For the sake of argument, what if both the letting agent and the landlord changed, and the tenant and new landlord/letting agent hadn't signed a new contract?

Do the defendants have any cash/assets? If they're doley types with nothing to their name then there is no point taking it any further as even if you win a judgment you won't see any cash.

Seeming they didn't sign the new contract, is there any implicit or explicit event that terminated the original contract prior to their moving out?

Do you have anything that says or any reason to believe the original contract was not in force throughout, then?

I would argue the 'new' contract never came into force and nothing you have suggests the original contract was terminated before they left.

Not correct, an AST is between OP/LL and the tenant, so legal advice given to OP is correct.

A claim for damages by a LL against a tenant, will require the LL to produce both a well detailed ingoing and outgoing inventory, with both inventories being signed by the tenant. Any damage and redecorations needs to be supported by independent and impartial evidence to the same, either through a report or/and an estimate for either repairs/replacement or redecorations etc.

Further evidence might be an admission or an attempt by the tenant to carry out repairs etc. Items, effects damaged etc., can the LL offer proof of age, value of those items, particularly important in the case of irreplaceable damage to carpets, cooker, fridges etc.

The court will also look for if the LL has accorded the tenant an opportunity to offer a settlement, the LL will also have to show that the claim against the tenant is reasonable, and will leave the LL in no better position than the LL was at the start of the tenancy.

An update for those who may be interested

Had our "day in court" yesterday. Originally scheduled for 3 hours, ended up at just over 5 and I don't think the judge was too happy about that.

Anyhow, after an initial procedural error on my part through not discussing the trial pack with the defendants (oops!) and the defendants opting to carry on once they had had an hour to look through everything that I had prepared, we got down to the nitty gritty, with the Judge effectively acting for the defendants in terms of going through the damage schedule in fine detail for almost 3 hours. There was a lot of cross-referencing to the signed contract, the damage report (over 400 photos) and the original inventory, which I had done my best to prepare, but I still got caught out on a few items: some pictures missing, no invoices for work done, using my own hourly rate for work that I had carried out, that sort of thing. I really wasn't sure how this was going to end up, but decided that we'd come this far, so whichever way it went, we'd done the best we could. We had a lunch break after 2 1/2 hours, and the defendants were given a further opportunity to go through the pack and were very clearly asked by the judge to agree to certain items, so that we could move on in the afternoon.

After lunch, the defendants were asked if they agreed to anything and they said no, they disputed the whole lot. That didn't go down well with the Judge at all! Back on the stand I went, and trawled through the remaining items, then the defendants had an opportunity to question me, and they had nothing of any substance to come at me with. Then my witness, who basically corroborated the facts, then it was their turn on the stand, and they really had nothing extra to add. During my questions to them, it did get a bit heated and we were told a couple of times to calm down: not easy when you've had someone trying to fk you over and they are there on the stand, blatantly lying. The closing statement by the defendants was, frankly, pitiful: claiming that this had "come out of the blue" and that we had been "harassing" them, but didn't address the core of the claim. In fact one of the parties declined to have any input at all; again I don't think the Judge was best pleased by that.

Then it was time for the the Judge to deliberate and he said he'd be about ten mins - my heart sank! As the time dragged on (have you seen how slowly a clock's hands can move!) I was getting more and more nervous, then just before 5pm he came back in. Within the first minute I knew we'd one, as he said that he was there to consider the contract between us: game over! He went through the schedule, item by item, giving a value for each and reasons for any differences between my claim and his award - a lot of this was a massive reduction in my rate of £10/hour down to what I think was about £5, if that, because of "allowing for tax and national insurance".

The total at the end was approx 2/3 of what I'd claimed, and then he asked about costs, which added a further £1k to the total.

So all in all, a nice result. I'm just glad that justice was done, and, provided they stick to the payment plan that has been agreed, this should all be over, but I am prepared to go down the bailiff route the first time they miss a payment. We shall see. Have to say that I was a bit miffed at the hourly rate he used, as I normally charge out at around £30!! Ah well.

One thing we did get nailed on, that I am NOT happy about is that the original contract, as prepared and provided by a letting agent, didn't have a clause requiring the tenants to clean the property before moving out - not a thing. The only reference was if they had had pet in the property then they had to clean curtains and fabrics. They (the agents) will be getting a strongly worded email about that, I can tell you. Make sure you check your contracts before the tenants sign them if you're using an agent - they aren't all that great!

Good stuff - nice to see due process giving a fair result.

Thanks for the update mate! Brilliant result for you. Good to see the 'bad' people getting their just deserves as well!

Out of curiosity, why do you say that the judgement supports independent inventories? And do you mean independent of the landlord (done by the letting agent), or independent of both and done by a third party?


Oli.