Handing back rented property

harni2013

Hi All,
We are a month away from handing back the keys to our rented apartment so are starting to prepare for this.
We have been tennants for just over two years now and have never had any issues with the letting agent/landlord at all. We found our new “dream” home which meant we had to leave here 1 month before the end of the tenancy which the landlord agreed to with no additional fees which was good of them. This property has now been let to another couple after we move out.

It is a new build (well, 3 year old now) flat and as you can imagine with new build, it not the highest of quality. The thing that concerns me is that we have had pictures up on the walls and now we have taken them down, there are shadows where the frames have been. We used sticky hooks for the pictures so there is no holes to deal with. I’m concerned that although the landlord seems genuine and nice enough, they will try and get every penny out of our deposit and will want to charge for full redecoration. The quality of the paint in this flat is shocking!

Initially I was prepared to repaint the flat before moving out but due to the timeline of events with moving I am going to have virtually no time to do this.

My question is, firstly do you think they would have a right to deduct from the deposit for this? It’s only a very faint outline of the frames. Secondly, I want to discuss it with the landlord prior to moving out but they may see it as a way of getting a free redecoration?

This is my first rented property so don’t know what really classes as fair wear and tear!

LocoLoco

I've found that if the walls are magnolia or something similar you can just paint over those bits and as long as you blend the edges really well you can't see that some bits have been redone; it just looks like the whole wall is clean and fresh. Doesn't take long to do, particularly if you've only got small areas to cover. I've done it in four properties over the years and never had a problem, the place just looks nice and clean and everyone's happy

harni2013

Thanks. All the walls here are white. I’ve been doing some tidying up this afternoon and realised just how bad the paint work is in this place from when it was built. There’s large patches in the hallway that when you shine light on them you can clearly see they haven’t been painted but it’s the undercoat!

I’ve blended a few painted bits and I don’t think it notices unless you really look for it but I don’t know how picky they are going to be! Or what my comeback on that would be? The flat is 3 years old now so must be due redecoration in the next year maximum so surely they couldn’t charge me a huge amount?

[Deleted User]

Have you tried giving the walls a scrub with a bucket of water with flash in it? It might help with the slight colour change. If not you'll have to paint, you could have to pay the LL a decorators hourly fee as well as for the paint, it should only be a partial cost but could still be significant and an hour's scrubbing could save even that.

sammyjammy

If you paint over the parts where you have pictures and it looks ok to you they are really not going to notice anything, they wouldn't know where you had the pictures and will barely glance at the walls that look at first glance clean and stain free.