UK Landlord Forum / Life

I'm having hassle over the deposit for our HMO student house and they've thrown quite a bit back at me. Has anyone heard of 'Blocked Stock Furniture'? The students smashed two chairs and now say that the chairs had a sticker on them saying 'Blocked Stock' which apparently indicates that they were of bad quality and shouldn't be used in a rental.I can't find any information supporting this but want to get my facts straight before replying.

"shouldn't be used in a rental" needs backing-up, doesn't it? Don't get yourself on the back-foot with clever student types... ask them to fully justify their claim, otherwise there is no claim. Broken furniture is broken furniture. There may be antique stuff out there that's a bit ricketty... it doesn't mean it's not worth a lot, and it doesn't mean you're due compensation if it's broken... for example... why would it even be broken in the first place? It's not like it just spontaneously fell apart, right?

I had a student try that on me last year... a glass and metal table... that just "smashed into pieces"... strange that upon - gentle - interrogation it did turn out they'd been drinking and someone may have really smashed a beer bottle down onto it at "almost exactly the same time" it shattered into a million pieces.

Students are clever... but not as clever as they think.

Thank you so much for your reply! The students demands are quite laughable really. Apparently the bed was totally broken (Wobbly bed slats were reported but fixed and recorded as such in November and nothing mentioned since) and the student has now told me that she had to sleep on the floor and that I owe her rent due to the property being inhabitable! She even worked out a percentage of rent that I owe her for every month that she lived in the property 

They also claim that I owe them money for gardening services. They cut the grass once and it's in their tenancy agreement to do so!