UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi all,

I'm new to the site and this will be my first post.

I have two questions I would like to raise –

1.   Inventory check out report – has anyone had a similar situation? Can I do anything? I paid for the check in and the tenant is responsible for the payment of check out.
We enlisted the services of an independent inventory clerk (well they were assigned by the agency who found our tenants) to perform a check in and check out report, our tenants moved out last week and before the checkout was performed we sent a list of things for the inventory clerk to double check (I had visited the property to fix an issue several months ago and saw some damage to the property as well as broken appliances, large stains on the sofa etc.- when I questioned these the tenants confirmed they would replace and get the sofa cleaned as it wasn't down to normal wear and tear). The inventory check out was performed (I was meant to attend this but fell ill and my husband had to look after our daughter – big mistake).

We visited the property the next day and took pictures as the broken appliances, stains etc. were not replaced or cleaned, we didn't worry about this too much as we presumed these would be picked up by the inventory check out report.

When we finally received the report, none of the items that we had mention to double check were picked up or mentioned on the report. There were even missing keys that were not mentioned on the report.

We since replied to the report via email disagreeing with their report and provided the pictures we took and requested further clarification on why these were not included to the report. There were some obvious things that you would need to be blind to have missed so we cannot figure out why it was not mentioned on the checkout report when in the original inventory report it states the condition as new or good. This is not fair wear and tear i.e. broken shower rail, left in the bath tub, wine, food and mud stains on the sofa etc. It's been 3 days and we haven't received a response from the inventory clerk that performed the checkout as to why these things were omitted. Can I do anything as I was going to use the checkout report as evidence to make deductions from to deposit to return the sofa to its original condition or to a fair condition, replace broken items, replace lost keys etc and appointing a tradesman to mend door handles etc. The report seems to have been completed in a rush, it's only a 1 page. This is the first time as a landlord but is this the normal standard for a check out?

I will have to call them if they don't come back to me as they hold my keys to my property as I couldn't attend.

2.   Receipts/invoices for deductions
When enlisting services to perform and correct jobs do they have to be from a registered company? We routinely use a handy man,  he confirmed he can perform the jobs at the property but he is not associated with a registered company. He has provided me an invoice that looks like he has created himself (it's not a formal invoice you would expect to see form a big company). Would this be sufficient as proof of receipt for works that could be used to be deposit deductions?  I trust the handyman and he charges fair prices but if the tenants dispute the deductions and I end up going to ARD or court I want to ensure the receipts are valid i.e. can it be from a VAT exempt or non-registered company?

1 - call them, indeed. A Check-out report of 1 page doesn't sound right at all.

2 - that's fine.

Thank you for confirming.

Okay so I have attempted to call the inventory clerk and left messages, they are not responding. I'm hoping they will contact me tomorrow if not to provide clrifications on the questions I posed then to at least arrange to return my keys!