UK Landlord Forum / Life

My tenant vacated and has given back keys to agent. However he's not handed over keys to the padlocks on the bolts on the garage. I've asked agent to contact him for the keys and I'm not heard anything back yet and possibly I won't knowing my agent.
So the question is when can I get out the angle grinder and cut them off? I think there's still stuff in there.
Also my tenant took it upon himself to paint some of the rooms in a grey colour. I don't get why, there's a smell of paint and it's clearly been recently (and badly) done. The original colour scheme was magnolia and some rooms are untouched. Can I pass on the cost of repainting ?

How did the tenancy end? Naturally or deed of surrender etc?

On the painting, the property should be returned in the same state (and colour scheme) as it was when the tenancy was handed over to the Tenant, unless agreement was reached that painting could go ahead and it could remain that way at the end of the tenancy. However, claiming something was painted badly (and using that as justification for costs) will be hard, always, as good and bad painting are subjective. Just like good and bad cleaning. What one person thinks is bad painting / cleaning another person will think is perfectly acceptable and yet another person will think is amazing. There is no objective scale of what is good and bad in these spheres, so it will always come down to someone's subjective view - as always, when you are looking to recover costs from a Deposit you should try to do it by agreement as it just makes it easier on all parties... and, sometimes, the Landlord just has to suck it up and move on.

The tenancy ended normally except that he took his time handing in the keys and I got access a few days late. Nothing I will follow up on.
However painting was not authorised and if had just been walls I'd have ignored it and put it down to wear and tear. But it's the battleship grey gloss on the doors and skirting boards that's out of place against the original cream of the rest of the flat. I'm not looking for the last cent.