Overseas landlord - tenant replaced my fridge without asking

[NewToRenting]

Hi everyone. My tenants moved out recently and the check out report had a completely different brand of fridge listed, which has some cracks/ chips and some drawers missing.
Admittedly my old fridge had been in the property for a while, but no reported issues or cracks or missing parts.
The estate agents who manage the property say unless I can prove my original fridge was brand new, all they can claim from the tenant's deposit is the cost for replacing the missing drawers.
I am absolutely livid. Surely that's not right? I agree that the original fridge was not brand new. However, I have no way of ascertaining how old the replacement fridge was. Theoretically the estate agent is telling me that the tenant could have sold my 5 year old fridge,and replaced it with a 20 year old relic off ebay and pocketed the profit before leaving my property?
Not sure what I should do?

Agree, this is part and parcel of being a LL. you need to distinguish between matters which need following up and those which don’t. If your profit margins are too tight to bear the cost of new fridge, you’re sailing too close to the wind. You should factor in costs for replacing white goods every 3-5 years (or don’t provide them if you don’t want to face this cost…but you’ll find it harder to attract tenants) and also new carpets every 5 years and decorating every 5 years or 2 short tenancies, new boiler every 10 years. So when you do your costings to see if being a LL makes sense for you, include these things, mortgage, agents fees, income tax and capital gains (when you sell) and cost of regulation such as EPC, EIRC, Gas Cert and then some contingency for other costs which inevitably will occur. If the rent won’t cover it all and leave a profit youre happy with, then it’s not for you.

There are a variety of small costs you just expect to suck up on tenancy change and minor damage is one of them. An old fridge replaced with another isn’t worth worrying about. You’d have needed to replace the other old fridge anyway and if not now, in a years so.

I have replaced the white goods in my kitchen as my LL replaced an old dishwasher with an ancient one that broke within weeks. And ignored my texts about a broken fridge freezer which I couldn't live without. I haven't stolen anything!

To summarise, I am upset because the tenant stole from me - the current price is immaterial, it's the replacement cost (of a new fridge) that I am looking at. I am also upset that despite having documentary evidence of different models in the check in/ check out reports, I seem to have no recourse, as per my estate agent.

If you are going to be a landlord long term, it would be good to try to regulate your emotional response a bit.

It is a business, and all sorts of things happen in business. This is really a very small thing in the scheme of things. You could have a tenant who shits all over the house and leaves without paying any rent!

You need to save some room on your emotional scale.

The two most realistic options are:
It broke and they just replaced it or they did a swap. There is no way of knowing which happened and as a second hand fridge replaced an old fridge, unless it is of a wildly different type then no money will be forthcoming.

Maybe it did break and the tenants thought it easier to just replace then approach the useless estate agent.

This is 99% a case of the fridge breaking and being replaced with a similar old, shitty fridge. You haven’t lost anything (you don’t even know how old the previous shitty fridge was…) and the current shitty fridge works. Your tenants have saved you the disposal and fitting charge of the “new” fridge—I’m putting that in quotes too as when I was a tenant and an appliance broke, I remember my landlord buying a new one from one of those dodgy dealers by the side of a road where everything was fourth hand at best

Wow the assumptions about tenants on here. I am both a landlord and a tenant and I’m
Disgusted that so many of you jump to the conclusion that the tenant stole it.

How about all the crappy agents that don’t pass messages on to the owners and so leave tenants frustrated that repairs are not done in a timely manner? I’ve had an agent like that so much so that the tenant found me via the land registry and then Facebook. I was horrified as was a simple repair. So much so that I got rid of the agent and found some reliable tradesmen. I live in the south and my property is in the north.

If a tenant who has paid rent on time and left the property in otherwise good condition had replaced a fridge I would not jump to the conclusion that they had stolen it but that they had replaced it with a second hand one after mine had broken.

I don’t follow how you think they’ve stolen from you . Unless it was a smeg fridge and replaced with a bog standard one what’s the issue ? Honestly fridges that are 5 years old aren’t that marvellous it really doesn’t make sense for them to swap it as you say as yours may last another 5 years or it may not . Reliability of white goods these days isn’t as good as they used to be in my experience.

@Polmuggle

I don't think you need to suck it up at all. Surely the recourse is to a) ask the tenants and if the explanation is unsatisfactory b)take the cost of replacing it from their deposit?

You cannot charge the tenant the cost of a brand new fridge if the fridge they took was not brand new.

You can charge them for the amount of value left in the fridge.

e.g. a £350 fridge with a realistic ten year livespan has £35 of value left after 9 years. You can charge the tenant £35.

@CakeandGo

Replace the appliance and take the cost from the deposit.

And find yourself in very legal hot water for doing so...

It seems so unlikely tenant took the fridge .....it was old. Would ther really do this which involves effort of removing, transporting and finding and installing the other one...just to have an old fridge. Instead they could have more easily got the one they installed for their new property if they needed one.
It is so much more likely the fridge was replaced a while ago. And that would have been because the existing one stopped working.

There is an unpleasant assumption about theft on this thread. Yes, some tenants damage property (far more likely than theft) but this tenant hasn’t caused damage or not paid rent or anything else to lead to assumptions they are a bad tenant. Yet lots leap to conclusion theft has definitely happened. And this is even when the supposedly stolen product wouldn’t have been attractive as old. It reflects prejudice against tenants in the face of no evidence against this tenant.

And agree Op needs to become more professional in her reactions. Minor issues (this is a minor issue at best and more likely a non-issue) are par for the course and need to be responded to proportionately and without causing emotional stress.

Might I suggest that a LL who gets emotionally upset and over reacts is exactly the reason why a tenant might worry about telling them an old fridge has broken down?

I would suggest the next time you rent out do not provide any white goods. This is the easiest thing tenants are responsible for all
Their own things then!

It's a minor issue, not worth getting upset over. If the tenancy was otherwise trouble free, you've come out ahead. Forget it and move on. If you can't, being a landlord isn't for you.

I think it is very unlikely they sold it and replaced it with a different one. Second hand fridges are cheap as chips there would be no point. It is much more likely that your one broke and they saw someone giving away one on Facebook marketplace so rather than going to the bother of getting you to replace just sorted it themselves.