Fair Wear & Tear

anselld

alexmcd777 wrote: »

Drawing on the walls (not bad but with pencil)
Finger prints on walls
Dents in wood work
Spills in carpets
Lots of dark marks on a cream carpet in the lounge
marks and paint chips on a radiator

None of these are fair wear and tear, they are damages and/or cleaning requirements which you are responsible for assuming the L has sufficient evident to prove.

However, in claiming any damages the age and condition of the damaged item must be taken into account. The L cannot claim the full cost as that would be "betterment".

For example a wall which needs repainting due to children damage must assume a normal lifespan of repainting, eg every 5 years. So if at the end of tenancy the paintwork is 3 years old the L can only claim 2/5 of the repainting cost.

[Deleted User]

But that 2/5 could easily include the cost of a painter decorator.., as against taking a couple of hours to paint it yourself??????

EmmyLou30

I don't think chipped paint on radiators or kids drawing on walls is fair wear and tear, that's being clumsy and no kid should ever draw on a wall. The odd knock on a door frame would be fair wear and tear and some dirt on carpets however.

jennifernil

If a landlord does the (very necessary) cleaning, repairs and repainting themselves, can they charge the tenant something, and if so, what would be reasonable?

Property let for just under 2 years, freshly decorated before being let. Unfurnished.

Kevie192

jennifernil wrote: »

If a landlord does the (very necessary) cleaning, repairs and repainting themselves, can they charge the tenant something, and if so, what would be reasonable?

Property let for just under 2 years, freshly decorated before being let. Unfurnished.

The LL is entitled to claim a proportion of the costs of all labour and materials needed to get the property back up to the standard it was when it was let, minus a deduction for fair wear and tear.

If the LL charges you the amount it would cost for a professional decorator/cleaner/repairman as they are needed to get the property back up to standard then that is fine... The LL doesn't actually have to even get the work done if they don't want to. You are paying compensation for their losses, not for the actual work to be done.

jennifernil

In this case the question is on behalf of the landlord (my daughter). First tenant has just left so she has no previous experience of calculating deductions.

Tenant claims to have had their usual cleaner in to clean, but minimum cleaning required to bring back to original state was:

kitchen floor...scrubbing on hands and knees required
oven (not too bad)
cooker hood (very bad)
freezer (not defrosted)
tiled splashbacks
bathroom tiles (esp round bath/shower)
food and marks on walls, some paint missing
laminate floors (cloudy/sticky)

general clean of all doors, woodwork, light fittings and kitchen units

Rather than touch up walls, she has cleaned and then repainted. Probably 2 days work and 3 tins of paint. Whole place was freshly painted originally.
Damage to woodwork and some marks on ceilings were touched up.

gayleygoo

Our kids have done some fairly normal damage to our house too. Wall drawings, wallpaper peeled off in places, scratches in wood etc. Some might be wear and tear, and I know our LL would repaint if we moved anyway so she did tell us not to worry about the walls. However I'd probably repaint the wooden door frames and banisters as they look very scruffy. (Actually I should do that anyway and just enjoy it ourselves!)

If you have lived there for 4 years and the walls have not been repainted in that time, I'd say the drawings are wear and tear. But if you want less hassle when moving, it might be worth repainting what you can, it doesn't have to cost much. Even a good clean might avoid the need to repaint.

You may not be able to do much about dents in woodwork, but assuming they're not overly noticeable and don't affect the use of the house, I'd say that's fair too.

Would it be worth contacting your LL and asking them for advice? If they are reasonable they will be honest about what they expect.

alexmcd777

Obviously I'll do as much as I can to make amends to the property and return it to its original state, however, It was more a question of what would be deemed Fair wear and tear and what would be deemed damage. I guess unless you see it, its going to be hard to gauge....

Obviously I'm going to clean the walls and paint the chips on the radiator and make everything as good as it was (when we moved in) as I physically can.

Kevie192

jennifernil, did your daughter get 3 quotes from professionals to do the work before she did it?

If not, how will you prove how much a professional would have charged?

calydon

'fair wear and tear'... think of e.g. a fluffy white bath towel that's brand new at the start of your tenancy (I know towels are probably not included in any normal inventory! it's just a neutral example)

Now, after two years of normal using and laundering, it's not going to be fluffy like it started out. It's going to be maybe a little greyer and less fluffy. But you could still use it and not be embarassed to give it to your mother in law as a guest towel, it's just not brand spanking new any more. That's fair wear and tear on the bath towel.

Now... say you had dyed your hair and used the towel before you'd rinsed it properly, and the bath towel now had horrible brown splodges on it that wouldn't come out. That's probably not fair wear and tear, and arguably could be compared to kids drawing on walls.