For years when it comes to inventories landlords have been content with basic lists of items and brief notes of condition prepared either by themselves or their leasing agent. The general principal being that the landlord, or their agent holding the tenants deposit, the landlord was in effect “judge and jury” and little more than a basic inventory was required. Tenants did have a legal remedy if they felt aggrieved with the landlord’s decision to withhold the deposit or part of it. However, the stress and inconvenience and cost to the tenant in taking their landlord to court meant that in most cases the tenant would not take matters any further, especially when the sums involved were a few hundred pounds.
The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has altered the approach to inventories in several important ways.
1. No longer will the landlord have the benefit of controlling the tenants deposit monies.
2. Because of point 1 tenants will be much more likely to take on the landlord if they think they have a chance of being successful. There is likely to be a large increase in the number of cases where the tenant disputes the withholding of all or part of their deposit. Figures from England where a similar Tenancy Deposit Scheme has been in force since 2007 shows that in 2009 there were a massive 23,500 disputes and in the year before there were just 1,000. In 2012 landlords lost £12 million in adjudicated cases over disputed deposits with tenants-and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many landlords simply cannot be bothered disputing a tenants claim as they know that they don’t have the evidence required. Also, official figures show that in England only 8% of claims are decided in the Landlords favour.
3. The Inventory will now become far more important for all landlords as it is the key document in proving the condition of the property before the tenant moved in.
4. The way of dealing with disputes will now change and independent arbiters will now deal with such matters rather than the courts.
The message to landlords and their leasing agents is therefore clear. No longer will they be “judge and jury”. The result will be that the number of contested deposits is likely to increase dramatically. It is therefore more important than ever to have an independent, carefully prepared inventory at both check in and check out to accurately record the condition of the property.
It is against this background that Prestige Inventories has come into existence to provide a much needed independent inventory service to both landlords and tenants.