How do landlords prove damage

[bluecat36]

I was an inexperienced renter in the UK. I had a nasty landlord. He did not do a check-in report. He did not do a check-out report. He did not protect my deposit. I sued him for failing to protect my deposit and won. He counterclaimed a massive amount of damages which I did not do. All his proof were photos taken by himself. Will the court grant his claims based on that? Thanks.

No. He has no proof. End of and has not obeyed the law.

Almost certainly not. If he didn’t give you, at move in, a full photographic inventory which you had the opportunity to check (around 7 days is usual) he really won’t have a leg to stand on. What the court will be looking for is date stamped photos from the time you moved in to date stamped photos from when you moved out showing the “damage”. They will take an extremely dim view of him not protecting your deposit

He will not be able to win and a solicitor will not take him seriously, unless it's one charging HIM by the hour, ie wasting his time. I hope they do!

He already has a bad track record with the courts not securing your deposit.

He would have to prove the way the property was before and after. All photos have a digital timestamp on them so he can't alter that. By what you're saying, his photos would have had a date/time after your tenancy... sounds like it would have been waaaay after. Unless he can prove the damage was not there before you moved in (and I mean the date of move-in when he was supposed to do a check-in inventory and also SIGNED by you) then he has no leg to stand on.

Also, he didn't mention any of this damage when you were trying to get your deposit back, right? I wonder why 🙄

You'll be fine.

Just keep all your emails and conversations with him.

I really wish there was a law than banned landlord's from being landlord's if they don't secure the deposit. It's not their money.

That would be up to a court to decide depending on the evidence presented.

He only has his own words, and photos taken by his wife. The photos were sent to me 5 years after I moved out.

5 YEARS?!!

yes, 5 years.

If there was no inventory done on move in date, which would have had to be signed by you, LL has not got a leg to stand on.

Unless he did an inventory with photos to show that there was no damage before you moved in, and got you to sign off on them, he hasn’t got a case.

Has he rented the property to anyone else in the meantime ?

5 years is ridiculous. Sorry you've been through this OP but, on the bright side, I cannot imagine a court taking this seriously

Tell him to take it to court. They will laugh at him.

Date stamped photos aren't really valid evidence as it's easy to change the settings on the camera/phone to change the date. You need other evidence alongside, i.e. countersigned by the tenant on moving in, or an affidavit/witness statement by a third party as to state, i.e. from previous tenant moving out - just something else to prove the date.

OP, did you take any photos when you moved out showing the condition of the property, or did you take any photos when you moved in showing any damage? Or any family photos of birthdays, christmas, etc., which shows the state of the property in the background? Presumably you only had access to the property during your tenancy, so any photos you took must, by default, have been taken during your tenancy, which can help, but obviously not definitive.

Or photos from Rightmove or the estate agent when it was being marketed for rent/sale at any point showing the condition before, during or after your tenancy?

Almost certainly, your landlord is trying it on and will be laughed out of court, but anything at all that you have to help prove your assertion that you didn't do the damage will help. Please don't just assume that the court will laugh at him because of the deposit and no "proof" of you doing the damage - nothing is ever certain in legal issues. You need to fight back with whatever you can cobble together.

I would just ignore him.
Don't even respond to him.
He is a vicious person using fear tactics to make people pay up.
Don't speak to him again. You moved out, got your deposit back. And now you can move on :)

I don’t think he has a leg to stand on either but it might be worth talking to Shelter who seem to be knowledgeable about property law?
I get so angry hearing about this sort of thing - I’m a LL and every new tenancy has a full inventory/photos etc at check in and check out, plus of course a protected deposit. As a PP said, these sorts of landlords should be banned from letting property once they’ve failed to protect a deposit. End of.

He showed it to a bunch of people in the last two months of my tenancy but couldn't find a new tenant. He has sold it to someone else now.

Thank you all for the kind words and advice. We are in court now. He has about 100 photos taken by his wife. That's all he has. Will the court believe his photos and his stories? I didn't take any photos - I was a first time renter in UK and I did not expect this!

He’d have to have evidence that the damage occurred during the period of your tenancy OP.

If no inventory was taken detailing the state of the property when you moved in (signed as agreed by you), how can he prove anything?

Have you completed a defence form for his counterclaim? You need to make it clear there was no inventory, photos were produced 5 years after you moved out, no claim was made until now, you refute the damage claim and believe it is vexatious due to claiming your deposit back.

He has to prove he has evidence you caused any damage, not the other way round. Photos taken after you left the property are not enough unless it can be proven that whatever issues they’ve listed were not there before you moved in - i.e marks on walls, stained carpets, scratches on kitchen counter. That would have to be detailed on a signed check in and check out inventory to be used as evidence.

I’d be very surprised any court would rule in his favour.