Tenant damaged your property: deposit claim, money claim, or Ground 13 if they still live there

Damage a tenant causes beyond fair wear and tear is the tenant's to pay for. If the tenant has moved out, take the cost from the deposit, agreed with the tenant or decided by the deposit scheme's dispute service, and claim anything above the deposit in the county court, where a claim of up to £10,000 costs £35 to £455 to start. If the tenant still lives there, the deposit stays where it is until the tenancy ends. If the home has deteriorated through waste, neglect or default by the tenant or anyone living there, Ground 13 lets you serve a Section 8 notice giving two weeks, then ask the court for possession. Ask in writing for the damage to be put right first: the court orders possession only if it is reasonable to.

All three routes turn on the written record, and the document that matters most is the one made on the first day: the check-in inventory. This guide is for England. Every rule, fee and figure in it was read on the primary source (legislation.gov.uk, GOV.UK, the HMCTS fee list, the Civil Procedure Rules and the deposit schemes' own guidance) on 25 October 2026.

What counts as damage

Fair wear and tear is the decline that comes from ordinary use over time: a carpet flattened where people walk, paint faded by the sun. Damage goes beyond that, through an accident, carelessness or misuse: a burn in the same carpet, a door kicked in. Only damage can be claimed, by any of the routes below. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 names the tenant's duty to use the property in a tenant-like manner (s.11(2)(a)), and your agreement may add its own clauses on damage and cleaning, so read them before you write to the tenant. Fair wear and tear sets out where the line falls, item by item, and deposit deductions shows how a deduction is priced.

Which route fits

Landlord insurance can be a fourth source: some policies cover accidental or malicious damage by tenants, with an excess and exclusions such as wear and tear, so read your policy wording before you claim (landlord insurance explained).

Claiming the cost from the deposit

When the tenancy ends, send the tenant the deductions you propose, item by item, with the evidence. GOV.UK says the deposit must be returned within 10 days of you both agreeing the amount. If you cannot agree, the deposit stays protected until the dispute is settled (in an insured scheme, you hand it to the scheme to hold). The three schemes in England, the Deposit Protection Service (DPS), mydeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS), each offer a free dispute resolution service as an alternative to court.

• The burden is yours. The DPS tells landlords that it is for them to prove the claim, and the tenant does not have to prove anything.
• The award is what is reasonable. The adjudicator allows for fair wear and tear, the length of the tenancy and the number and age of the occupants (mydeposits' guide), and the DPS warns that many landlords claim the whole deposit when a fair amount is smaller.
• The deposit is the ceiling. TDS can award only up to the deposit registered. It advises listing every item anyway, then taking the rest to court, or taking the whole claim to court, in which case it pays the deposit out under the judgment.

Each scheme sets its own timescales, with deadlines for evidence and replies, so check yours as soon as the tenancy ends.

What the adjudicator reads

The decision is made on paper. mydeposits lists the evidence that carries weight:

• signed check-in and check-out reports, so the two can be compared
• the signed tenancy agreement
• reports of inspections during the tenancy
• invoices, receipts, estimates or quotes for the work
• photographs or video with dates on them
• letters, emails and texts about the damage
• statements from witnesses

A claim without a check-in report has nothing to set the check-out against. That is why the check-in inventory counts for more than anything gathered at the end.

A worked claim

A tenancy ends with a deposit of £1,200 in the scheme, and the check-out finds three items damaged beyond wear and tear. The point here is what is left once the deposit runs out; deposit deductions covers how each item is priced. Each is the replacement cost, times the years left, divided by its life when new, using the landlord's own lifespans, not a published table.

The scheme can award £1,200 of that at most. If it awards all of it, £1,135 is left, and a court claim for that sum costs £80 to issue, plus a £123 hearing fee if the tenant defends it. If the deposit also has to cover unpaid rent or cleaning, less of it is left for the damage.

