Advice Re: Deposit Deductions

WombleStu

Hi everyone,

Just wondering what my options are with regards to the following. We rented a flat for 2 years. We bought a new sofa a few months before moving out which had a suede back.

Unfortunately the suede has left a brown mark on the wall, the length of the sofa (5-6ft) x 2-3 inches where the top of the sofa was touching the wall.

Annoyingly we didn't notice this mark until we came to move out, had we have realised sooner we would have done something to stop it from happening, unfortunately no amount of scrubbing would shift the mark.

We have accepted that we obviously need to pay something from our deposit to decorate over the mark.

The letting agent has come back with a quote of £225, stating that the whole wall will need redecorating, they cant just do a patch job.

I have advised them the quote is too high, however i don't know if there is much i can do about it, if it goes to the DPS arbitration, would they not just accept the quote and say thats that?

I don't have issue with paying something, its just the amount that is being asked is too steep. I was expecting somewhere around £100

Any advice on what my options are, if any, would be welcome!

BitterAndTwisted

Unless you can find alternative, lower quotes for doing the same work I think you might have to accept it. Most decorators charge a minimum call-out for small jobs and this could be most of the cost. Plus the agent's mark-up, of course.

WombleStu

Thanks for the quick reply, I suggested that i get an alternative quote but they refused saying that the landlord is insisting on using his regular decorator.

BitterAndTwisted

It doesn't matter who is actually contracted to do the work. If you don't want to pay that £225 the onus is on you to acquire some documentary evidence that the charge is inaccurate or inflated. The only thing that I can think of is that you get alternative quotes.

WombleStu

Ok thank you, i guess that will be difficult based on the fact anyone i want to get a quote from wont be allowed access, so will have to quote it without seeing the job.

I guess i'm onto a bit a loser already.

Thankyou for taking the time to reply!

BitterAndTwisted

Just phone up a few contractors and ask them for a written quote to paint one wall. I doubt any decent decorator would actually need access to look at an interior panted wall to know how much it would cost to do.

If you don't want to pay for this quoted work you will need to expend a tiny bit of effort. It's your money and I wouldn't necessarily throw in the towel at the first hurdle when all it would take is a couple of phone calls..

WombleStu

I have already got 2 quotes!
one came back at £150 and the other at £175

I'll go back to the LA with these quotes once i receive written copies!

mustrum_ridcully

From the amount quoted I wouldn't be surprised if it was the whole room that was going to be repainted, which could be a no-no as the deductions from the deposit should only be used to restore something (in this case that one wall) to it's original state (it can't be used for betterment).

Get a couple of quotes for the wall and a couple for the whole room, if the whole room quotes come to around £225 might be worth reminding the LL that the deposit can't be used for betterment.

ARLA webpage about betterment http://www.arla.co.uk/information/deposit-protection/betterment-and-apportionment/

taxsaver

Hmmm... tbh I don't think redecorating the whole room is that unreasonable, doing only one wall would almost certainly be noticeable. How would you feel as the new tenant if you moved in and one wall was obviously different from the others?

BitterAndTwisted

You are responsible for damaging one wall, so the cost of repairing that and only that is your responsibility. Whether the landlord chooses to have the whole room redecorated is up to them but the whole cost should not be borne by you.

Get your quotes and present copies of them to the agent/LL as evidence that their proposed charges are unreasonable. If they don't agree, dispute their charges and go through the deposit-protection scheme's arbitration process.

mustrum_ridcully

taxsaver wrote: »

Hmmm... tbh I don't think redecorating the whole room is that unreasonable, doing only one wall would almost certainly be noticeable. How would you feel as the new tenant if you moved in and one wall was obviously different from the others?

As ARLA say "The landlord should not end up, either financially or materially, in a better position than he was at commencement of the tenancy, or than he would have been at the end of the tenancy having allowed for fair wear and tear."

I've repainted single walls in my home (for one reason or another) and you'd not notice, but then again the walls get repainted periodically.

So if one repainted wall would look that different then perhaps it's time for the LL to repaint the whole room? So perhaps the LL is getting betterment out of this - that's a no no.

Then there's the whole issue of apportionment, which includes depreciation. How often does the LL repaint?

In my book a reasonable thing to do is to paint the whole room but only charge for the one wall.