Mold / Tenancy Agreement / Repair Work / Deposit

[Tina1]

I'll move out of my flat in a few days and just discovered that in the storage room there is mold in the upper corner of the wall. I am not sure where it came from, my suspicion is that it is due to the water leakage in the public area in front of my flat that happened a few months ago (water kept dropping from the ceiling for a few days).
I spoke to the management office and they said they will check whether they had complaints from other apartments as well. I doubt that this will be the case as all the other flat are further away from the place where the leakage happened. So I don't think that the management office will feel responsible and want to pay the costs.

This leads me to the question of whether the landlord can charge me for the repair work. And if yes, then how much he can charge me for it (does the limit of SGD 150 repair cost per item apply in this case). As I already read some horror stories about landlords not wanting to pay back the deposit and doing expensive renovation work that the tenant has to pay, I am wondering what's the right step to take.

[JR8]

I'll move out of my flat in a few days and just discovered that in the storage room there is mold in the upper corner of the wall. I am not sure where it came from, my suspicion is that it is due to the water leakage in the public area in front of my flat that happened a few months ago (water kept dropping from the ceiling for a few days).
I spoke to the management office and they said they will check whether they had complaints from other apartments as well. I doubt that this will be the case as all the other flat are further away from the place where the leakage happened. So I don't think that the management office will feel responsible and want to pay the costs.

This leads me to the question of whether the landlord can charge me for the repair work. And if yes, then how much he can charge me for it (does the limit of SGD 150 repair cost per item apply in this case). As I already read some horror stories about landlords not wanting to pay back the deposit and doing expensive renovation work that the tenant has to pay, I am wondering what's the right step to take.

Water ingress (a leak) into your unit cannot be your liability. In general terms (under UK law, upon which much of SG law is based) the exterior walls/floors.ceilings are considered 'common parts' and as such are the responsibility of the management office to remedy. The landlord would then be liable to repair/remedy any damage to internal surfaces.

Something like happened to us just this April when we moved out. We had had problems with mold in the master-bedroom, on clothes, furniture etc. It started growing on the walls and damp patches appeared and began to grow very rapidly. The management office diagnosed it as a leak from an air-con unit in the unit above. That unit owner was then made to appoint a contractor to carry out repairs in his unit. Redecoration in our unit was down to our landlord. We got 100% of our deposit back...

You need to check your tenancy agreement and see how it is worded. The management office should also be able to guide you on where liabilities lie. Good luck.

[QRM]

The landlord may pull you on the fact that you noticed it a few months ago and did nothing about it, which in turn made the damage even worse.

If you have some sort of record you informed the management and they sat on it for a month then you should be in the clear.

[Strong Eagle]

Put some bleach on it... goes away... presto... next person's problem.

[Tina1]

In fact, I just noticed it when I started packing as before I had a few shoe boxes stored way up which blocked the view on part of the ceiling. I spoke to the management today and they want to check their records as to whether there were other complaints in the building and what happened exactly during the time of the leakage in the public area. They also want to send their repair service to check the mold in my flat.

Now let's assume their repair service claims that the mold is not due to leakage of a water pipe right above, what happens then? Obviously, the management office will not pay the repair work then. Can the landlord insist that I pay it? There's no air con in the storage room, so it can't be leakage from the air con. I also think it's quite unlikely that mold shows up just like this, especially as I also had small dehumidifiers in the room.

[Strong Eagle]

Put some bleach on it... goes away... presto... next person's problem.