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'm a LL and I always get tenants to sign a photo of every room showing what the house looked like when they move in. I put a copy of these photos in their pack along with How to Rent, inventory I get them to sign a copy for me, gas, electricity and water readings I take with the tenant standing there when I hand over the key, I put in their deposit printout page showing it's lodged with DPS and their copy of rental contract stating no smoking in house, no changing carpets or painting kitchen cupboards or walls, no changing blinds or bedroom carpets or laminate in sitting room unless getting written permission from me first. I don't mind if they want to put up their own curtains or pictures on walls as these can be changed back if they move out. I've agreed some long term tenants painting a child's room pink provided it goes back to white if they leave. I've never heard of anyone putting up doors in a rental property without getting permission from the owner. I'd make this tenant restore the house to how it was when they moved in and if they refused have someone in to remove doors and carpet.

Depending on how long he had lived there, did you have a schedule of replacement for things such as carpets (is it 5 - 7 years?).
I don't see how him "putting doors in" could actually be anything other than fitting doors into empty frames, which they should not have been (empty, that is), due to fire regulations.
And it is not especially nice to serve a Section 21 because your "daughter wants to live there".
You have had the rent over the years, the property has probably increased in value, and now you want to take money from this, your description, elderly man, because he has done a few things that, arguably, you should have done already.
🤔😡

There is an ARLA formulae you use to avoid betterment. You get a quote to replace carpet with one exact quality your original one was. I think ARLA give a carpet 7 years life with tenants. So you divide the quote by 7 then multiply by how many years you should have left out of 7. You should be able to provide receipts to show when carpet was fitted originally. That's how much you can claim for your original carpet if the tenant threw it out. What about underlay? Is that still there?

He should’ve asked, there’s no excuse. If you make changes to a property without asking, you run the risk of having to pay out again to get it put back to how it was before.

OP you need to decide what needs doing to put the property back into the state you let it, or a similar state that you would deem acceptable, then you need to decide how much it would cost, preferably with quotes as evidence, then request the deductions from his deposit. He then has to say if he agrees or not. If he doesn’t agree he can take it to adjudication, which means an independent adjudicator will go through the evidence you both submit and decide a fair outcome. Really though if you have a thorough inventory he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

adjudication is stressful and takes awhile though, so if you can come to an agreement with him, which might mean you compromising a bit, it would probably save you a lot of time and stress.

you should also be aware that an adjudicator will take into account the age of the carpets/curtains/blinds. If the carpet is three years old, for example, any contribution the tenant has to make towards replacing it should be 50% ish as carpets are usually judged to last about six years or so. This will obviously be context specific, as it will depend on the state of the carpet etc as it appears on the inventory photographs, any staining etc will be taken into account. There are case studies on the DPS website about how an adjudicator goes about deciding what’s fair. I had to take a previous landlord to adjudication and spent some time looking at them which then enabled me to make him a reasonable offer, which BTW he refused, but the adjudicator then told him he had to accept. He was being a vexatious twat, but that’s another story. I’d recommend you have a look at the case studies.

He has maintained the property so should have his deposit back. Because it isn't your taste is irrelevant.
When you let a house it becomes the tenants home.

I was wondering that too!

This is absolutely not the case at all. Please do not misinform people, it’s irresponsible.

You’ve made money from him over however many years. You’ve told him to leave his home now that arrangement no longer suits you. He’s elderly and vulnerable. Maybe just let it go.

I agree.

An agreement works both ways.

If youre 'open plan' was such that doors could be added to door frames and it became not open plan then you didn't actually have open plan...you just had a flat that you took the doors out of for no reason.

I would've done the same if I was your tenant because no one actually wants open plan unless it's a big New York style loft space or it creates lots of light on the room.

Changing the curtains is a very standard thing for a tenant.

But the carpet changing is bizarre, unless you're carpet is still underneath, in which case no problem

I'm here to find out how he puts doors in. From what OP said it sounds like those concertina style plastic 'doors' that are installed fairly easily by a runner at top and bottom. They are common in caravans to separate living and sleeping space.

How long has he lived there?

@LighthouseTheme @QPWO she’s not running a charity.

hes been there one year.
initial contract stated one year, agreed with him by agent and myself. It was only ever going to be one year because I knew I’d need it back.

(Nice) carpet and curtains were new.

it’s a flat in a listed building, designed without doors where he has placed them.

thanks to those of you who have given me useful info, but I’m certainly not going to go to arbitration or anything. If we can’t sort it out tomorrow I’ll just let it go and write off the cost.

You will get absolutely nowhere with the deposit in my experience. My previous tenant very badly decorated the entire house using gloss on the walls and covered the carpet in paint. Didn’t pay the last month in rent.

He was allowed it all back. Cost me £4k to correct it all and replace carpets.

Won't you have to apply to the deposit scheme to arbitrate if you want them to give you some/all of the deposit though?

@AlltheFs what do you mean ‘allowed it all back’?

Dont you have a say? The agent who holds it said he gets back the amount he and I decide, unless I’ve misunderstood?

I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Are you saying that if I rented somewhere and decided I preferred a shower to a bath, so ripped out the bath and put a shower in, that would be OK? Or dismantled the garden shed? Bricked up the windows because I preferred darkness??

It sounds as though your agent hasn’t put it in a deposit protection scheme. Which means you have no rights. He could get the deposit x3 back off you if it is not protected. Plus the deposit too.

But he could afford to alter things in the flat and didn't ask permission.

and I thought I was a soft touch!

OP, agency will find in your favour I'm sure. He may be expecting that, to save him the bother of restoring it to original condition.

Is his deposit registered/safeguarded?

In Scotland this is law so that any disputes over this kind of thing are judged fairly ( pfft) It usually always goes to the landlord
To be fair, would you like to live in a blandly coloured environment of somebody else's choosing?
Must add, I have no admiration or respect for landlords, these days people have no merit or identity as renters, renters today are just paying somebody's mortgage
It is a very sad world indeed

Do people really not know the law?

I've never done anything like that as tenant and I had the ugliest curtains in the world! 😂

I've asked permission to paint. She said yes and was pleased with my work so that was different!

squidgybits excellent username
"renters today are just paying somebody's mortgage
It is a very sad world indeed"

why? Of course renters are paying someone's mortgage. They might not even have a mortgage, it might be pure profit.

the reason I don't want to landlord is I don't want responsibility for housing someone.

imagine every potential landlord makes that choice....nowhere to rent. Aren't landlords selling up in high numbers now?

Legally, you as a landlord have to lodge your tenants deposit with a third party tenancy deposit scheme (if you haven't done this and the tenant finds out, you can be liable for paying them compensation). At the end of the tenancy, you apply to the scheme for a portion of the deposit to cover any malicious damage, missing items, etc. the scheme will decide (based on your initial inventory) whether or not you are awarded the money and how much you receive. The amount will depend on the age of the items you are claiming for. You will also be asked to reproduce receipts and evidence (photographs) showing the condition of the items at both inventory and checkout so any damage can be assessed.