A Landlord's Life

I was interested to read colleague Edel Morgan's column on the issue of deposits last week. For those who don't know, a deposit is usually a month's rent, paid in advance by the tenant, as a security against damage to the landlord's property.

More to the point, it is legally returnable on termination of the tenancy and should not be held back, in whole or in part, for what is termed "reasonable wear-and-tear" on the property.

As she correctly pointed out: "One landlord's wear-and-tear may be another's 'damage and destruction'."

Alas, all true - and there's the rub as the actress said to the bishop. How to determine what is "reasonable" wear-and-tear? In the variations of human behaviour, scuff marks on walls and worn carpets come clearly under the heading of wear-and-tear, whereas smashed tiles and broken windows do not . . .

The quotes from official bodies gave me the wry laugh of seasonal uplift. Here, for instance, is a piece of official legalese, relied upon in regulating landlord/tenant relations. "The household composition would be a factor that influences the extent of the occupation that a landlord could have reasonably foreseen." Hey, run that by me again . . . oh, you mean "if you let the place to a crowd of bowsies, expect the worst". So, no point in complaining over broken springs on a couch and mascara embedded in the bathroom mirror if you let the place to, say, a clutch of twentysomethings who are going to use your apartment to express their first year away from home. Or if you let your apartment to the pale, shivering couple from the inner city, whom you took pity on in winter - and then found it taken apart, courtesy of the Garda Drug Squad, who made an early morning call with a sledge hammer.

Your solicitor may claim compensation from the Department of Justice, which is full of lawyers and so relish that kind of complaint.

By the time your claim is settled, your place would be open to the elements and squatters - and possibly rezoned for a shopping mall. You would be better off buying a new door yourself.

Similarly, faced with any set of dysfunctional tenants, whose behaviour causes other inhabitants of the block to phone you in the early hours with complaints. Give the tenants notice, return the deposits without quibble. Cheap at the price, good riddance to bad rubbish. It might be the best value you will get in a long while, because the alternative is a long war of attrition and wear-and-tear on your nerves. Furniture can be replaced, your damaged nervous system not easily.

No point, either, in holding back a deposit, over say missing microwaves or hoovers. Tenants who behave like that are criminal. Do you need them in your property? A missing hoover today, may presage a call from the Crime Squad tomorrow, asking what you know about proceeds of an armed robbery. Or, as happened to a friend, a search of his own home by suspicious detectives, unable to believe they could be so taken in by a bunch of obvious "crims".

Another landlord found a leather three-piece suite from Arnotts was replaced by a similar-looking piece of furniture, costing about a third of the price. As she could not swear to the appearance of the original and could not prove her case, she had to grin and bear it.

Morally, she was entitled to hold onto the "security deposit" but she sensibly, in my view, wrote it off.

Giving back their deposit was, she reckoned, worth it, to see the back of them. If they were able to supply "leather-look" designer suites, what else might they be up to - or into. And they had her bank details, by virtue of paying the rent into her account.

You can, of course, compile a scrupulous inventory of contents, defining degree of wear and tear, such as "slight scuff marks on door frame", or "six knives, five forks, six spoons (tea), four spoons (soup)". What, do you want bad blood over two spoons? Another waste of time and, in my view anally retentive, which is not a phrase you will find in the usual property lease.

A certain poet, who came from the landlord class of another century and who foresaw how the deprived peasantry would turn out to be worse landlords than those they usurped, put it much better, warning of those who would "pile the pence upon halfpence and chill the marrow from the bone".

Which I take to heart, as "life is too short to quibble over little". Give them the money and let them run.