UK Landlord Forum / Life

So I raised a complaint for an inventory clerk to the AIIC. The AIIC emailed the clerk and asked them to assist me. Long story short, the clerk did not satisfactorily assist to the point that myself and the tenants are still unhappy with the inventory clerk's report. 
The AIIC did not really help us, bar emailing the clerk asking to assist us. 
The AIIC does not seem to have a proper complaint procedure in place. 

What can I do? Who can I contact to assist us please or complain?

Thank you

Sorry to hear of your problems.  As an inventory clerk I hate to say it out loud but it doesn't surprise me that the AIIC haven't got involved.

Inventories aren't regulated.  You can pay a cleaner to do an end of tenancy clean but if they do a bad job all you can really do is complain to the company directly. I believe this is all you can really do now.  From memory I believe you had photos when your tenants checked out showing damages missed by the clerk.  Send these to the inventory clerk company, gives them a bad review etc but I don't think there is a higher authority you can take this to.

Quote from: Inspector on January 31, 2021, 05:17:25 PM
Sorry to hear of your problems.  As an inventory clerk I hate to say it out loud but it doesn't surprise me that the AIIC haven't got involved.

Inventories aren't regulated.  You can pay a cleaner to do an end of tenancy clean but if they do a bad job all you can really do is complain to the company directly. I believe this is all you can really do now.  From memory I believe you had photos when your tenants checked out showing damages missed by the clerk.  Send these to the inventory clerk company, gives them a bad review etc but I don't think there is a higher authority you can take this to.

Thanks. I am actually shocked with the AIIC. As an inventory clerk do you pay £ for membership? WOuld you know who I can report the AIIC to?

Yeah you remember correctly. At the moment my new tenants have an issue with the inventory check in report cause it is insufficient, and I actually agree with them.

Quote from: kesm on January 31, 2021, 07:19:37 PM

Quote from: Inspector on January 31, 2021, 05:17:25 PM
Sorry to hear of your problems.  As an inventory clerk I hate to say it out loud but it doesn't surprise me that the AIIC haven't got involved.

Inventories aren't regulated.  You can pay a cleaner to do an end of tenancy clean but if they do a bad job all you can really do is complain to the company directly. I believe this is all you can really do now.  From memory I believe you had photos when your tenants checked out showing damages missed by the clerk.  Send these to the inventory clerk company, gives them a bad review etc but I don't think there is a higher authority you can take this to.

Thanks. I am actually shocked with the AIIC. As an inventory clerk do you pay £ for membership? WOuld you know who I can report the AIIC to?

Yeah you remember correctly. At the moment my new tenants have an issue with the inventory check in report cause it is insufficient, and I actually agree with them.

I pay an annual membership. There is no higher authority than the AIIC that they have to answer to.

What are the issues with the checkin report?

When I do an inventory the tenant is given 1 week to check the report and if they have any comments or feel anything should be added then they email what has been missed and I add them to the report.

I am wondering on whether I go to the trading standards ..
Issue with the reports are that there are areas missed, insufficient photos and both myself and the tenants emailed them. The clerk simply said that they are wear and tear and therefore will not add them to the report...!!
Tenants and I agree that they are not wear and tear though.

I'm confused now... if the Landlord and Tenants agree so much, then can they not agree amicably on how to proceed without the report being changed? There must be points of contention if the report is so important. Isn't it going to be easier to pragmatically do a bit of give-and-take to allow folk to move on? Somebody must think they're going to massively lose-out if the report is of such high importance... can't there be compromise? I mean, the Deposit can't be that much money, right? What's at stake?

Quote from: kesm on February 02, 2021, 08:22:41 PM
I am wondering on whether I go to the trading standards ..
Issue with the reports are that there are areas missed, insufficient photos and both myself and the tenants emailed them. The clerk simply said that they are wear and tear and therefore will not add them to the report...!!
Tenants and I agree that they are not wear and tear though.

Different clerks have different processes for comments on adding notes to reports.

When an agent emails me the tenant comments I add these as a separate line as a tenant comment with their photo.  Others have a section for tenant comments.  I would agree it is pretty poor practice to just do nothing.

But ultimately I would echo what Hippogriff said.

The tenant can email you with notes of what they believe is missed in the inventory.  You can say you agree then if defects are found on checkout you'll have something in writing confirming this was the condition at the begnning of the tenancy.

For the checkout do some research on good clerks then ask them to provide samples of their reports.  Then choose the one you're most confident with.

By all means go to trading standards but as there is an element of subjectivity to the reports I doubt you'll have much joy.