You don’t have to live in Singapore for very long before you hear about the nightmare that handing over a leased property can be. Although leases typically include a ‘fair wear and tear’ clause they also include a clause that states you will return the property in the same condition in which you took possession of it. So, if it was freshly painted or the floors were re-varnished then the landlord may expect these to still be in pristine condition when you move out.
Unlike in many countries there is no independent board or body that holds the deposit/bond that tenants pay to a landlord. Instead, the deposit/bond is paid to the landlord and what they do with it is up to them. And whether they return your deposit/bond in its entirety or deduct amounts for maintenance is up to the landlord.
In preparation for leaving our old place our agent advised us that we needed to remove all picture hooks and to patch and paint the holes, attend to any outstanding maintenance issues (tenants are responsible for the first $150 non-structural issues), replace all blown light bulbs, repair floor scratches and so on and so on and so on. We did some of these but the house had dodgy wiring with water leaking through cement walls so we refused to do anything electrical (or pay for an electrician).
Last week was a particularly stressful week, as moving week always is, and the thought of Handover at the end of it made me feel physically ill. I knew we hadn’t done nearly enough and were well aware of all the friends who had been left out-of-pocket for scratched floors, blown light bulbs and all manner of other things but neither of us had the energy to care a great deal. This was compounded by the landlord taking THREE WEEKS to confirm a time for the joint inspection.
Anyway, we forked out a bundle of cash to have the place professionally cleaned. We also arranged for the curtains to be dry-cleaned, which is also standard practice in Singapore. Let’s just say that rubber packed curtains when folded with the rubber sides together and stored in plastic bags for days after being cleaned do not look so great when they have been yanked apart.
Discovering this 2 minutes before Handover possibly made me cry.
Backtracking almost 5 years but the big sticking point in the original lease was that the Landlord wanted our liability at the end of the lease to be open-ended. Any time they found issues after we left we would have to pay to rectify them. The Other Half’s company fought this tooth-and-nail and eventually Clause 32 stated that once the form was signed at the end of the joint inspection our liability ended.
The landlord’s representative finally turned up for the joint inspection 25 minutes late (by which time I was ready to vomit in the just-cleaned toilet with nerves). He asked to see the structural issues, got the Other Half to sign the magical ‘our liability ends here’ form, and we were done.
That easy.
All of a sudden I was totally grateful for that horrible protracted leasing saga and the lackadaisical property management company.
Our Big Expat Adventure 