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!

Um....if he's put in the type of doors most of us are imagining, he's got a hell of a lot of making good to do!

if the carpet has been fixed over carpet....

this is a crazy thread, even for MN.

Many moons ago I used to work as an estate agent (boooo, hissss), and what became apparent fairly early on was that for every bad landlord there was an equally bad tenant. We as a business tried to avoid both as the ballache of dealing with them was simply not worth it. Yes I have seen landlords try to withhold deposits for spurious reasons, provide piss poor support to tenants when things went wrong and generally shirked their duties (gas certificates, electrical testing, smoke alarms etc). Conversely I have seen tenants skip town without paying their last months rent leaving behind them a property that can only be described as a vandalized cesspit the cost of rectifying far exceeds the deposit.

I remember viewing one property the day after the tenant had moved out to find partition walls smashed through and the bathroom sink broken and pulled off the wall and the twat was trying to claim 'wear and tear' when invariably the full return of their deposit was challenged. The reason deposits increased from one moths rent to 6 weeks or even two months rent is due to those the above kind of antics.

I am all for robust protections for tenants against rogue landlords, but those protections should cut both ways as there are plenty of epically crap tenants out there as well.

Our landlord sold our house from under us, then refused to give us any of the £1500 deposit back for various petty reasons (eg fluff behind radiator, missing plug chain etc), despite us having lived in the house for 8 years and he didn't have to do any remedial work to re-let as it was already sold!

If he has no arrears I'd return the full deposit. It's honestly not worth the bad feeling.

More than that. If it's not registered with an approved scheme, the landlord can be fined heavily.

It helps that he's only been there a year, and it was a new carpet upon moving- if he's been there long enough that wear and tear would have meant it was time to replace it anyway, the deposit schemes are less likely to award you much of the cost (and if you can't come to an agreement, you should go to the deposit scheme).

First step is agreeing costs with him.

Find out how much it will cost to take down the doors, make good where they were and repaint the area. Hopefully your carpet is underneath, if not, find out how much for a replacement, less the cost of a years wear and tear (a % depending on how long the carpet should last, TDS reckon an average price carpet to have 4-5 years life span). Curtains, hopefully he's still got yours, if not a price for a replacement, less a years wear and tear. If they weren't new upon him moving in, again reduce by their expected lifespan and how many years you had them.

You tell him the costs, he agrees or tries to negotiate, you accept or not.
If he doesn't agree, then it's time to use the deposit scheme, for the service that you are paying for- to oversee and decide an outcome.

Except there is no reason why the deposit isn’t registered as the OP used an EA to deal with it all….

Why are you automatically assuming the worst?

It's really cheeky what he's done, I've rented for years before buying and would never have made substantial changes like that without checking especially on a years tenancy! The bad feeling here is on him to be fair. I woukd hate dark red curtains 😂

If he loses his deposit then he only has himself to blame. The agent is bound to have given the tenant a detailed tenancy agreement explaining that it was only for one year and making it absolutely clear that any damage to the property will come out of the deposit. Things like randomly making 'improvements' will definitely have been covered by the agreement.

I think the deposit protection scheme will see this as a pretty clear cut case, particularly as he's only been there for a year.

Huh?

You'd rather be down almost a grand and have to deal with resorting your rental property to an acceptable condition rather than have a difficult conversation with a man who stole your carpet and curtains and installed door in your property without your consent and who you will never have to see again?

Why?

If it looks as bad as the OP says then it will also affect the rental value of the property going forward if she doesn't fix what this idiot has done.

It's more than £800! 😱😱😱😱

WTAF. You must be loaded. Pay me £800 to avoid bad feeling!

Landlords have piles of cash just lying around, of course they get absorb a bad feeling surcharge.

EmmaEmerald · Today 09:22

MrsSkylerWhite · Today 09:20

It’s over your carpet, just ask him to take it up. Also doors and put your curtains and blinds back. No issue.
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Um....if he's put in the type of doors most of us are imagining, he's got a hell of a lot of making good to do.

Which is his problem. If he doesn’t, OP uses his deposit to put it right (removing and making good is a days work at most)

Why would you have "bad feelings" about someone who is moving out and who you'll never see again? My "bad feeling" would kick in when I was paying a joiner to make good the damage from the doors, buying curtains and measuring up for (another) new carpet.

Since when do curtain have anything to do with the landlord?

If there where curtains up that he has taken down just tell him to put them back when he takes his.

Tenants have a legal right to treat a house they are renting as a home.

I agree with the tenant open plan is impractical (doors and wall exist for a reason) and if the function doesn't suit the need of the tenant then it needs changing to make it livable for the person whose home it is. Although it should be on the landlord to make it practical/livable but you can't be mad at a tenant for doing so.

I find it weird anyone fits carper to a rental, really its the landlords job. You are pretty lucky though, the house we rented for over a decade was handed back with over a decades worth of wear and tear (on top of the 2+ decades of wear and tear from all the previous tenants). Bet our landlord WISHED he got new carpets paid for by us. His (as hard wearing as they where) are threadbare in some heavy traffic places like the stairs.

Even if the originals were in place, they would have X years' wear and tear, and probably need replacing or cleaning anyway. That should be built into your costs as a landlord, if you are in any way professional.
You are making a fuss over next to nothing and wanting it all your own way. Makes me sick. And yes, In am part of the MN contingent that hates landlords who behave in this way. It's unprofessional and shows them up for what they are!

WTF. How can people think making this level of change without asking for permission BEFOREHAND is in any way acceptable.

And OP, why would you write it off? That's nuts. You need to come up with a sensible cost to put it back to its original state, and if he disagrees, then the DPS decides. That's exactly what's it's for.

Ummm no it was the landlords house not yours.

What a load of rubbish. If the property didn't suit his needs, he shouldn't have rented it. You can't change properties that you do not own without permission. Where do you draw the line, 'sorry I can no longer manage stairs so I demolished your house and built a bungalow' 🤣

Adding doors can cause massive damage to the structure.

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.
Then all this ignorance around the law would be avoided.
Did you not do any inspections OP? My LL (who is lovely) inspected 3 times in the first year. He's not worried now! But he can come if he wants.

This.
The inventory from the start of the tenancy will be part of your evidence, better still if it contained photos. Let the tenancy deposit company do the work.

Honestly, threads like this.
The guy moved in to a property that the OP has stated she made him aware was only available for 1 year. Shes allowed him to bring his pet (not a given that she should do that, especially if it's an apartment as I think?). Shes then gone through the proper processes at the end of that, and hung on for him to find a suitable place to move into, with the help of agencies, rather than proceeding with evicting him.
She's used an agent to sort this, so it's very, very unlikely the deposit is unregistered.
Those who said about section 21s been abolished, it's just been put back a couple of years, and there will be lots of reasons that you can still issue whatever eviction notice is needed at the time. As much as people would like evil landlords to have to let tenants do whatever they would like in those properties, the taking away of how landlords can manage their properties is giving them another reason to exit the market, which along with all the other reasons, such as finance, is putting rental prices up massively and leaving a shortage of properties. Who exactly is that helping? Most landlords don't want to evict tenants anyway!

(This is possibly why I'm not running a business!)

It is, to be honest. I'm all for being kind, but his being elderly and vulnerable isn't relevant here really. He obviously felt he could afford to make these 'improvements' so he clearly isn't destitute. I can't stand the kind of landlord who tries to make up excuses for keeping the deposit, but that really isn't what's going on here. Tenant is a CF, elderly or not.

Surely you’d give him the opportunity to do that himself first. Just to keep it civil.

But the issue here is he is unaware and will be expecting his deposit back.

have you read the thread at all?