Normal Wear and Tear?

MagicHumanDoll

Hi all,

Leaving property after two years. Landlord claiming €150 worth of damages as they need to strip walls of chipped paint due to posters and a hole in a wall (small)

Is this absurd to take 150 off our deposit after two years or is it outside standard wear and tear? Naturally I am biased.

Thanks

cronos

MagicHumanDoll wrote: »

Hi all,

Leaving property after two years. Landlord claiming €150 worth of damages as they need to strip walls of chipped paint due to posters and a hole in a wall (small)

Is this absurd to take 150 off our deposit after two years or is it outside standard wear and tear? Naturally I am biased.

Thanks

That's not normal wear and tear. That's you damaging the wall. Different thing. However, he should be having it repaired and giving you a receipt for the cost of the damage so you know it's 150. Not sure if he's legally required to do that though. But for sure that's not normal wear and tear.

theteal

It not normal wear and tear but needing to strip the wall over a few paint chip is a bit extreme - assuming its a bit blutac/sellotape damage. As above, make sure you see proper receipts before you pay anything

Finbarr Murphy

Can you fill the small hole and paint the wall in order to get the 150 back?

CollyFlower

MagicHumanDoll wrote: »

Hi all,

Leaving property after two years. Landlord claiming €150 worth of damages as they need to strip walls of chipped paint due to posters and a hole in a wall (small)

Is this absurd to take 150 off our deposit after two years or is it outside standard wear and tear? Naturally I am biased.

Thanks

It sounds to me that there could be a water leak if the paint is chipped, otherwise I think you're being ripped off... I've never heard of "strip the walls" to repair paint work, all you need is a scraper to scrape off the pain and repaint and a bit of poly filler to fill the hole,its not 150€ worth of work..

wordofwarning

CollyFlower wrote: »

It sounds to me that there could be a water leak if the paint is chipped, otherwise I think you're being ripped off...

If OP used sellotape or bluetac, they could have easily 'chipped' the paint

CollyFlower wrote: »

I've never heard of "strip the walls" to repair paint work, all you need is a scraper to scrape off the pain and repaint and a bit of poly filler to fill the hole,its not 150€ worth of work..

The landlord still needs to get someone into do that work. How much would you estimate the job at?

davo10

CollyFlower wrote: »

It sounds to me that there could be a water leak if the paint is chipped, otherwise I think you're being ripped off... I've never heard of "strip the walls" to repair paint work, all you need is a scraper to scrape off the pain and repaint and a bit of poly filler to fill the hole,its not 150€ worth of work..

Have you ever tried painting part of a wall with the same colour paint? It's never the same, you can always see the freshly painted area, it looks different to the rest of the room. (Anyone with kids wil have tried this at some stage). If part of a wall needs to be painted, the room needs to be painted and if there are holes in the wall they will have to be filled in and sanded down. Some people can do this themselves, but others have to get a professional painter in and I don't know many painters who will take a job of less than a daily rate.

Op posted walls (plural) and one of them has a hole in it, probably a stud partition, I think he is lucky to only be charged €150, I'd be pretty pissed off to find a hole in a wall, and thinking this is normal wear and tear is absurd.

The_Conductor

Honestly- as the others have pointed out- you're never going to match new paint to cover paint you've accidentally chipped with blu-tack (or by whatever other method).

150 to paint a room sounds actually extremely reasonable- to be brutally honest- I'd personally be interested in the painter's details for future reference- I have a number of jobs that I'd love to get done this cheaply.

Its 100% definitely *not* normal wear and tear- and I've been in your position- I used to love my posters etc when I was younger. The lesson I learnt was quite simply- only put blu-tack on gloss paint (doors or wardrobes etc)- not matt walls- or your walls will look like you're trying to emulate Jackson Pollock.

Its a reasonable deduction to be honest- I'm guessing its a price for materials alone- and the landlord is doing the painting himself- as no way will 150 cover labour. The landlord is fully entitled to do this.

You can dispute this- if you wish- but all the landlord would have to do is produce receipts to show he handed over 150 quid (either to a painter, a contractor- or hell, to Woodies or a shop that sells paint)- and he is covered.
Its very easy for a landlord to defend the deduction. You often hear of wholly unjustified deductions from deposits- unfortunately in this case- its very easy for a landlord to justify this deduction.

MagicHumanDoll

Thanks for the updates everyone; was making sure as we are all students so we can appear to be easy targets for being ripped off, which apparently we aren't.

I believe the painting is something the Landlord plans to do themselves, and the poster damage is on two walls. I'd estimate 30m2 max of wall, as they are two bedrooms (not mine, grumble!) and medium-small sized rooms.

The hole in the wall is something I have no idea how it got there and am annoyed it's an issue. My room I had for two years is spotless and its typical others have let the house down!!

So all in all, as has been reiterated, we are probably justified in getting charged €150.


Another question, as you've all been very helpful; We vacated on June 1st, when can we expect our deposit back/when should our deposit be handed back. Just another question as this is a learning process for myself as a tenant. Thanks!