I'm slightly worried about getting my deposit back... I'm pretty certain I won't.
The kitchen for isntance in our house is terrible. The cupboards are falling to bits and have been since I moved in at the beginning of the year. The other 3 guys had been there 3 years already however so it wasn't a new tenancy so there wasn't much point in pointing it out to the letting agent.
The house has been kept reasonably clean and will get a good cleaning before we move out, but I can think of a lot of things he might want to bill us for...
1) Kichen cupboards falling to bits.... they must be at least 30 years old, they're shoddy and of poor quality and theor time has come, surely this should come down to wear and tear, but I bet he'd like to use our deposit towards a new kitchen.
2) The oven is a joke. The gas board said it was safe, but recommend it be changed soon as it used none standard sized piping and doesn't have anything in the way of safety features. The strikers all don't work etec so you have to lean into the oven with a match!! As with the rest of the kitchen, it is years old and desperately needs replacing... I wonder if he'd like to use our deposit for a new oven.
3) The roof leaked a couple of years ago in one of my housemates rooms. The roof was fixed but the mess it made of his ceiling was left despite promises it'd get repainted.
4) The light/shaver point in the bathroom (years and years old) doesn't work. The switch became stuck in the on position and the light burnt out, we can only assume messing up the switch at the same time. Lettng agents were notified 6 months ago, nothing has been done.
5) The front gate (about the size of a 6' fence panel) is rotten, and in the heavy wind at winder came away from the bottom hinge, so it no longer hangs properly and it really beyond repair. The letting agents sent around a handyman to look who said to us (I'll paraphrase) - "I agree, it needs replacing, but your landlord won't, he's a tight git".
6) In my room there was originally a built in warderobe which the landlord ripped out a few years ago leaving patches on the wall that could really do with painting as they show the colour from the paint underneath. Ideally when the guys first moved in 3 or 4 years ago this kind of thing should have been notified to the letting agents, but as I discovered when I asked a few weeks ago, they never put any of the problems in writing (which will be our biggest problem).
7) The glass in some rooms is like a single glazed window, with a second glass panel affixed to give semi-double glazing. It's attached in a semi-perminant way and I don't think it's our place to start taking appart the landlords cheap bodge-job attempt at double glazing. However, there is a lot of damp between the two sets of glass that could really do with cleaning. If leave it, he'll say it should have been cleaned, if we take appart his dodgy double glazing we're liable to break something in the process.
To give an example of how cheap this guy is....
The florescent fitting in the kitchen died recently (it's an old one with a striker build in that you cannot replace). We had to cook in the dark with light from a desk lamp for about 2 weeks until the letting agents sent their handyman round. He said he'd speak with the landlord, but that he knows for a fact he'll not pay the £25 needed for a new flourescent unit... and he was right, the landlord instructed him to just fit a regular bulb holder... so we now have a big strip of blue paint on the kitchen showing through the newer magnolia that was painted around the strip light.
Unfortunately joning part way through the tenancy I've had no involvement with the landlord and wasn;t around at the beginning.
If I was I would have been sure to document and get signed every little problem with the place, as I have done in previous places I have lived. In my last 2 rented places I have otten my full deposit back, this time I really don't expect a penny of it, despite the fact that I thnk we are fully deserving of it.