Q My partner and I are one week away from the end of our tenancy. The letting agreement states that we are responsible for damage which is not “fair wear and tear”. Our landlady has just informed me that she will require a professional to clean the rooms we stayed in. We don’t think the property is that bad. So I’d like to know, what exactly is “fair wear and tear”

A Tenancy agreements will always include a provision that the tenant should take care of the landlord’s property. An obligation to use the property “in a tenant-like manner” is often expressly included as a term of a written letting agreement, but the courts will infer a similar term even if the agreement is silent on the point or there is only a verbal arrangement in place.

In 1954, Lord Denning described the obligation as follows: “The tenant must take proper care of the place. He must, if he is going away for the winter, turn off the water and empty the boiler. He must clean the chimneys, when necessary, and also the windows. He must mend the electric light when it fuses. He must unstop the sink when it is blocked by his waste. In short, he must do the little jobs about the place which a reasonable tenant would do. In addition, he must, of course, not damage the house, wilfully or negligently, and he must see that his family and guests do not damage it: and if they do, he must repair it.”

There have always been limits on how far the obligation extends. The main limitation is that the tenant is not generally required to put right anything that has deteriorated simply through “fair wear and tear”. Once again, if this formula is missing from the written letting conditions, the courts will be prepared to infer the limitation in any event.

Disputes about whether damage goes beyond “fair wear and tear” are frequently encountered at the end of tenancy agreements. In the 1958 case of Regis v Dudley, the House of Lords explained that the words meant that the tenant was not responsible for any damage caused by “the reasonable use of the [PROPERTY]” or “the ordinary operation of natural forces”. Furthermore, the House of Lords said that one should always assume that the tenant had, in fact, acted reasonably.

In your case, there may be other obligations in the tenancy agreement that deal specifically with carpet cleaning. However, if the landlady is relying on a term that requires you to use the property in a tenant-like manner, you are not liable if damage was caused by “the ordinary operation of natural forces” or by your “reasonable use” before the tenancy ended.

The writer is a barrister at Tanfield Chambers. E-mail your questions to:

brief.encounter@thetimes.co.uk

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