Hi,
We've just vacated a rental property after almost 10years. Have received instructions from the realestate on what needs to be done for our bond to be returned..honestly I think most of it is just trying to get us to agree to cleaners as the place was spotless when we left!
My concerns are that we had the carpet professionally cleaned and gave receipt of it. They've requested us to do it again and remove stains that are there. I'm not denying there are stains but with a household of 5 people for 10years and the carpet is getting quite old anyhow. They are still there after having it cleaned so I doubt they're coming out with a second clean. The second thing is a broken window. This window has been broken for a while and I had mentioned it to the realestate before. It is a crack along the frame of the window. There is no possible way that we caused it not even accidently. The windows rattle when its windy and after a storm about a year ago, the crack had appeared.
Any advice would be appreciated!
Ending tenancy
Comments
Sounds like normal wear and tear to me. A carpet of 10 years used every day is expected to be beyond it's expected lifespan and has no value. A landlord cannot expect it to be replaced with new or brought back to a new standard after you've been renting and using it. It should look like 10 year old carpet with plenty of wear marks.
Wear and tear. I wouldn't be surprised if agents don't even pass on the money to the landlords but pocket it themselves.
Unfortunately agents always want tenants to use their cleaner.
A friend of mine used the cleaner that was recommended by the agent, the agent came by and said it wasn't up to standards, my friend then gave the receipt of the recommended cleaner and the bond was returned.
Caught in the act, typical agents
commi$$ions…
No, kickbacks!
The ATO depreciation schedule for carpets is 10 years, so your landlord will have totally written off the cost of the carpet by now.
Thanks so much everyone.
Especially was glad to read about your experience @myusername. I'd mentioned the window at several property inspections and it was shrugged off eachtime. We replaced another window and the glazier said that he couldn't see any possible way we could've caused it so am putting my foot down for that one.
My main concern is that this landlord is a bit of a tightarse so I couldn't see him replacing the carpet. He tried to blame us for a roofleak! I asked if he thinks we'd gotten up on the roof and moved tiles! The realestate has said that if the stains remain, he would need 'compensation for damage' Would the 10year rule still apply? As far as I can figure, you wouldn't be able to repair 10yr old carpet, so any money he could get out of us would very likely not go to fixing or replacing carpet…is compensation actually a thing? Especially on carpet that is, as was said, past it's useable life?…and I totally agree with the dodgy cleaning claims. We finished the house 4 days before handing over the keys and to make sure we hadn't missed anything, returned on each of those days to check for things we may've missed. Everything was spotless, some things possibly cleaner than when we moved in!
experienced something similar in a previous rental years ago.
the glass sliding door downstairs was one piece of glass nearly 3 metres long and about 1.8m high.
there was a period of exceptionally strong winds and this door would rattle in the wind, this eventually cracked the glass from one end to the other.
i notified the real estate and they advised i would have to cover the costs to replace the glass.
as you can imagine a piece of glass that size isn't cheap. i refused to pay a cent seeing the glass had been cracked by the wind.
the real estate wouldn't have a bar of this and kept trying to force me to pay for the replacement.
i advised this sort of thing can be covered by the landlords home insurance. i got in touch with the Bureau of Meteorology and the women i spoke with was so excited to help find the data to pass on to the insurance company. The lady at the BOM was so excited as she mentioned this was the highlight of her day digging for data.
long story short got supplied with data overload backing up my claims of strong winds in the area and booyaaa didn't pay a cent.
now if you've been there 10 years you can tel the real estate to right it off as wear and tear.