Fair Wear & Tear

A question about : Fair Wear & Tear

Afternoon.

This is my first post (and the reason I joined) so if you can give me your opinion it would be appreciated.

So basically, I've been in my current place for 4 years. Its a 3 bed semi in Wokingham, Berkshire.

I have 3 young children (3, 4 and 8) and as you can imagine, wear and tear has occurred. However, I'm a fair man, and I accept some of it is not fair wear and tear and I wanted peoples opinions on what they thought would be. I'll list below some of the things they've done:

Drawing on the walls (not bad but with pencil)
Finger prints on walls
Dents in wood work
Spills in carpets
Lots of dark marks on a cream carpet in the lounge
marks and paint chips on a radiator

The lounge carpet i accept and I'm getting it professionally cleaned before we move out, along with giving the house a professional clean. But do you think I'd need to paint the whole house (fingerprint issues) or do you think those would be considered fair.

I look forward to helpful responses

Best answers:

• When you say 'finger prints' I assume you mean more etched on than can be cleaned off?
  Ditto the pencil drawing, can't be rubbed off?
  I'm also assuming the paint chips are bigger than a small little chiop you barely see, on the radiator?
• walls will be cleaned etc, but the paint is rubbish and if you rub to hard, the paint comes off...
  Radiators are chipped, not massively, but noticeably... could do with a good tipex-ing
• Basically leave it in a state that you yourself moved in, the next person shouldn't have to clean up etc.
• Was the decor new when you moved in? Even so I think most LLs would re-paint after a 4 year tenancy so I would argue no deductions.
  Carpets; depends on the quality. Budget would be replaced at least every 5 years so max duduction 20% of value. High quality I would expect to last 10 years or more.
• How hard is it to paint a radiator? Same for drawn on walls? I painted my whole house for Ј50 (one can of gloss, two large cans of vinyl matt that was on offer at the time and covered well).., lot less than paying the LL if he needs to get in a decorator. Spend Ј1 on a box of powdered plaster stuff that will fill any cracks (any pound shop).
  House looked like new. No worries on my part about enormous reductions from deposit for things I could easily do myself. Yes the LL got 'betterment' but I got a lot less stress.
• A good test might be to ask yourself
  a) what was it like when you moved in? How did you feel about the condition? and then
  b) if I & my family were moving in today, how would I feel about the condition? The same as in a) or would I think "this is a bit of a tip..."?
  Having said that, many LLs would expect to 'freshen up' if not re-paint after 5 years or so.
• When I moved out of my last flat I hired a carpet cleaner from B&Q which didn't cost very much and I washed all the walls (I can't remember with what) to get all the marks off e.g scuff marks from shoes near the door. When I leave a rental property I always clean it from top to toe so that the LL has no reasons to withhold any deposit (this was even in the days before the deposit schemes). My LL always told me they were really pleased the property was so clean (which made me think that others don't bother)
  A clean property goes a long way with a landlord (or at least in my experience it does!)
• We just moved out of our rental to a new one and house was cleaner than when we moved in! We gave a clean to all rooms, windows doors skirtings etc, one room was wallpapered and never been slept in, we painted all rooms bar kitchen and what was my room as the kids rooms had marks etc (not bad ones but just out of politeness) re papered hallways and painted.have my own carpet cleaner And although carpets are now thread bare (been in for years) they came up spanking cream again, oven pride in the cooker (I had to have it professionally cleaned when I moved in) brought it up gleaming. My 2 cents is too leave it as you moved in after all if it was your house you would like it to be treated as it should.
  Just awaiting my 'unprotected' deposit back
• But that 2/5 could easily include the cost of a painter decorator.., as against taking a couple of hours to paint it yourself??????
• I don't think chipped paint on radiators or kids drawing on walls is fair wear and tear, that's being clumsy and no kid should ever draw on a wall. The odd knock on a door frame would be fair wear and tear and some dirt on carpets however.
• If a landlord does the (very necessary) cleaning, repairs and repainting themselves, can they charge the tenant something, and if so, what would be reasonable?
  Property let for just under 2 years, freshly decorated before being let. Unfurnished.
• In this case the question is on behalf of the landlord (my daughter). First tenant has just left so she has no previous experience of calculating deductions.
  Tenant claims to have had their usual cleaner in to clean, but minimum cleaning required to bring back to original state was:
  kitchen floor...scrubbing on hands and knees required
  oven (not too bad)
  cooker hood (very bad)
  freezer (not defrosted)
  tiled splashbacks
  bathroom tiles (esp round bath/shower)
  food and marks on walls, some paint missing
  laminate floors (cloudy/sticky)
  general clean of all doors, woodwork, light fittings and kitchen units
  Rather than touch up walls, she has cleaned and then repainted. Probably 2 days work and 3 tins of paint. Whole place was freshly painted originally.
  Damage to woodwork and some marks on ceilings were touched up.
• Our kids have done some fairly normal damage to our house too. Wall drawings, wallpaper peeled off in places, scratches in wood etc. Some might be wear and tear, and I know our LL would repaint if we moved anyway so she did tell us not to worry about the walls. However I'd probably repaint the wooden door frames and banisters as they look very scruffy. (Actually I should do that anyway and just enjoy it ourselves!)
  If you have lived there for 4 years and the walls have not been repainted in that time, I'd say the drawings are wear and tear. But if you want less hassle when moving, it might be worth repainting what you can, it doesn't have to cost much. Even a good clean might avoid the need to repaint.
  You may not be able to do much about dents in woodwork, but assuming they're not overly noticeable and don't affect the use of the house, I'd say that's fair too.
  Would it be worth contacting your LL and asking them for advice? If they are reasonable they will be honest about what they expect.
• Obviously I'll do as much as I can to make amends to the property and return it to its original state, however, It was more a question of what would be deemed Fair wear and tear and what would be deemed damage. I guess unless you see it, its going to be hard to gauge....
  Obviously I'm going to clean the walls and paint the chips on the radiator and make everything as good as it was (when we moved in) as I physically can.
• jennifernil, did your daughter get 3 quotes from professionals to do the work before she did it?
  If not, how will you prove how much a professional would have charged?