If you've been handed a schedule of dilapidations, start here. This covers what the document actually is, who prepares it, and why the number on it is rarely the number you end up paying.
A schedule of dilapidations is a document, usually prepared by the landlord's chartered surveyor, that lists the ways a tenant is said to have breached the repairing, decorating, and reinstatement obligations in their lease. It sets out the alleged breaches item by item and, in most cases, puts a cost against each one.
It is not a court order and it is not a bill. It is one side's opening position on what they believe they're entitled to recover. Landlords who prepare these documents well know this, and so do experienced tenant surveyors. That's why the first figure on a schedule is almost always higher than what eventually gets paid.
Most schedules group items under a few headings: outstanding repairs to the structure and fabric of the building, reinstatement of alterations the tenant made during the lease, redecoration to the standard required by the lease, and compliance with statutory requirements such as fire safety or electrical regulations.
A landlord can serve an interim schedule at any point during the last few years of the lease term, and a terminal schedule once the tenant has vacated or the lease has ended. The terminal schedule is usually the one that carries the real financial weight, since it forms the basis of the landlord's claim for damages.
Almost every dilapidations schedule is overstated to some degree when first issued. That's not necessarily bad faith, it reflects the fact that the landlord's surveyor is protecting their client's position and hasn't yet heard the tenant's side. Grounds like the condition of the property at the start of the lease, whether an item is genuinely disrepair rather than an improvement, and the statutory cap under Section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 all affect what's actually recoverable.
Don't respond to the figures directly and don't ignore the document. The first step is getting your lease and the schedule in front of someone who deals with dilapidations regularly, so you know which items are worth challenging before you say anything to the other side.
Whether you're a tenant who's received a claim or a landlord preparing one, the right specialist advice early changes the outcome.
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