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!

Did you protect his deposit?
Was the carpet brand new when he moved in? Was it cream or beige and with a dog he has decided to cover it to protect it from dirt? Are there definite holes in the ceiling from the doors? No one can really offer advice if you haven't really got answers to all of that.

Just rent unfinished property. This is what we do.

I'm interested to know how you managed to get him a social worker?

Just go via the deposit scheme and put what you believe is reasonable forward. The tenant will be able to agree or dispute - it’s then in the hands of the deposit scheme to decide what’s an acceptable charge.

Assuming you have put the deposit in a scheme, if not the tenant can take you to court and claim compensation for an unprotected deposit. Which will cost you a lot more in the long run.

As it seems the deposit has not been put in a scheme the section 21 is not valid. You cant legally evict him. Also a landlord can not end a tenancy only the tenant or a court can, a section 21 is basically and invitation to leave. And your is not even valid, he should not of done the ‘improvements ‘ without permission but you have no legal stand on this, and could even be sued for up to 3 x the deposit, so all in all you are lucky he has agreed to leave as you had no hope of removing him legally

It’s all above board and the deposit is protected, OP has confirmed she used an agent who sorted everything out. Sorry to disappoint you!

Be professional.
Ask him to return flat to previous state as per inventory or deduct cost of doing so from his deposit.
I had a tenant whose hamster destroyed the curtains.
I deducted the cost of like for like new ones from deposit.
End of.
Let the agent liase between you.
That's what you are paying them for.

The fact that you don’t know what the deposit scheme is tells me that you haven’t handed his deposit over to them? If you haven’t you’re in trouble, as he’ll get the whole lot back plus compensation.
If you have & he’s been in the property longer than 6 years you can’t charge for the carpet, if he’s kept your original curtains just put them back up… how has he managed to just hang doors? Did you have frames without doors hung? As a landlord you should do all you can to ensure the health of your tenants and leaving an elderly man without the warmth of closed doors is irresponsible. Return his deposit & let this be a lesson for you to never forge a career in property management again.

Have you even read the thread? I can only assume you haven't! The OP did nothing wrong and gave full deposit back even when she could have kept some

I use my own (probably highly discriminatory but I care not) approach to vetting tenants.

I suggest that the write of this comment is more careful in future about writing that on a public forum where your IP address etc. can be sought.

I hope a future tenant or prospective tenant makes sure (through legal channels) that said landlord learns to care very much not to discriminate. In Wales you'd be at risk of losing your landlord registration, I hope they brining similiar in England soon. And give it some teeth.

*bring, not brining

OP I haven't read all pages of the thread but it sounds as though you have handled this the sensible and reasonable way, even though you had right on your side to keep at least some of the deposit.

I am a landlord, while I let an agent set up the tenancy agreements, collect deposits, handle inventory reports, gas inspections etc I do my own viewings specifically so I can personally assess and get a ‘gut feel’ for what any prospective tenant was like. I learned the hard way after trusting a letting agent to do the vetting which resulted in an absolute nightmare tenant and several months of grief and extensive damage. That tenant, on paper at least (solid references etc), sounded brilliant, however when I finally met them in person it was perfectly obvious that they should not be let near any rental property. An absolute twat.

I private rented a house for over 10yrs, if i wanted to put down new carpets etc i HAD to ask the landlord if that was ok 1st. You don't remove things or add extras like doors in a property you don't own, without asking 1st.

That is very weird behaviour.
However, if you would be updating the carpet & curtains for your daughter anyway I would not charge an elderly vulnerable person for this.
I suppose that if you can afford to be kind about the situation then you should be.
If there’s a lot of additional work needed to sort out the doors then that’s another matter.

Depends how long he has lived there. Carpets diminish yearly and after 7 years you can’t claim anything for them regardless. You don’t like the doors?? Remove them then. Not the end of the world. As for the tenancy deposit scheme. You tell them the issues and your proposed amount to keep and if the tenant wants to dispute the amount the scheme will then decide what is fair and right.

And your hard wearing boring carpet will likely have cost a lot less than his lovely fluffy carpet.
oh and NO-ONE like magnolia. It is not homely.

The OP's long gone from this thread @Bmxmum85 and with posts like yours being added to it, I can hardly blame her.

Come on, you don't have to read the whole thread but at least read the OP's posts before you make pointless posts. He's lived there for 1 year.

Heaven forbid the person who has been spending hundreds of pounds every month buying you a house just so they have somewhere to live gets any choice or say about what their home can look like.

You landlords always want everything your own way! You want tenants to pay so much in rent that they stand no chance of saving up a deposit for their own place, but you want them to leave everything just exactly how you want it, despite it being their home, and then you just throw them out whenever it suits you.

You should think yourself lucky you had a tenant who was thoughtful enough about the house to want to improve it rather than just trashing the place! What difference does it make anyway, your daughter is hardly going to want the house back to having the usual bland, industrial, lifeless rental interior.

I’m so glad I was able to buy a place and stop spending my money buying houses for the parasites that dominate the private rental market!

You should think yourself lucky you had a tenant who was thoughtful enough about the house to want to improve it rather than just trashing the place!

In my experience some peoples thoughtful 'improvements' have often quite literally resulted in the place being trashed.

OP has answered all these questions and therefore received advice from people who bothered to read the full thread.

The tenant doesn’t have the right to change those things without permission.

well you don’t need to have a conversation. If you legally protected the deposit it will all be decided through that service. How long has he lived there? If it’s a long time he could claim he replaced worn items. doors can just be taken down aslong as they haven’t damaged anything structural.

Is anyone actually reading this thread anymore? The OP said the elderly and vulnerable man had lived there a year.

She also said he knew it was a one year contract but I'm more inclined to think he thought it was one year rolling.

Not sure why the OP bothered with this particular tenant if she was going to put her daughter in there. Just don't sit right with me knowing he's vulnerable and elderly. The OP is legally in the right but not morally in my eyes.

Piffle!