1st
Mar 2021
A tenancy deposit service has just released a list of bewildering items that landlords and tenants send to them in tenancy deposit disputes…. and at the top of the pile are taps.
The deposit service said that in one instance it received a tap thick with limescale from a landlord to show how a tenant had not taken good care of the bathroom, and on the other hand the service was sent a new shower mixer tap to show how the landlord had overcharged them to supply and fit the replacement.
The service also revealed that a landlord had sent them a carpet to show an iron burn that a tenant had left, whilst another actually sent a mobile phone with a charger for them to study the photos of the ‘true condition’ of the property that the tenant had checked out of.
The service also said that another landlord had even sent them a plastic bag full of wet wipes and dirt to support their case that the property had not been cleaned when the tenant had left, even a bag of sweet wrappers turned up courtesy of a landlord to prove that children had been living with a tenant in their property.
The service recommends to landlords and tenants to send video and photo evidence to resolve disputes but was shocked when they were sent a video from a tenant hoping to prove that a landlord was letting another person live in a ‘hidden’ part of the property. There was another video sent by a tenant showing a landlord clambering over a garden wall to enter the house without their permission.
A spokesperson for the service said “The provision of evidence is a fundamentally important aspect of the resolution of any dispute, and good evidence can help our adjudicators come to fair conclusions around the return of deposit money.
“Good evidence can include records of email correspondence or mobile phone messages, date-stamped photographs or video that helps demonstrate the condition of the property at both the start and end of a tenancy.
“Over the 14 years that we’ve been protecting deposits, landlords and tenants have posted us some very inventive and unusual items to back up their points, but we’d nevertheless encourage both parties to stick to paperwork, images and video in order to make the process as quick and efficient as possible.”
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