Tenants wrecked house, no schedule of condition

debtfreewannabe321

My tenants have just moved out and I have been sent a check-out report. Basically there are holes in walls, stains all over the carpets, doors missing, the front door lock needs replacing, garden full of rubbish, recycling & dog faeces..... In the report it had this:

' unfortunately, as we do not have an up to date Schedule of Condition and/or Inventory Report for the property, we are unable to confirm if any/all of the

points listed below were present prior to the start of the tenancy'

Does this mean I don't have a leg to stand on if i try to claim money off the tenants deposit? i.e they can just dispute the fact that all the damage was already there? I feel very stupid now for not paying for it to be done (the schedule of condition) but i didn't have the money at that time.

It looks like the carpets will all need cleaning, walls re-plastered where there is damage (a large hole in the front room apparantly), front door lock changing, and tiles replacing on the front porch (the guttering has come away and pulled loose tiles?!)

Any help or advice welcomed, especially if you have been in similar situation and managed to get tenant to pay!

dfw

teeni

What other evidence do you have of the state of the property when they moved in? if there is no evidence/inventory you would have to prove that the property was not in this state at the start. Has there been any inspections during the tenancy?
Basically unless you do then you are in the lap of the gods as to who the tenancy deposit scheme beleive ( I presume you used one) or the courts if you choose to go down that route.

good luck but next time think how much would it really have cost you to go round the property with the tenant with a typed up inventory and then both signed it before the tenancy started to avoid just this type of scenario.

DannyboyMidlands

If you cannot prove the condition at the start of the tenancy then you don't have a leg to stand on I'm afraid.

I don't really understand how you can be in business as a landlord and not have a couple of hundred quid knocking around or a few spare minutes to organise an inventory etc.

poppysarah

Has it been managed for you (Badly?) by a letting agent?

Surely if thats the case then it is their responsibility and you will have to small claims court them.

debtfreewannabe321

thanks for the replies, I didn't buy my house to be a landlord. Unfortunately i've been unable to sell it so had to get tenants in to cover my mortgage. I have a management agency look after it as it's in a different part of the country to me. Ironically, I had told them i wanted one typed up this time, as we had saved the money for one, seems i was a little late though.

I understand there will be a check out report from the last tenants so perhaps that may help, the condition of the property then was far better, and i had work done to it before these tenants moved in.

debtfreewannabe321

hi poppysarah, yes i have a management agency and pay them for their 'gold' service, whatever that is....the tenants were there 6 months and have trashed it, i'm gutted. really don't need this right now!

teeni

I understand there will be a check out report from the last tenants so perhaps that may help, the condition of the property then was far better, and i had work done to it before these tenants moved in.[/QUOTE]

This may help a bit but who is to say that the proeprty wasn't damaged between one leaving and the last lot moving in. Do you not have landlord insurance to cover this sort of thing?

debtfreewannabe321

yes i do have landlord insurance? As i said i've not done this to make money so am kind of bumbling along not really sure what to do....and hoping i would just get nice tenants (haha yeah right) ...i will check the terms of the insurance thanks

DannyboyMidlands

The check out from the previous tenants won't help. What you need is an agreed check-in document by the guys who have just trashed it. If you don't have that then you are stuffed. You can hardly try to claim money from them based on what some previous tenants have said.

You need to take this business seriously or sell the place.

BitterAndTwisted

Acquire a copy of the previous tenant's check-out report and use that as evidence.

debtfreewannabe321

thanks for the helfpul comments, will look into all this now.