A money claim for what the deposit does not cover

Go to court when the damage costs more than the deposit, when there was no deposit, or when it has been paid back. The claim is against the former tenant, and a guarantor too where the guarantee covers damage (enforcing a guarantee).

1. 1Write first. The Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct expects a letter setting out the claim, the facts, what you want and how the amount is worked out, with the key documents, and gives the tenant a reasonable time to reply: 14 days in a straightforward case. If the claim also includes unpaid rent, follow the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims instead. It covers a business, sole traders included, claiming a debt from an individual (para 1.1). The letter goes by post with the protocol's reply form and a financial statement, and the tenant has 30 days from the date on it to reply (paras 3.1, 3.3 and 3.4).
2. 2Claim online or on paper. Most claims can be made online through GOV.UK. Use paper Form N1 if you do not know the exact amount, if the claim is for more than one person (joint landlords, for example), if you are claiming against three or more people, or if you or the tenant have no address in England or Wales. If you do not know where they live now, see tracing a former tenant.
3. 3If the tenant defends it. A claim of £10,000 or less normally goes to the small claims track (Civil Procedure Rules 26.9(4)), and a disputed one goes first to the court's free mediation, a phone appointment of up to an hour. If that does not settle it, a judge hears it. The loser can be ordered to pay little beyond the fixed issue costs, the court fees and some expenses (CPR 27.14), so legal fees are mostly yours to carry.
4. 4Collect. A judgment is not the money. A warrant of control sends bailiffs (£96), and an attachment of earnings order takes payments from wages (£139). Money Claim Online and enforcement covers each route.

Bring the claim within six years of the breach on an ordinary written agreement (Limitation Act 1980 s.5), or twelve for an agreement made as a deed (s.8). Damages for breaking a promise to keep or leave the property in repair cannot exceed the fall in the value of your interest in it (Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 s.18). That cap applies to repairs to the premises, not to furniture. Keep the quotes and the invoices for work actually done: they are your evidence of the loss.

The court fees

The issue fee depends on the amount claimed, interest included. The hearing fee is due only if the claim is defended and listed, and not at all if you settle before it falls due. From the HMCTS fee list (EX50, updated 13 July 2026) and the Civil Proceedings Fees Order 2008 (fees 1.1 and 2.1):

From £10,000.01 to £200,000 the issue fee is 5% of the claim, and above that it is £10,000. You pay the fees as you go, and if you win, the court can order the tenant to pay them back.

Ground 13: when the tenant still lives there

While the tenancy runs, the deposit stays in the scheme. Record the damage first: you can enter to view the condition of the home at reasonable times of the day, after giving the occupier 24 hours' notice in writing (Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 s.11(6); see landlord access). Photograph what you find, set it against the check-in inventory, and ask the tenant in writing to put it right by a date. If it is not put right, Ground 13 is the ground for possession. It does not need the damage to be repeated or getting worse, only that the condition has deteriorated through waste, neglect or default by the tenant or anyone living there. In the words of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988:

The condition of the dwelling-house or any of the common parts has deteriorated owing to acts of waste by, or the neglect or default of, the tenant or any other person residing in the dwelling-house and, in the case of an act of waste by, or the neglect or default of, a person lodging with the tenant or a sub-tenant of his, the tenant has not taken such steps as he ought reasonably to have taken for the removal of the lodger or sub-tenant.

It covers the home and any common parts the tenant shares, and damage by anyone living there. Where a lodger or subtenant did it, the tenant must also have failed to take reasonable steps to have them removed. Damaged furniture you provided is Ground 15, and a broken term of the agreement is Ground 12. All three are discretionary.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 did not change Ground 13's words. From 1 May 2026 the Act replaced the notice periods in section 8 with one table, which keeps Ground 13 at two weeks, and ended Section 21, so getting the property back from a tenant who will not leave now means proving a ground in Schedule 2.

