@roland: "I hope I can be indulged by reporting back what happened when my 
daughter (and three student friends) checked out of her early Victorian 
furnished rented flat in central London last weekend (I did promise to 
do so). They spent a couple of days cleaning it.
The inventory chap was very thorough (45 mins to check four bedrooms, 
one kitchen/diner and two bathrooms).
He didn't quibble about the windows, which weren't cleaned on moving in, 
and could only find two things to set against the deposit:
A missing handle from a loo-brush (�1 at a pound store, if one had known 
to replace it) and a couple of inches of sellotape glue residue on one 
UPVC window frame. Having examined the latter, which he mentioned as he 
left, I'm sure it's more than a year old, and it came off in seconds; 
although that it's still a, err, black mark on the paperwork.
Not bad for �30k worth of rental income, we'll see if they actually 
raise a bill.
Roland Perry"
    @roland: "In message <email_address>, at 21:48:53 on Mon, 7 Jul 
2014, Roland Perry <email_address> remarked:
<quote>
 >The inventory chap was very thorough and ... could only find two things 
 >to set against the deposit:
 >A missing handle from a loo-brush ... and a couple of inches of
 >sellotape glue residue on one UPVC window frame.
 >
 >We'll see if they actually raise a bill.
Full deposit now returned, but it did raise a legal issue in my mind.
It's well understood that the deposit must be returned within 10 working 
days of agreeing the deductions (whether zero or non-zero) with the 
landlord, but what happens when the landlord/agent is slow deciding what 
deductions to make?
It seems to me the way the law, and deposit scheme rules, are drawn up 
include an assumption that the landlord and tenant can at least divide 
the deposit into "disputed" and "undisputed" amounts on, or very soon 
after, moving out. The 10-day clock starts ticking on the undisputed 
amount immediately.
In this case the agents were slow (with excuses like 'the person dealing 
with it has gone on holiday') but got a severe prodding after 14 working 
days. The money arrived direct from the landlord (so no extra delay on 
account of a deposit scheme's internal processing time) after 19 working 
days.
Roland Perry"
    @usenet: "On Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:20:07 +0100, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard and
typed:
<quote>
It isn't defined. This is one of the weaknesses of the deposit system.
Another is that the use of ADR is free to both sides, so the landlord has
nothing to lose by simply refusing to return the deposit until forced to by
the adjudicator, even if he knows he's got no chance of winning the
dispute.
Mark
Please take a short survey on salary perceptions: <url>
My blog: <url>"
    @roland: "In message <email_address>, at 
17:37:18 on Thu, 31 Jul 2014, Mark Goodge 
<email_address> remarked:
<quote>
I'd hope that a landlord who was a serial offender would get booted off 
the scheme, because all the costs fall on the adjudicator.
Especially in a situation like the one I'm describing (and the previous 
one I was involved in) where it's an "insurance-based" scheme and when 
the adjudicator finds in favour of the tenant the scheme has to source 
the refund, and then bears the risk of having to recover it from the 
landlord.
Roland Perry"
    @briley: "<quote>
On the other side my agent refused to release the deposit because the 
tenant had not approved - there was no incentive for the tenant to take 
any action since they owed more than the deposit in rent and had 
'disappeared'.
I was told to make a claim in the small claims court despite not knowing 
the location of the tenant - and this is after 4 months had elapsed.
Mark BR"
    @roland: "In message <lrfpco$d6e$<email_address>>, at 11:16:03 on Fri, 1 Aug 
2014, Mark BR <email_address> remarked:
<quote>
...
The disputes I've seen at close quarters almost always relate to the 
extent of deductions with a tradeoff between things like "fair wear and 
tear" and so-called "professional cleaning". I've seen too many where a 
landlord docks the outgoing tenant for not having cleaned, and then 
doesn't spend the money making the place cleaner for the incoming 
tenant.
On a personal level, I'm not even sure every rental property needs to be 
"professionally clean" when you move in. Because if it isn't, the 
landlord will simply shrug[1]. What matters is whether or not it's 
significantly worse when you move out.
I would expect that a "stakeholder" deposit scheme like that should have 
some mechanism for allowing the landlord to start an ADR dispute against 
such a tenant. Or perhaps that a tenant is deemed to have agreed to any 
deduction if they haven't filed their own ADR after some timeout period.
The deposit protection scheme is not intended to facilitate the 
*landlord* recovering more than the deposit. But I would be disappointed 
if they didn't allow the landlord to recover the deposit if the tenant 
had done a runner.
[1] In the latest and one former case, it was blatantly obvious the 
windows had not been restored to a clean, let alone professionally 
clean, state since the previous tenant. Similarly with things like a 
child's pencil-scribbles on the wall.
In such circumstances as an incoming tenant I would clean them as if it 
was my own house (irrespective of how they had occurred, and whether or 
not the landlord had docked the outgoing tenant on the pretext of 
removing them). As a landlord I wouldn't raise it as an issue if half an 
hour with a "magic-eraser" and/or a pot of magnolia paint fixed it.
Roland Perry"
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