It is given that if you are renting a place you may have to pay for the wear and tear before you move out for good.
But a landlord in Sydney, Australia left her tenant stunned when she demanded $1,000 for an ‘almost invisible’ scratch on the floor.
According to the landlord, she would have to change the entire floorboards due to the scratch on the floor.
The tenant who could not understand her landlord's demand shared her story on the popular social media platform Reddit.
Going by the username 'BabyButt3rcup' she wrote, ''Just want to ask if it sounds ridiculous to you that my landlord wants to charge $1000 for a minimal scratch on a panel of a timber floor? Her plan is to remove and redo the whole flooring because I've unintentionally made a scratch on a panel, I repeat, a minimal almost invisible scratch on one of the panels. Does that make sense to you?''
Many Reddit users agreed with the tenant, with some even calling the landlord's demand ''ridiculous''.
One user wrote, ''If it's careless damage the tenant could be up for paying … but $1k seems excessive if it's not a large scratch.''
Another commented, ''Sounds like she's trying to use your cash to fund a new floor.'' A third added, ''She wants new timber flooring and is using you to subsidise it. Tell her no and if she threatens to take it out of your bond challenge her at your state's rental tribunal as it would probably come under reasonable wear and tear.''
In a separate post, the tenant and her partner said they would be going to the New South Wales (NSW) Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) as they couldn’t agree on the $ 1,000 payment. However, both the parties reached a settlement and the tenant agreed to pay $500 and drop their NCAT case.
They also shared pictures of the floor.
''Initially, I didn't wanna pay $500 and insisted on going for NCAT and my partner agreed but after two days he asked me if we could close the case and just pay them $500 because he doesn't wanna waste his time going for the NCAT. I was upset because I wanted to fight but he didn't and it makes sense that it wasn't worth anyone's time. We decided to close the case with the agents and paid $500.
You can have a look at the photos and let me know if the scratch worth $500 because for me it's not. Also, I found out that the premises have already been rented out again so does the owner wanna do the flooring while there are new tenants staying? Any of these doesn't make any sense. They even had the audacity to complain about the blind saying it wasn't tracking properly which wasn't even true. I hope she spends that $500 well because if I wasn't with my partner, I would've gone to court,'' the tenant wrote.
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