Tenant has changed carpet, door and curtains!!

[Member786488]

He’s leaving tomorrow as was served a s.21 in July, my daughter is moving in.

he’s just told me how much he’s ‘improved’ the flat - he’s put in a horrible cheap grey fluffy carpet over a lovely, hard wearing, (expensive) and neutral one, he’s put a couple of doors in because he ‘doesn’t like open plan’, and my (again, neutral) blinds and curtains have been replaced with dark red things.

his deposit is £860. I don’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation but I think I’m going to have to. What’s reasonable here?

I can’t believe he did all that without asking!

I think tbh if it’s a long term tennant they should really be able to decide what the decor is like.

I totally disagree with this and I was a Tennant in rented accommodation for 20 years overseas.

Most LL's make their home neutral as it is easier for everyone to keep clean and touch up. I was always passed a clean, neutral flat or house. The contract was, if I did anything to it, like repaint, put holes in the walls when putting up shelves or pictures, I had to have them filled in before I left. I would ask the LL at the start what paint they used, and get a pot to touch anything up when I left, or was told don't bother, just fill in the holes, it is being repainted. If you painted a wall, you either changed it back or paid a fee out your deposit for them to rectify it.

It's not your home. It is theirs, they own it. You are a contractor, renting it off them. Like a long term air BNB. If you rent somewhere, it is not yours to change. Your "stuff" makes it your home.

This is just my experience of renting many different places overseas.

This is one of the many reasons we sold our tenanted house at a loss. All of the original bakerlite doors being removed and dumped was the final insult.

It’s your deposit we’re talking about isn’t it.

the deposit was very definitely lodged through an estate agent.
Just for any renters out there, this doesn’t always mean that it’s been registered with the TPS as we found out when my DH (DP at the time) moved out of our first home together. We got a nice little sum in the end thanks to our shady, but city wide and well known estate agent failing to do their duty.

OP I can completely understand you returning the deposit and letting it go. Having previously been a landlord myself I recommend regular inspections. It is endlessly surprising what tenants don't report (fear of being thought difficult?) and what they do to properties without referring to the terms of the AST or asking about first. I had a tenant who asked to redecorate a bedroom and that redecoration involved throwing out the curtains, light fitting and the carpet, not just painting, so always ask for details of what they're planning to do.

I've been a tenant for long periods myself and had a landlord whose agent let themselves in to the house and a nosey landlord who turned up to inspect with no notice and peered through all the windows when we were out at work and proceeded to ask a series of questions about the flat.

Maybe you should have waited until you had visited the flat before posting? Lots of people have taken time out to give you advice before you’d even seen it for yourself. Then you’ve just ignored all the advice 😩

Go through the deposit scheme company (I hope you secured it properly)things like carpets, curtain etc come with fair wear and tear and isn’t necessarily based on the length of the tenant in the properly.

8 years is what I believe is counted for carpet life span, so for this if he’s been in a year and it was payed just prior to him taking on the property provided you have the receipts to prove it’s age you should be fine.

same with the blinds. If not then it’s a lesson to learn as you should be accounting for all costs.

Not being able to cope with a discussion about the damage is why LLing was never going to work for OP.

This tenant has got away with the damage they have caused.

Do you have much experience being living in a rental? They might have the responsibility to maintain the house but they always take the shortcut route to solve issues, and it usually does not solve the actual problem. I do understand the contractual agreement but in reality it’s very sad that people have to spend most of their wages to live in someone else’s ‘show home’. Saying that not all landlords are the same and most are pretty happy for you to change things.

Not your decision

I get frustrated when I see landlords putting up with behaviour like this. It does sound like the tenants has mental health problems so I understand that has to be taken into consideration but this man has wrecked the OP's property.

I just had two tenants leave. They left the property in an absolutely filthy state. They caused damage by not performing basic cleaning tasks. They caused further damage by using the wrong cleaning products at the end of their tenancy in an attempt to get their deposit back. They lied about one of them moving out, I think because he had a guarantor and they were planning on not paying the last month's rent. They were nightmare for other people in the block by making so much noise and then played the victim and said they were being targeted.
I came to an agreement with them because I've had a bad experience with the deposit company before but they still got away with more than they should.
They bad experience was having to clean after other tenants left. It took me two days - I couldn't get a professional cleaner because I had new people moving in and there was no time - and the deposit company wouldn't award anything like what a professional cleaner would have charged and gave me something like £80. This despite the fact I did a better and more thorough job than professional cleaners do judging from my experience.

