Landlord's Agent says Lightbulb wrong shade of white

[CoconutTrees]

Sorry to bring up another rental property check-out issue, but I am wondering other people's views on whether this is an excessive request or whether it's just me? It's more of an academic question as I will address it prior to check-out - just wondering if it is normal and reasonable - and whether other people have faced similar issues in the past?

We are coming up to our handover period after a few years of renting here - the letting agent did an unannounced/underhand inspection recently under the guise of a viewing by a prospective tenant. They said that the white lights are not all the same shade as when we moved in... this is true - some of them stopped working so I replaced them, although evidently with a different shade of white (soft white instead of cool white)...I am going to find new tubes with a matching shade so it will be dealt with prior to handover, but I can't help feel the request is taking the p.

For what it is worth, the TA inventory only mentions the colour of the lights being 'white', albeit a photo taken does indicate they were all 'cool white'.

[abbby]

I just feel the agent has to be honest if it's a viewing or pre handover inspection he/she is doing. Agent's just being very anal about the colour of the bulbs? Unless you are doing it in an alternate color, i don't see any reason for him/her to cause a ruckus over it.

[CoconutTrees]

Thanks Abbby,
I agree about the need for honesty. I do feel it to be an underhand approach - we would have been open to an pre-handover inspection if they asked for one, but they decided to take a covert approach.

Underhand is their form - they've been using their air conditioning contractor to report on us too and making up terms and conditions that are not in the TA.

Have spent most of my afternoon cycling around the streets trying to find a store that stocks the lightbulbs today - it seems this shade (Cool White) is actually quite hard to find - most stores didn't have this shade. Eventually found some at 7pm...only to discover when I got home the staff gave me one "Cool White" and one "Cool Daylight" . I should have checked more closely...heading back to the store tomorrow.

It was not just the lights the agents complained about - they also said the kitchen worktop needed polishing - in practice the issue is that it had not been cleaned so a lot marks show up (most or all of the marks were there when we moved in but not obvious) but given that we are in packing-mode we haven't cleaned the kitchen yet (cleaning-mode starts once we have moved out our furniture in a few days).

[abbby]

They sound quite silly by insisting on cool white for the house, cool white/cool daylight are pretty much the same except for the whiteness and the other probably less white/bright. You can try Balestier they have many shops selling bulbs.

Polishing the kitchen countertop sounds pretty unreasonable, if there aren't deep knife scratches, it should just be considered as minor wear and tear. I hope you have your own agent to back you up on these issues.

[CoconutTrees]

I have lightbulbs now - so should be ok. Best place to get them are hardware stores - can get for $3-$4 each, whereas the lighting shops want $$$ (one quoted me $20 for one bulb!)

The counter top does have knife scratches but they were there when we moved in. I believe the kitchen is around 10 years old now and we only used a chopping board; I think it's just that the surface/knife marks have got grubby so they are more noticable. We will be applying our own elbow grease to clean it up but unfortunately I can't find a photo coborrating the original state on check-in.

Not using our own agents - our past experience has been that they aren't very helpful.

[malcontent]

Seems racist if you ask me

IMO, the only reason the landlords fuss about anything is just to try to keep some of your deposit.

[abbby]

Yeah I think just some excuses to try to cut from deposit.

[CoconutTrees]

Thank you all. I have now lived through the hand-over inspection and having replaced the lightbulbs to a matching shade (annoyingly replacing one lead to another one going faulty so it took a while)...we passed this aspect of the unit.

They were even more anal though - they spent around 3 hours on the inspection part (they were there in total around 4-hours but that's a longer story) for a 2-bedroom unit about 800 sq ft and even brought up issues with things they said were "end-of-life"...and thus our responsibility ...they seemed very dismissive of the meaning of 'wear and tear'...managed to capture an audio recording of this disagreement too.

Declined to sign their paperwork that introduced various new clauses (like a 14-day post-inspection failures clause). Have agreed to replace two small items to give the agent some face and let us get through the ordeal but trying to find one of the items is proving difficult.

Overall glad to be out of there. I think I'll write up some tips on check-out inspections in due course.

[abbby]

That's really shitty for a 800 sqft unit and a 4 hr inspection, I can imagine how terrifying that was!

Good that its over, and good thing you didn't sign on their paperwork, just sounds shady with more conditions upon handover.

[malcontent]

Wow, that is a full 18 seconds per square foot… they must have used a magnifying glass!! Just counting out 18 seconds… I think one could easily cover an entire whole room in that amount of time.

This is the game they like to play, hoping to squeeze a little extra out of you. Maybe need to start adding a clause that limits inspection time to no more than __ minutes. Sheesh!