The All Things Property Podcast
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The All Things Property Podcast
What Counts as Fair Wear and Tear in Rental Properties - Ep. 29
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What Counts as Fair Wear and Tear in Rental Properties?
Welcome back to the All Things Property Podcast with Simon Bacon and Ian Sadler. In this episode, we dive into one of the most debated issues in property management: fair wear and tear.
Is it just the natural ageing of a property, or does it cross the line into damage for which a tenant is liable?
Simon Bacon and Ian Sadler break down their own definitions, explore what landlords can reasonably expect to deduct from deposits, and share real-world examples of carpets, paintwork, and those tricky grey areas in between.
Whether you’re a landlord, tenant, or property investor, this episode gives you the honest, practical guidance you need to navigate deposit disputes and set clear expectations, from move-in to move-out.
Chapters
00:00 Explaining fair wear and tear
04:23 Dealing with carpet damage costs
06:29 Understanding fair wear and tear
09:41 Discussing deposit disputes
14:12 Wrap-up on tenant move-out issues
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Welcome to the All Things Property Podcast with me, Simon Bacon. And me, Ian Sadler. Excellent, well done Ian, put it right. So this episode we're moving on slightly from tenancy agreements and inspections to fair wear and tear explained. And what that means is what can a landlord actually deduct from a deposit. Welcome to the All Things Property Podcast with me, Simon Bacon of Preferential Properties. Every week, Ian Stadler and I will delve into all things property. We'll guide you through with friendly, no nonsense advice. Deposit disputes almost always come down to one question. Is it fair wear and tear or is it damage? So, Ian, give me a definition or your definition maybe of what is fair wear and tear. What do you think fair wear and tear is?
SPEAKER_01What do I think? Um well you have to judge fair and wear and tear by your own your own standards, I think, don't you? You can't judge it by anybody else's. So, okay, so using your standards, Ian, what do you think fair wear and tear is? He's being pedantic now, Tom. So perhaps you edit that bit out. Get on with it. I judge fair, wear and tear by my standards. So if I think a property's been uh mistreated or not kept clean enough, or the excessive wear and tear, then I'd point it out to the tenant. But areas are carpets, um, no, go back.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So what is what is fair wear and tear?
SPEAKER_01A level of damage or degradation that you would expect from a life of a tenancy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Amara, would would you agree with me then that fair wear and tear needs to take into account age, usage, and lifespan? Age of the tenant? No, age of the property. Now I would agree with you. Right, okay. So therefore, a definition of fair wear and tear, let's try and knock one out, shall we? Okay. Fair wear and tear. What do you take into consideration for fair wear and tear?
SPEAKER_01The age of the property, the length of the tenancy. Yes. And the usage. And the usage. So for example. For example. Okay, give a go there, give me an example. If you have a family with three young children, you'd accept you you'd expect more wear and tear, perhaps on well-trafficked areas like halls, landings, paintwork, walls, and so on, as opposed to an individual professional tenant who would have minimal impact on that subject.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I I concur with you that in terms of defining it uh wear and tear, it is about you know, wear and tear for a single occupant can be very different to wear and tear for a family property. So give me an example of something like carpets.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you kind of put those down in lounges and bedrooms predominantly.
SPEAKER_00Okay. May I remind you the podcast is here to help and support land for the process. Right, okay. Okay. Carpets. Shall I ask a question again? Yes, please. Okay. Fair wear and tear with carpets, what what what does that really mean to you?
SPEAKER_01I think you look for fundamental differences in the condition of the carpet, such as stains, wine, food. Um well trafficked areas between sofas and the lounge are going to get uh far more use. It's it's do you do you insist that they're cleaned at the end of each tenancy?
SPEAKER_00You can only do that if you put an addendum in at the beginning of the tenancy. So, and again, if you do that, if you if you ask for it to be professionally cleaned at the end of the tenancy, they must have been professionally cleaned at the end.
