Damaged kitchen worktop - landlord wants to replace?

tangerine27

Mahsroh said:

I appreciate this isn't much in the way of help so apologies in advance but your biggest mistake was telling the agent.

Had you spent £200 or so between you and got it repaired, nobody would ever have even noticed. As you said, two of companies who quoted said "it will not be an invisible repair, but will not be noticeable if you do not know the damage is there", so had you just repaired it you'd never hear about it again. 

Unfortunately now the LL knows about it, she (with some justification) wants it put right entirely. I can understand that. She'll know it's there and will be able to see it. Had you said nothing and repaired it she'd be living in blissful ignorance. 

We really wanted to, but we were so worried that the letting agent would spot it, and then claim we had done the wrong thing in repairing ourselves and cause us to pay twice. We definitely didn't think the landlord would hit us with a cost quite as high as £4000

tangerine27

AdrianC said:

tangerine27 said:

I think you may have confused what I'm asking - I know we (plural) are liable. I'm just saying, can they reasonably charge us for a replacement, when a repair would do fine?

Let me repeat the bit that answered that...

AdrianC said:

Of course, you (plural) aren't liable until such time as the tenancy comes to an end. Then the property will be judged on the state you leave it in... If there's a dispute over the cost of repair, then the deposit arbitrators will judge what an appropriate cost is.

When you move out, it's up to the deposit arbitrators to decide what's appropriate.
Until you move out, it's absolutely none of the landlord's business...

Subtext: Get it repaired yourselves. Then the landlord will never know... so long as nobody tells them. Oops.

We used Manimpex in Watford - https://www.manimpex.co.uk/

Okay, sure. We really did want to avoid telling them, but we didn't want to have to pay twice for a repair, with them claiming because they could have seen it, it wasn't a good repair.

lookstraightahead

Greymug said:

2 options:
- counter top is repaired and the tenants pay for it
- counter top is replaced and the landlord pays for it

I assume it's up to the landlord to decide which option they want to go for

Option 3

Tenants pay for it and it doesn't get repaired or replaced. That's what often happens.

lookstraightahead

I had silk curtains in a rental once - beautiful they were. The landlord was an accidental one so the rental wasn't really equipped properly for replacing items. There was a stain on them which in our early tenant days we were naive enough to not spot (we didn't cause it). As they would have needed special care to be cleaned, we were charged £400 at the end of the tenancy. Stain is still there years later (we know the present tenants). This is all perfectly legitimate, except if you do have to pay, I would bring up the possible health issues with having chipped work surfaces so that they do have to go to the hassle of getting them replaced.

tangerine27

lookstraightahead said:

I had silk curtains in a rental once - beautiful they were. The landlord was an accidental one so the rental wasn't really equipped properly for replacing items. There was a stain on them which in our early tenant days we were naive enough to not spot (we didn't cause it). As they would have needed special care to be cleaned, we were charged £400 at the end of the tenancy. Stain is still there years later (we know the present tenants). This is all perfectly legitimate, except if you do have to pay, I would bring up the possible health issues with having chipped work surfaces so that they do have to go to the hassle of getting them replaced.

That's so frustrating! I really do think the landlord would repair/replace either way, they are very very precious about this house - ie sticky pads behind where a door handle may touch a wall, etc!!

jbainbridge

Any idea how old the kitchen is?

As things get older .. expectations drop. Look up 'betterment'.

tangerine27

jbainbridge said:

Any idea how old the kitchen is?

As things get older .. expectations drop. Look up 'betterment'.

Yes, I've heard of this! But surely if we damage something it needs fixing? I've no idea on the kitchen's age but our next door neighbour said the property was redecorated right before we moved in (1.5 years ago), don't know if that included the kitchen or not.

theoretica

I suggest against letting the landlord replace the counter now - you really wouldn't want any risk of damaging it again! 

tangerine27

theoretica said:

I suggest against letting the landlord replace the counter now - you really wouldn't want any risk of damaging it again! 

Yes, as a house we've basically decided that it's going to happen at the end of the tenancy, and not right now!

AdrianC

tangerine27 said:
But surely if we damage something it needs fixing?

Not necessarily.
Once you move out, then the landlord may decide that the kitchen worktop functions perfectly well with the chip in it. But that doesn't let you off the hook for the cost of the damage... You still did the damage.