I understand landlords can be scumbags but f me, so can tenants.

Personally I think that private Landlords should have to be proper Companies with strict legal guidelines, and the bulk of tenancies should be social housing, so that rents paid go back into social housing and not to pay off another person's mortgage.

Oh good grief. The level of ignorance on threads like these is astounding.

Who do you think would volunteer to be a LL if all the rent money "went back into social housing"? Don't you realise that's what our taxes our supposed to pay for - except the government aren't building nearly enough so the majority of people have to rely on private LL's???

Jesus wept.

I work on the fringes of property rentals mainly flats. You are unlikely to get anything like what it would cost to put it back to as was. It staggers me how 70-80% of our tentants live and what state they give the units back in. Food left in ovens, grease everywhere because clearly in 1 year they have never cleaned. Fridges stuffed with mouldy food. Scummy bed linen with god knows what on it left for us to dispose of.And yes we did have someone who changed the flooring. He superglued carpet to hard flooring. Left a terrible mess, put mirrors on all doors both sides, left all his unclean underwear around, ran off with some of the furniture and tons of medication for 'someone' else to sort out. He lived in the Middle East and honestly we got legal advice and were told not to bother pursing him. His deposit was 5 weeks rental. It didnt even touch the sides.

PS: He also didnt pay his rent for 8 months...

Quite honestly now we are now planning to sell all the apartments. We have another development but its been decided that we wont do any more rentals - they are just so not worth it.

Landlord’s selling up have pushed rent up in some areas. In this area (midlands) Rents of 725 during covid are now 1000 and people are struggling to find a rental. This will mean rents increase further. The government are not building enough social housing. The population has grown over the past 20 years.

Op I would have pursued him for the money. I imagined he’d nailed some sheeting across the wall. I’m not sure why so many on here thought that there would be doors missing. 1 bed flats are often open plan lounge and kitchen when built. He’s no doubt nailed sheets of plastic between the lounge area and kitchen to separate the two. The dog may not be taken out often enough (as it’s a flat and it can take a few minutes to get to the street) and it’s therefore forced to mess on the floor.

There are rogue landlords and also rogue tenants. I understand why some landlord’s prefer to air b and b - more hassle but far higher rents and the tenant goes after a week or two.

It will be easier/ quicker if you agree any deductions with the tenant and then you don’t have to go through their dispute resolution. However if you do dispute the amount you can just log and and ask for whatever amount you want and provide evidence and the the dps with make the decision about what to award. You should consider how long he has lived there as you wouldn’t be able to charge for brand new carpets for example- the would be a level of wear and tear so this should be taken into account

I rent out. Check your contract. The grey carpet and the red blinds are his to take with him. If your original blinds and carpet are damaged/lost or need cleaning take it out of the deposit plus the cost of having them reinstalled. Tenants must not make alterations to the property without permission (check your contract)-the cost is his to have the doors removed and taken away and the property returned to how it was. Fair wear and tear is acceptable but not what he's done, I'd be annoyed, don't be soft.

If he has installed doors where you did not even have door frames then there is going to be a lot of making good to do to get it back to how it was (the deposit probably won't cover everything on your list). I am quite surprised he did this but I guess he must have been feeling the cold sufficiently to want to go to that trouble and expense (not criticising your flat, just that if he is elderly he may have been better suited to a non open plan property where he could shut doors and put an extra heater in the room). However, he should have looked for a more suitable place instead of making the alterations!

@MusicAndPassionWereAlwaysTheFashion

Indeed- we have never had any issue on our rentals in UK for last 13 years or so because of the TDS and the fact we have a professional clean when we move out plus gardener. We also seek permission for anything we do like pictures up etc and on a couple of occasions where we have left new lightshades or wardrobes- we've notified and sent pictures and asked if they would like them to remain (they always have because our stuff was good quality )

The only place we have had issues was in Denmark - where if you rent it has to be retuned back to 'as new' condition - this means restripping all floors and painting the whole place, plus there is no allowance for wear and tear. The landlord holds the deposit still and effectively can charge you what the hell he likes to do this work if you haven't done it yourself- as we were coming back to uk it wasn't feasible to do whilst we were still there. It's 3 months deposit too and they make that work fit the 3 months deposit!! It's totally a bit Wild West. We got taken for £7k on a beautifully clean house (professional cleaners when we left) we had only lived in for 20 months

Advantage is quality of rentals are amazing, no grotty carpets, brand new stripped floors, freshly painted- disadvantage is you won't see your deposit again and if staying in Denmark need. A further 3 months to be able to move!!

