Deducting damage costs from Tenants deposit?

FBaby

Edit - when people move in I want the place spotless. When they move out I'm grateful for what I can get!

That's you problem if you have low standards. I personally don't believe in the sense of entitlement, ie. I'm entitled to move in a spotless home but I have no duty to leave it so.

PrincessJR

Thanks everyone for your viewpoints

In the end the agent has covered the cost although they haven't admitted they are in the wrong and have lied to me, telling me they have claimed it back from the tenants deposit, but we know the tenants had their deposit back in full (we spoke to them recently).

Ahh well. You live and learn. An agent who fails to notice damage, then tries to cover their backs by lying is certainly not an agent we will deal with in future.

KingS6

Take your letting agent to the cleaners! (Pun intended)

Had this problem the other way around last year. I'm a tenant. LA said they had given the property an end of tenancy inspection and a professional clean. When I got the keys and first walked in the place was dirty.

The fridge and dishwasher was full of food debris. Oven was the same, jet brown and had the inner rubber seal missing. Obviously not been checked. Everywhere dusty.

Challenged the LA over their failings. Said the property had been given the "once over". A dubious term that I'd love to see tested in court sometime.

When I asked them to provide receipts to prove whether the property had ever received a clean between the tenancies, they ignored me. They also deducted money from the previous tenant's deposit for this and he is none the wiser to if it was ever done.

Later transpired the integrated dishwasher was broken hence it being full of gunk. Previous tenant never challenged over why they failed to report it. No explanation given as to why the appliances were not checked after the previous tenant left. Absolute nightmare.

The cleaners the LA had hired to give the property the clean it deserved when we rearranged, failed to do so a second time. The excuse given by the LA was that the LA had given them the wrong set of keys so could not gain entry. They had my mobile number (so did the cleaners) and was available to let them in myself but never called me. Utter incompetence.

We did a "deep clean" ourselves and the property was done in less that five hours so it can be done. We took photographs and the receipts from buying cleaning products and charged £30 labour. Which we thought is fair play.

Bottom line is for you to open up an official complaint with your LA. If their response is unsatisfactory after eight weeks, take them to the appropriate Ombudsman, that's what they are there for.