The notice

Serve a Section 8 notice on Form 3A (or a form substantially to the like effect) with Ground 13 written out in full and its particulars: what was damaged, when you found it and what you asked the tenant to do (Housing Act 1988 s.8(2)). The date in the notice must not be before the end of "two weeks beginning with the date of service of the notice" (s.8(4AA)). Name a ground with a longer period as well, such as Ground 8 for rent arrears, and the longest applies: four weeks. The claim must start no later than 12 months after service (s.8(3)). Serving a Section 8 notice on Form 3A walks through the form.

The claim and the hearing

Possession Claim Online takes claims on rent arrears alone (Practice Direction 55B, para 5.1), so a Ground 13 claim goes on paper, on Forms N5 and N119. The fee is £415. The cost of the damage can go in the same claim, and that adds no second fee (Civil Proceedings Fees Order 2008, the note to fees 1.1, 1.4 and 1.5).

Collecting that money is a separate step. GOV.UK warns that county court bailiffs cannot recover money for damage when they carry out the eviction. A money judgment in the possession claim is enforced like any other, by a warrant of control or an attachment of earnings order. If you did not claim the money there, bring a separate money claim.

If you took a deposit, the court can make an order only if the deposit is held in an authorised scheme, with the scheme's requirements met and the prescribed information given (Housing Act 2004 s.215). That bar falls away once the deposit has been returned in full or with deductions you both agreed, or once the tenant's court claim over it has been decided, withdrawn or settled (s.215(5)). Only Grounds 7A and 14 are exempt from it.

GOV.UK names pictures showing damage to the property as evidence to bring. The judge makes an order only if it is reasonable to (Housing Act 1988 s.7(4)), and can suspend it or postpone the date on conditions (s.9), such as putting the damage right. Possession orders follows the case from the order to the warrant. If your own repairs are outstanding, expect a disrepair counterclaim.

What you still have to repair

Damage the tenant caused does not switch off your own duties. Your repairing covenant (Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 s.11) covers the structure and exterior, the water, gas, electricity and sanitation installations, and the heating and hot water, but not work the tenant is liable for under the duty to use the property in a tenant-like manner (s.11(2)(a)). The duty to keep the home fit to live in has the same exception, and no liability where the unfitness is wholly or mainly due to the tenant's own breach (s.9A(2) and (3)).

The safety rules have no such exception:

• Gas. Gas appliances and pipework, and their flues, must be kept in a safe condition (Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, reg 36(2)), except an appliance the tenant is entitled to take away.
• Electrics. The electrical safety standards must be met throughout the tenancy (Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, reg 3(1)(a)).
• Alarms. A smoke or carbon monoxide alarm the tenant reports as faulty must be repaired or replaced as soon as reasonably practicable (Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015, reg 4(1)(c) and (3A)).

So make it safe first, keep the invoice and the photographs, and add the cost to the claim, from the deposit at the end or in court. Section 11 explained covers the rest of the repairing duty.

Keeping the record that decides it

Every route comes down to one comparison: the home at check-in against the home now. In LetCompliance the check-in inventory is recorded room by room, with photos for each item and the tenant's sign-off, and the check-out is recorded against it. The comparison shows what changed and prices each item as the replacement cost, times the share of its life left, times the tenant's share of the damage; you enter the lifespans, and fair wear and tear is never claimable. That comes with every paid plan, from £7.99 a month, and in the trial. The deposit dispute pack, on every paid plan but not the trial, puts the deposit and its protection, a timeline of what was recorded, the costed items and both inventories with their photos into one PDF for the DPS, mydeposits or TDS.

On every plan, the deposits register holds each deposit's scheme, protection date and prescribed information, tenants report repairs with photos, the maintenance log keeps each job's cost and photos, and mid-tenancy inspections are saved as a dated report with photos, which is where a Ground 13 claim starts. On every paid plan (not the trial), the Section 8 notice builder fills in Form 3A with Ground 13 in the statute's words, and the possession evidence bundle puts the notice, the agreement, the deposit records, the inspections and the repairs into one zip.

Record the check-in with photos