Advice Re: Deposit Deductions

tyler80

I'd approach it from the point of view that painted walls in rented properties don't have an awfully long life expectancy. Say it's reasonable to expect the walls to be repainted every four years, if the wall needs to be repainted after only two I'd expect to only pay half of the cost of repainting one wall. It's betterment if the landlord is getting freshly painted walls when really he should be getting walls with 2 years fair wear and tear.

We had something vaguely similar, bed up against a wall left a shiny mark where the headboard had touched against the wall, but successfully argued it was fair wear and tear.

mynameisclare

Could you repaint it yourself instead? I'm sure a tin of paint would cost less than £225, even if you did the whole room!

may_fair

tyler80 wrote: »

I'd approach it from the point of view that painted walls in rented properties don't have an awfully long life expectancy. Say it's reasonable to expect the walls to be repainted every four years, if the wall needs to be repainted after only two I'd expect to only pay half of the cost of repainting one wall.

That's exactly how it works.

OP should only have to pay a portion of the redecorating costs, somewhere between 50-60% (depending on whether the paintwork should be expected to last four or five years).

DVardysShadow

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

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.

I don't buy that argument - if one wall is painted it will look different. I think that betterment is the way to go. OP has been in for 2 years, decoration has a life of say 5 years, therefore only pay 60% of the cost of the whole room. I doubt that a wall will be better than marginally cheaper than a room - most of the cost will be in getting the van to the door.