Letting agents and landlords in the UK are reporting a rise in the number of dirty properties they are being faced with when they conduct an inspection at the tenant check-out stage.
As a result, a rental property’s cleanliness is now responsible for approximately 53 per cent of all deposit disputes.
According to recent research published by Imfuna Let – the inventory software firm – the number of cleaning disputes has risen by 13 per cent over the course of the last three years, though reports of real (non-superficial) damage done to a property have actually decreased to 46 per cent (from 60 per cent) over the same period.
Jax Kneppers, Imfuna’s Chief Executive Officer, stated that an increasing number of tenants do not leave a property in the same condition as they first received it and that they are usually surprised to hear that they will be required to pay for professional cleaning services to remedy the situation.
The deductions that landlords take from a tenant’s deposit, to pay for cleaning services, are often disputed by tenants, and the number of dispute cases is rising significantly.
Any landlord or letting agent that chooses to hold back money from a tenant’s deposit, in order to pay for cleaning, will need to ensure that they have thorough and well-documented evidence to prove a property’s state of cleanliness at the start and end of the tenancy.
They will also need to ensure that any charges they claim for are an honest reflection of the property’s condition at the beginning of the tenancy.