SPEAKER_01So you're gonna be subjective. So, um okay, an example bedroom two in a two-bedroom property, I inspected it, didn't take a photograph, but I expect inspected it and there was an iron burn. We've all done it, dropped an iron when you went to it. I won't have done it because you don't know what an iron is. Well, I do, but I don't use it on the carpet. I have I don't know if you've got to. Anyway, we've all dropped irons on the floor and they leave an iron chain burn on the carpet. The question was: should the landlord suck it up or should the tenant pay for a replacement of the whole carpet? So I actually took professional advice from somebody, and they said you would normally take a proportion of the cost of a replacement carpet. So for an iron iron burn like that, you might take and the carpet was going to be costing £100 to replace, you might take £25. Rather than so the point is you cannot expect the tenant to pay the whole cost of a replacement carpet, something like that. How do landlords feel about that? Well, that's um a considered opinion. No, no, I'm not saying that, but when you have to sell that to your landlord, what do they say? Well initial reaction is gonna be reluctant, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well it is, isn't it? How many landlords have you been to where you've gone, yeah, your tenants put an iron mark in the carpet, and they've gone, well, you've got to replace the carpet, so I hope you're going to deduct the cost of that from the tenant's deposit.
SPEAKER_01So, okay, well, not a small bedroom carpet, a lounge carpet then. Yeah. No, no, because the cost implications are different. So replacing a lounge carpet is going to cost you five, six hundred pounds. So for one small iron burn, uh well, I know this is a fact, you would not be able to charge I know. If you went to a TDS case for a full replacement, you charge a proportional.
SPEAKER_00That doesn't matter whether it's lounge carpet or bedroom carpet, does it? What I'm saying is what I'm saying to you is when that landlord, when you go to landlord and says, say to them, yeah, your tenant has under I've done the checkout report and the tenant has put a burn mark, there is a burn mark, an imprint of an iron in the carpet, most landlords, I would have thought, would say, Well, I hope you're going to take the cost of replacing that out of the tenant's.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's the point at the point where I would generally educate them on what's likely to happen if they insisted on that replacement and the tenant disputed it, then they would lose in a case.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but would you try and take then the full charge? No. No. No. And it is that's it is about educating the landlord, but you know, so what the TDS will say, what any dispute resolution service would say is you know, we go back to fair wear and tear, what is it? Age, usage, lifespan. So when calculating a cost, I appreciate where you're coming from, but uh actually where what the TDS would probably do, or what any tenant dispute resolution service would do would go, how old is the carpet? What's the cost of replacing that carpet, where is that carpet, and how long would a carpet in that particular room last? They're the three three or four things that any dispute resolution or us as letting agents should be taking into account, and then you can take a proportion of that. So if that carpet's been new, is new in the first 12 months, you can actually take a higher proportion than you can for a carpet that's been down four years in a high use area where any dispute resolution would be saying, well, actually, the landlord should be expected to replace that carpet as part of ongoing tenancy management. So again, you can't even always go, well, I'm going to take £50 for every single burn mark. You can you have to support any costs that you do. In the same way with with paint work, you know. Let's let's talk about paint work then. You know, what okay?
SPEAKER_01So you're you look the wall going down the stairs. Yeah. Two aspects of damage or wear and tear that one is general traffic through that, where you people will brush against it and you will get a discoloration. Um, for me, that's fair wear and tear based on the number of people. If the tenant is moving their furniture out of the property and they gouge a hole in the wall while doing so, that's damage and that's being paid for several years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. But it these conversations we have, you know, for me it it does also highlight things like so. I'm going to ask you a question, maybe contentious, maybe not. So if you're doing, and I know we're coming off off topic slightly, but we'll come back, just a yes or no answer. If you are showing people around a property, and someone turns up with um, you know, let's say a child who runs up the stairs on the viewing with their hands all up the wall, and then you have uh somebody who turns up with a child who is um doesn't do that, would you choose would that imp influence your decision making process? Possibly. Possibly, good answer.
SPEAKER_01You're not gonna get a yes or no, are you?
