whats classed as wear and tear in rental property??

bikingbarney

We finally got our house back today and just have a quick question as to what you would class as fair wear and tear......

tenants have been in the house 6 months and so far we have found the following.........

one of the bedroom doors has been badly repaired/painted after been punched.

the rest of the doors upstairs have been painted after been drawn on.

3 big chips out of dining room radiator.

oil type stains on carpet.

they have fitted stairgates at the top and bottom of the stairs and have damaged the walls/paper behind them.

one of their children has drawn all over the stair way wallpaper.

lots of chips and scratches in the wallpaper in the dining room.

all the marks in the wallpaper are in paper that is not for sale any more and it covers the dining room and hall, stairs and landing so as you can see its a lot of paper.


would you say any of the above can be classed as fair wear or tear or would we be well within our rights to claim for it out of their deposit??

thanks

skint-student-nurse

By the sound of it, you could claim all of those damages out of the deposit, I wouldnt really class those as wear and tear at all. Do you have a checking in inventory at all to clarify these damages were not there when they moved in?

bikingbarney

skint-student-nurse wrote: »

By the sound of it, you could claim all of those damages out of the deposit, I wouldnt really class those as wear and tear at all. Do you have a checking in inventory at all to clarify these damages were not there when they moved in?

thanks for that.

we have a check in inventory which was carried out by the same person who did the check out inventory today.

none of it is listed on the check in one.

olly300

The scratches on the wall and rips in the wallpaper can be classed as fair wear and tear, which is one reason why most landlords rent properties out with walls that are white or magnolia painted plaster. Tenants even in furnished properties have their own furniture or will move your furniture causing scratches, marks and small rips in the wall paper.

The walls that are drawn on and scoring into the wall surface is not fair wear and tear.

If the paint job on the doors is bad then the doors will need to be stripped and painted again. Again this isn't fair wear and tear.

You cannot charge them for replacing the doors that are painted if they don't have other damage but you can charge them for the cost of stripping those doors of their coat of paint and repainting them.

The holes punched into the door isn't fair wear and tear. They need to pay for the repair or replacement door which ever is the cheapest.

The oil stain on the carpet isn't fair wear and tear. Depending on where the oil stain is you may be best to leave it as your next tenants will probably damage more carpet. If you do decide to leave it you can't charge them for it. If you do charge them for the carpet you can't charge them for a new carpet.

I'm not sure what you mean by chips in the radiator as I don't understand what types of radiator you have to you can make chips into. I know that I can chip the paint on my radiators but they can be stripped and repainted to stop them rusting. So that's the cost of what you need to charge them for.

skint-student-nurse

You should be well within reason to be able to deduct some of the deposit for the cost of repairs then. I assume you protected the deposit correctly? Sorry if its a patronising question but its an important one

Yorkie1

I agree with all of olly's comments except for the one relating to scratches on the wall and tears to the wallpaper. Neither of those I'd say are fair wear and tear, particularly after only 6 months.

I was in a house for 12 years and didn't scratch the walls or tear the wallpaper.

bikingbarney

skint-student-nurse wrote: »

You should be well within reason to be able to deduct some of the deposit for the cost of repairs then. I assume you protected the deposit correctly? Sorry if its a patronising question but its an important one

yep deposit was done correctly too

so as they fitted the stair gates and then damaged the paper behind them when removing them that it not classed as wear and tear??

I dont understand how scratches and marks can be classed as fair wear and tear??? I lived in the house with my two young children for nearly 3 years and didnt do this much damage.....

delain

If its a long term let, and you want to let it again, ditch the wallpaper and have painted walls.

I have been there, done that with small children scribbling on walls. I live in a rented house and have repainted when this happened, no problem for my landlord. He is aware that the walls were marked and that we have painted.

We have safety gates, with toddlers they are sadly necessary. They can damage wallpaper. Again, have painted walls!

We have a man locally who steam cleans carpets, he'd be cheaper than weekend rug doctor hire and will remove oil.

They don't sound like good tenants to be honest, we've been here 5 years and the one door that broke (and it was falling apart to start with) we replaced at our cost.

skint-student-nurse

bikingbarney wrote: »

so as they fitted the stair gates and then damaged the paper behind them when removing them that it not classed as wear and tear??
.

I wouldnt say that would be classed as wear and tear, did they ask for permission to fit the stairgates?

I would say in such a short tenancy,that light marks and scratches would be classed as fair wear and tear,but what you have described seems excessive for a short tenancy.

bikingbarney

nope they didnt ask permission to fit the stairgates!

jjlandlord

There's no need to ask permission to install children's stairgates as they are just held by pressure points...
But obviously these pressure points tend to leave a mark on walls and tenants are liable to fix that.