UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi,

Our tenants moved out and frankly left the property in a shocking mess. Rather than call in tradesmen, my wife and I dealt with all the repairs ourselves, the total cost to us being far in excess of the deposit, however some work was done by friends for serious beer money with no invoices given.

We have pictures of the property prior to them moving in and then pictures of the damage when they left. How do we stand about getting the deposit back in this case?

Thanks in advance

Put a claim in with the DPS (assuming you protected it) and see how it goes, claiming for time will be tricky, just like on a tax return you can't claim for your time (as you'd pay yourself £300 an hour)

Thanks for your reply.

Just a thought here--if I were to get back dated quotes about the work that needed to be done, would this help?

Thanks

No, you have to prove how much you have actually paid,with invoices.If you are going to claim you can't afford to hang about. 

You are claiming for the loss in value to your property, not what it costs to restore it to an acceptable condition.
You don't actually have to do any remedial work to make a claim (although it does help support a claim and gives guidance as to the amount of the loss).

You first make the claim against the tenants and, if they won't agree, use the deposit company's adjudication process.

Quote from: nalimugmug on August 31, 2022, 07:47:08 PMOur tenants moved out and frankly left the property in a shocking mess.

A "mess" and "damage" are entirely different things... I let a property to rich (parents are rich) Chinese students and at the end of every tenancy so far I have had to put in about 3 days of cleaning effort. They all get a draft Check-Out document, informing them what they should do to avoid deposit deductions for things like cleaning and leaving tat behind - entirely avoidable costs - but the fact is - they just don't care about the money... they just amiably move out and accept my requested deduction (for which I am fair). I provide them industrial vacuum cleaners (this time a Titan from Screwfix) but it's like an object they'd not deign to use.

However, damage is limited to things like (somehow) broken-off door handles, dents in lovely solid wooden doors and burn marks (obviously they should not be smoking, but they seem to circumvent this) in the rug.

They leave loads of crap behind too... last time I got a 27" Philips monitor, this time a lovely desk lamp (that a local shop sells for £101) and a Canon printer. I didn't want these things, but I now have them. Yay!

What is the point of what I'm saying? Well - this bit you wrote - "Rather than call in tradesmen, my wife and I dealt with all the repairs ourselves..." - that was your choice. You chose to do that. If you wanted real invoices to support a claim you should've chosen differently. Just like me, you must've thought there was some benefit to that choice - likely speed and reduced admin.. And you obviously turned your hand to it all quite effectively... so there was no need for Trades.

Lucky old you getting a nice lamp etc.left behind. My last vacating tenant left me with a bag of clothes and a note asking me to take it to the Cat Protection shop, an annual report of the Marxist party,and some spanking and bondage stuff.This did lead to a good joke when I told a friend,who prides himself on his puns- "He's obviously a sado-marxist ".   

Hi,

Thanks to all for your input regarding my question.

To elaborate, the word mess is an understatement, there was some pretty heavy-duty damage which left us with no option but to completely gut the bathroom and restore it. The water seal around the bath had been bodged by the tenant, he didn't inform us about this, so subsequently water had run down the sides of the bath when showering and rotted the wooden floorboards and reduced the stud walling to mush. A supplied washing machine didn't work when we tested it, the list goes on with other areas of damage. A new wooden floor was required in the kitchen as the tenant rather than tighten up a jubilee clip on the drainage hose had taped it with sellotape.

As another forum member mentioned, we were wanting to get this property on the market soonest, this being a reason we did as much of the work ourselves rather than wait for tradesmen to start when they had the time.

I emailed the tenant to let him know that we wished to retain all the deposit to partially cover the damage done and asked if he wished to contest this. He has left the country and has not come back to me. The letting agents have/are going to mail him-ill keep you all posted.


Regards

If the tenant is no longer in the country, your chances of recovering anything other than the deposit are remote.

If the tenant simply doesn't respond to you or the deposit company, they should have a process called something like a "single claim" process, to allow you to recover the deposit without the tenant's consent.
It requires a visit to a solicitor or notary to confirm your identity, which is a minor faff, but otherwise it's reasonably simple.

Thanks for your advice.

We are only after the deposit.

Regards

Hi,

What a protracted process that was!

I emailed tenant-no reply
Letting agent emailed tenant-no reply
I emailed tenant -no reply.
Letting agents gave me a stat dec form to fill in, this sent to deposit holding company.
Form returned to me as had to be witnessed by a solicitor.£5.00 charge.
Deposit holding company emailed form to tenant-no reply.
Full deposit to our bank account this morning.

Thanks to all that helped.

Mery Christmas.

Sounds like a good result, nice to have updates.

Merry Christmas aswell.