Withholding deposit

slimjim10

I’ve been renting for almost one year and my lease is up in one week. My landlord recently left a letter in our house detailing arbitrary cleaning jobs like ‘clean behind the cookers’ ‘clean the grill’ ‘clean all windows and skirting boards’ etc. Which if not carried out management will be forced to carry these out at a fee of 500 euros (his wife is a solicitor), I’m worried he might find one speck and charge this ridiculous and ?illegal amount ?!
Not to mention some of the rubbish is from previous tenants.
He also asked us to cut the grass and left us a hedgetrimmer, but regardless of what’s in the lease surely the housing act 2009 overrides this as his responsibility ?
And he’s in a rent pressure zone so had increased rent by 10% for the last 5 years consecutively. Hence he has overcharged us 4800 euro in the year , is there a way to recoup this or have authorities take this from him? He will argue significant refurbishment rule but we have photos from the previous year as one girl lived there 2 years.
He’s always got rent on time and been no issues, he owns 15 properties so I feel he’s just a chancer and wants 500 quid regardless of the House condition.

Topgear on Dave

Give the place a good clean, trim the grass. Collect cash.

I think your over reacting to this.

wirelessdude01

Just clean the place like a normal person does. Mountain, molehill comes to mind with this comment.

beauf

I'd be curious about the 500.

Could you ask for the name of the companies that will do the cleaning and grass for 500. So you can use them and get a quote from them.

You could get a cleaner in for less than that. He can contract someone to maintain the garden of you don't want to do it.

stormthecastle

Take photos after you finish cleaning in case you need to bring a case to the RTB.

Did you take photos of the condition when you moved in?

Browney7

Suggest to the landlord he or she does an inspection a day before the notice ends with you present and they can point out things they'd like remedied or items that don't meet their satisfaction - then gives you time to fix them and less hassle with deposits etc.