Frazer Fearnhead, managing director of The Video Inventory Agency (TVIA), shares his thoughts on why video evidence is the only way to protect the interests of landlords.
Frazer Fearnhead, managing director of The Video Inventory Agency (TVIA), shares his thoughts on why video evidence is the only way to protect the interests of landlords.
Landlords lose an incredible £12 million every year as a result of deposit disputes – and that’s only taking into account cases that go to formal adjudication. It’s really just the tip of the iceberg as most cases are settled before reaching the adjudicators.
For landlords and property investors alike, there’s no worse feeling than discovering that your property has been damaged in some way – whether it’s a stain on the carpet or a DIY job gone wrong, damage of any kind costs.
However, law abiding landlords often find it difficult to recover monies from security deposits to repair damage sustained to their property. In fact, according to stats published by My Deposits, landlords now have less than a one in 10 chance of winning in the event of a deposit dispute. For smaller items it is simply not viable to enter a protracted dispute whilst many often feel forced to compromise due to increasingly savvy tenants and inadequate or non-existent evidence. This means that investing in effective inventories is now more important than ever.
When tenants do refuse to pay-up, the likelihood of a case being successful with one of the deposit bodies is more often than not down to the quality of evidence provided. Since the introduction of the Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme (TDPS) in 2007, the onus has been firmly with the landlord to prove their case. What’s more, on 1 October 2010, the AST threshold increased so that landlords with tenancies up to £100,000 a year are required to pay deposits into the TDPS. As a result, there is now a wealth of high-value deposits which also need to be protected.
There is a way to ensure there is no room for debate – high definition video evidence. In today’s digital era, video evidence has justly emerged as the most trusted form of inventory on the market. Written descriptions by themselves are ambiguous and tenants do not want to read long flowery descriptions. Similarly, photographs are not ideal as they could have been taken at any time unless the tenant has signed each individual one at check-in. On the other hand, video evidence is both watertight and cost-effective.
TVIA produces fully chaptered DVDs, with audio commentary, together with a written transcript inventory that corresponds to the audio track of the DVD. This not only prevents virtually all disputes arising in the first place but sets the expectations and obligations of the tenant at the start of the contract, so they are in no doubt who will be held responsible should they damage the property in any way.
One real bonus of our service is that it stops disputes dead in their tracks. To date, TVIA evidence has terminated every attempt by a tenant to defend a claim for damages. So confident are they of their service that TVIA guarantees to provide free legal advice by their expert solicitor who specialises in landlord/tenant disputes, and will act for a landlord in any case that goes to the tenancy deposit adjudicators.
Costs for a video inventory start from £80 for a furnished two bedroom house.
For more information about video inventories visit: www.videoinventoryagency.co.uk