SPEAKER_00No, but it's true though, isn't it? And I think yeah, that's you know, people should You digress from fair wear and tear in the wrong directions? Yes, I know, I do apologize. Okay. So what's uh you you talk there about paint work, but and and the difference between damages and uh wear and tear. What's what's the key distinction in terms of deposit disputes? What what what do people accept? What are people more accepting of or less accepting of, would you say? I suppose what I'm saying is wear and tear that tends to be the more contentious part, doesn't it, where where things get challenged? If you say to someone there's a hole in the wall or a hole in the door, generally speaking they don't get challenged. Yeah, yeah. So what's what's the evidence? How how do you ensure that you have the evidence of um because again, what what I often what you do sometimes find is that a tenant will go like that when I moved in. How do you deal with that?
SPEAKER_01Well you got you going down nowhere you're going now, you're going down the photograph route, aren't you? Do you photograph every every wall? Seriously.
SPEAKER_00What do you do?
SPEAKER_01Uh I photograph the main areas of traffic, perhaps the hall and then the stairs. But not every bedroom wall or lounge wall. So in the bedroom. Okay, here we go, here we go. Main bedroom, yeah, double bed, nice big headboard like people have nowadays. Depending on various things, you're going to get discoloration of the wall behind the headboard. Yeah. So is that fair wear and tear? Living your normal life, active life, or is it damage?
SPEAKER_00Well, you you weren't asking me that question. You were talking about photographs. Where did they? I moved on. Oh, do you? Yeah. Okay. In your which world? My world, Ian's world. Alright. Anyway, it's a good point. So what would you do? Um, well, I'll go back to have you got a photograph of that wall before the tenant moved in?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So how can you show, would your report say walls, access bedroom, no marks, good condition, newly painted, not newly painted.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, they would, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah. So your photographs are really just supporting.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, as long as you've got general descriptions of all walls, colour and so on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But I would, as a takeaway for you, Ian, not just for landlords here, but for Ian, the takeaway would be take photographs. So a photograph, even a photograph of, you know, a marketing photograph of a bedroom that shows the condition of the walls, you've got something, Danny hat on. But going back to your question, a headboard against the wall, if it's faded because of um weather, you know, that the sun's come in the bedroom and it's caused fading, then that's fair wear and tear. If it's damage from the headboard rubbing against the wall, then what? Damage. You you said it, if it's damage caused by, that's not fair wear and tear. Wouldn't wouldn't you just move your bed out from the wall slightly so that you're not getting out marking against the wall?
SPEAKER_01I think I'm slightly favouring wear and tear for that. Why are you? It's a natural, it's natural use of a but no, let's not go there. No, I wouldn't go there, personally, but beds and headboards, you wouldn't expect the wall to be this pristine, same colour, would you? Why? Because of life's experiences. Okay. Would you not move the bed out from You and I would.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What's the difference? I didn't think about moving the bed out. Oh, so it's fair wear and tear. I'm sorry. Is that not damaged?
SPEAKER_01Anyway, you're clearly not going to answer the question.
SPEAKER_00No, no, I am. I would say it's damage. You're saying it's wear and tear. And maybe it's somewhere between the two. Well, that's no use, is it? You can't go. So you've got to make it compromise.
SPEAKER_01Certain times you've got to compromise, haven't you? Yes.
SPEAKER_00What it shows is that's why there are these anomalies, because you and I can't agree, and we're in the industry, okay? So from a landlord, a landlord would have may have a slightly different perspective than you've got. The landlord may have my perspective, the tenant may have your perspective. So that's where wear and tear comes into the challenge of document it to start with, be fair and reasonable, and try and end up with a conversation. But you're right, the whole thing around the most contentious part of any tenancy is when a tenant moves out, determining what's fair wear and tear and what's damage. So as you can see, this topic is a fairly lengthy one. So what we've decided to do is split it into two parts. This is the end of the first episode. Tune in next week to see episode two. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the All Things Property Podcast. If you found this episode useful, don't forget to subscribe, like and share. These things really help us reach the people who need to hear this advice. See you next week.