I agree with this. I think all LL's renting on shorthold tenancies should be licensed, and they should have to undertake a course on the rights and responsibilities of LLs in order to get a licence. Anyone letting out a property without a licence should then be deemed to have created a secure, rent-controlled tenancy.

I worked in homelessness prevention for 10 years, and came across a lot of appalling behaviour by landlords.

I replaced a carpet in a rental once, my mother was renovating and her ‘old’ carpet was way nicer than her rental so we changed it. I wouldn’t have ever even considered checking with the landlord first! He had 1970’s swirly turquoise carpet and was delighted with our freebie neutral. But of course a tenant has to ask!

Glad the situation is resolved.

For about £500 - £1000 you can remove the door, clean, repaint, have new carpet, new curtains and rail.

Most landlords encounter some costs following the end of a tenancy.

We had a tenant for 4 years, the carpet and living room sofa had to go - he had been sleeping on it all that time due to mobility difficulties… on the bright side upstairs was immaculate.

Like yourself we didn’t want the hassle of chasing the tenant, particularly when he was vulnerable.

Yes, usually the tenant is required to ask permission to replace carpet with new carpet prior to doing so, the same with installing doors but this expectation even if a clause in the tenancy agreement does not automatically translate into a right to withhold the deposit. You can only charge for actual damages suffered, not perceived damages due to lack of permission and disliking the choice of decor.

(Putting up your own curtains usually isn’t expected to require permission from the LL. DPS usually goes by if there were curtains there and curtains at check out doesn’t matter what colour they were or are unless it’s a clear case of replacing expensive made to measure with a bedsheet held together with safety pins)

If there was nothing in the tenancy agreement stating the requirement to ask permission, and this could be the case as the OP said the agent only acted as a finder and not as her property manager, then the OP as LL cannot legally enforce unwritten expectations on a tenant. If there is no mention of requiring permission to make any changes to the decor or minor interior changes, then the tenant did no wrong.

Even if the tenancy agreement did state it, was it clearly written? Also even if it was, was this elderly, vulnerable tenant also given the Government required renters guide that explains his rights and responsibilities in plain English required by law to be given to every tenant who rents in England? And asked at check in whether he had questions?,that he had read and understood it? Failure to give him the guide and ensure he has read and understood it at check in isn’t looked on favourably by DPS.

Is he even capable of understanding the tenancy terms without help? As in is his vulnerability in any way associated with cognitive difficulties? Might be the case as he now is under the care of adult social services and obviously was struggling to live independently.

So, yes OP could recover actual damages as in cost to remove doors and patch and spot paint walls, but it is highly doubtful she would recover a penny for anything where there are no actual damages other than a failure to ask permission, especially in the case of a vulnerable tenant and even more so if she failed in her duty as a landlord to ensure the requirement to ask permission was clearly stated in the tenancy agreement and that she had given him the guide and ensured he had read and understood it at check in.

So would I. Getting rid of carpets, curtains etc that belong to someone else is very bad behaviour, and making good the the damage done by fitting the (repulsive) folding door won't be cheap.

Assume you’ve used a deposit protection scheme (because that’s the law), so they will assess to what degree he’s broken the terms of the contract and how much deposit you should be able to keep. They act as mediator to keep both you and him safe from pressure or harassment.

The one time I ever rented, I had my entire deposit retained by the landlord because I had not returned the decoration back to the original which was dark blue and grey. I had painted it bright white (with his permission) and had painted the doors (again with his permission ). The contract did say ‘return to original state’ but I had naively assumed that as he’d agreed to my changes, that superceded the contract. Wrong!

When I put forward the argument that in the new rental listing they were using ‘bright, airy and well decorated interior’ as a selling point (and had raised the rent by £75 from what I was paying), showing that I’d actually benefitted him but the deposit company simply went off the contract.

They really should have some cash lying around. They are supposed to be running a business. If £800 is going to break the bank after taking a year of rent then being a landlord is not for you.