A blog clinic question today from Janet who is concerned about claims for charges:
I vacated my rented property on 16/04/2011, today 6/7/2011 I received a letter along with a bill from the previous letting agents for so called damage/cleaning and general “housework” costs that they claim they had to undertake when I vacated the property.
The total cost amounts to just over £750.00 and lists various works which they claim had to be undertaken.
Some examples are as follows…..
- Cleaning the property £125.00 (I cleaned the property before I left)
- Changing a light bulb £20.00
- Rehanging a pair of curtains £50.00
- Cleaning of above curtains £50.00 (I had told the letting agent that I did not wish to use them when I moved in, they advised me to store in cupboard, therefore curtains are in exact same state as when in moved in as they where not used by me)
- Filling tiny hole in wall from where a picture was hung £80.00
- Small chip to kitchen work top, claim worktop needs completely replacing (cost has yet to be confirmed by them)….is this not wear and tear?
The list goes on….My question is firstly does a Landlord/letting agent have to notify you of any claims for damages/cleaning e.t.c within a set period of time after the date that you leave the property. I left nearly 2.5 months ago.
Secondly can I ask for proof, i.e invoices to prove that all this work.cleaning e.t.c has infact been carried out and that the prices quoted to me are genuine as most do seem totally unreasonable.
If I can request this information how long does the Letting agent have to provide me with the official and correct documentation and do I have a right to dispute all these claims.
Janet you don’t mention any deposit but if you have been out of the property for over two months I assume that if you had a deposit, it has been returned to you. Which is odd if these are genuine complaints.
The legal time limit for claims such as this is six years, so two months is allowable. However you are right in asking whether the agents need to provide proof. If they were to claim these charges sucessfully at court they would need to prove to the Judge, on the balance of probabity, that the charges were:
- reasonable ones to charge you and
- that the actual sums charged are reasonable
A landlord (or the agent on his behalf) can only make a claim from an outgoing tenant if they are able to prove that the property was in a significantly worse condition at the end of the tenancy than it was at the start, fair wear and tear excepted. They cannot prove this without an inventory taken and verified (preferably by you) at the time you first went into the property.
So if they cannot prove that you are responsbile for the damage then they cannot claim anything at all.
Then, even if they are able to prove that there is damage and that you are responsible for it, they will need to prove that the sum they are claiming is reasonable. To do this they will need to provide the Judge with receipts and/or invoices for the work done. They cannot just pluck a figure out of the air.
I suggest that you write to them and say that you deny that you are responsble for these charges and request sight of all paperwork, such as receipts, invoices and the like, to prove the charges claimed. In the meantime don’t make any payment.
This seems quite unreasonable £80.00 for a small hole and £20.00 to change a a lightbulb? Was that really so difficult? Its not nice to see that landlords really do try as hard as they can to get as much money from a tenant as possible. Maybe they see this as a leaving ‘gift’ as they will not be generating a regular income from the ex-tenant in the form of rent.
Strangely for someone who runs a mortgage website I’ve actually lived in rented accommodation since my divorce 7 years ago.
I’ve lost a full deposit previously when I moved out and the landlord pulled the same strokes that Janet has been victim of.
There should be an independent person who can adjudicate in these matters as it’s just a rip off.
Anyway rant over.
Dave G Best.
I dont understand why these matters didnt come up at the time of deposit return, to charge for this two and half months later seems scandalous to me.
If they are accredited you could put in a complaint to the accredtitation body, I would also report the agent to your council’s trading standards office
Under current deposit protection regulations, provided that Janet’s tenancy was an AST, the letting agent or landlord should have advised her within 10 working days of the end of her tenancy what intended deductions were to be either in writing or verbally. So, assuming that this was not done and the charges were made against the deposit, then Janet should be bringing the dispute to whoever the deposit is protected with. She will have 6 months to do this (as the tenancy did not start before 6th April 2011 when tenants only have 3 months to refer a dispute now).
I would therefore suggest then that Janet disputes it either with the agent directly or via the appropriate body. She should definitely ask for proof of works and also copies of the check-out report to compare to the ingoing. All things the TDS/DPS/mydeposits will require to adjudicate on the dispute.
To me, if the facts are straightforward and the agent hasn’t done their job properly then on the surface it seems that Janet’s case is clear cut and the agent or landlord won’t have a leg to stand on in any dispute. But, playing devil’s advocate, there are always two sides to a story and we are only hearing Janet’s version here…
Setting aside the time delay and assuming the claims are legitimate, make sure they have done their calculations properly to avoid ‘betterment’ (lots of agents don’t do this). £80 for the hole in the wall is probably the cost of decorating the entire wall – which is a resonable amount in itself – but if the decor was already a few years old you shouldn’t be expected to pay the full cost.
A – Cost of redecorating wall = £80
B – Actual age of existing decor = 3 years
C – Average lifespan of decor = 4 years
D – Residual lifespan (C minus B) = 1 years
E – Depreciation rate (A divided by C) = £20
F – Apportionment cost to tenant (D x E) = £20
I’m making lots of assumptions in this example, but sitting room decor does have a resonable life expectancy of about 4 years. So, if the decor at the end of the tenancy was 3 years old, the landlord can only expect £20 towards the cost becasue they have already enjoyed 3 years life of the decor and it only has a value for another year.
The landlord has to take the most reasonable course of action to rectify the problem. In the case of the worktop there is little option but to replace it. However, the depreciation calculation should still be used. If the kitchen is 15 years old you probably shouldn’t be paying anything.
This is the sort of knowledge that separates properly qualified agents from the herd and why tenants should always look for accredited agents.
One thing tenants should always bear in mind is that quite often the landlord will be paying professional contractors to do the work and good contractors don’t come cheap. We would expect to pay in the region of £85-£125 for a professional clean of a one or two bed flat depending on whether it needed a deep clean or just a spruce-up clean. Professional deep-clean of an oven costs about £50 alone. It wouldn’t pay to get an electrician in just to fit a bulb, but a decorator might charge £10 to do it while he’s there (£20 possibly in London).
Thank you very much everyone for your comments.
@Nadia I agree that it should be a deposit matter but as Janet has not mentioned it, maybe no deposit was taken.
@Jamie – that is very much the sort of thing Janet needs to know, as it does not look as if the agents have done anything like that sort of exercise.
@David, now you can see the sort of questions you should have asked ;)
(£20 seems a lot and it may only take a few minutes to remove the old one and fit the new bulb, but don’t forget his time involved in driving to B&Q and back to buy a new bulb).