Fair Wear and Tear
A tenant is entitled to an allowance for fair wear and tear.
In plain terms, that means normal use of the property, plus the effect of time. What is reasonable will depend on the type of home and who is living in it. A landlord cannot usually charge a tenant the full cost of restoring part of the property, or a fixture or fitting, to the exact condition it was in at the start of the tenancy.
The key point is that the landlord should not come out of the tenancy better off than they would have been if normal wear and tear had been taken into account.
When deciding whether to make deductions from the deposit, landlords should keep one thing in mind: the deposit is not an insurance policy. It does not give the right to full replacement value or “new for old”.
The tenancy deposit schemes have published useful guidance on fair wear and tear, which can be found on their websites.
Betterment
Betterment is the idea that, once fair wear and tear has been allowed for, the landlord should not gain a financial advantage at the end of the tenancy.
What counts as fair wear and tear will vary from case to case. A property rented by a pensioner may see much less wear than one occupied by a family with young children or pets.
If the damage goes beyond fair wear and tear, the next step is to determine the fairest way to address it.
Low-cost cleaning or repair
Sometimes the sensible option is to clean or repair the item rather than replace it. A stained rug is a straightforward example.
If the landlord replaces the rug and charges the tenant the full cost, that will often amount to betterment, not a fair claim.
A fairer approach is to split the cost properly. The tenant pays for the damage they caused, and the landlord pays the rest.
In practice, that may mean getting quotes from two or three cleaning companies and charging the tenant the lowest reasonable quote to remove the stain.
The landlord should provide the tenant with copies of those quotes before proceeding with a replacement.
That cost can then be deducted from the deposit.
Fair cost of replacement
Sometimes, cleaning or repair is not realistic, but the full cost of replacement would still be too much to charge the tenant.
Take a fitted carpet that is already fairly worn and has an unremovable stain.
In that situation, apportioning the cost is usually the fairest way forward.
The usual formula looks at the item’s value and expected lifespan, then spreads the original cost over those years.
The expected lifespan should reflect the sort of wear the item was likely to face during that tenancy. If the property was lightly used, the figure may be higher. If wear was heavier, it may be lower.
Here is a worked example.
Betterment formula
The tenant should pay only a fair share of the cost of cleaning or replacement, based on the item’s age, condition, and expected lifespan.
It is good practice to back up that calculation with the original purchase invoice and a brief explanation of how the expected lifespan was determined.