Security Deposit and Leak

[FindaPenny]

Hi everyone I posted this in '30 days only' and then thought this might be a better place to post.... Hope that is OK. Hoping for a bit of advice. We have a family acquaintance who is an international student. He rented a place while studying and paid a security deposit of £1950.

He paid until late June at which time the tenancy would finish, but actually went back to his home country in early May. He left us with the keys and when we went to check the flat prior to returning the keys to make sure everything was ok, we found that concealed pipes from the upstairs bathroom had leaked into the downstairs bathroom and caused an awful mess of mold.

My husband turned the water off and tried to clean up as best as he could. We have seen the invoice and for the clean up the landlord has instructed that £350 should be taken from the deposit, for this damage and non reporting of the issue.
£285 for general cleaning, £175 for carpet cleaning and £100 for cleaning of the oven, which we are a bit surprised about as when checkout was completed the inspector had said it looked like it was hardly used.

I just want to ask is the charge for the leak fair? I honestly have no idea either way so hoped someone might be more knowledgeable than me. I can see the point either way.... You are responsible for the flat, but at the same time the leak was not something that was caused by the tenant, how do we know when the pipes were last inspected. I had a reply on my other thread to say it was common to be charged for non reporting of issue, but I am just wondering is there any wriggle room in this situation.

Any help would be much appreciated, thank you.

Honestly, it depends on when their tenancy agreement ended. If they were still within the agreement period when the incident occurred, then yes they are likely liable for the damage. Likewise its likely they have a clause to notify the landlord if they aren't in the property for more than 2 weeks as it could invalidate their landlord buildings insurance.

If they had been living in the property, they would have noticed the leak, and reported it before the damage was substantial so I'm afraid in this instance whilst very unlucky, they are probably liable.

@treacletoots thank you for your reply... That's makes sense. As far as I know there was no agreement to inform anyone if he was to be away.

Yes, the devil's in the detail. If you can get hold of the agreement it may be useful. But even if this clause wasn't in, it wouldn't be unreasonable for the landlord to assume they would be living in the property until it ends.

On a flip side, if they were in the property, they could have had damage to their possessions which has thankfully not been an issue. (although likely covered by landlords insurance, still a hassle to sort out)

@treacletoots thank you again... I think it sounds like he more than likely will be held responsible, but it will be a good idea for us to look at the agreement.