost up to where it is.
My worry is that our landlord is a complete cheap skate and I wouldn't put it past him to charge us for whole room new carpets. Hes such a cheapskate that he left us with no boiler for over a week in the middle of the snowy winter (knowing I was pregnant) because he didn't believe I could smell gas and we needed a new boiler.
My question is can he say we have to pay for new carpets? When there was no inventory so no way of proving the damage was done by us? And considering how we have improved the condition of the property immensely. Can we argue using that if he tries to make us pay? Thanks in advance