Fair Wear and Tear, Betterment and Apportionment: The Sums Adjudicators Actually Do

Three terms come up in almost every contested deposit claim, and they are routinely confused. Getting them straight is the difference between a claim that holds up at adjudication and one that gets reduced to a fraction of what was asked for.

Three terms, three meanings

Fair wear and tear is the gradual deterioration that happens simply through a tenant living normally in a property — it is never a deductible item, however unattractive it looks by the end of a tenancy. Betterment is the principle that a landlord cannot end up better off than before the tenancy started — charging a tenant the full cost of a brand-new carpet to replace one that was already five years old would leave the landlord with a newer asset than they started with, at the tenant’s expense. Apportionment is the adjudicator’s tool for reconciling the two: splitting a repair or replacement cost according to how much useful life the item had left.

The sum, worked through

Propertymark’s own worked example shows how this plays out in practice for a worn carpet:

Cost to replace the carpet	£500
Age of carpet at end of tenancy	2 years
Expected lifespan	10 years
Annual depreciation (£500 ÷ 10)	£50
Value already consumed (2 × £50)	£100
Amount apportioned to tenant	£400

A real TDS case from July illustrates the same principle: a £420 redecoration claim after a two-year tenancy was reduced substantially once apportionment was applied, because paint and decoration have a limited useful life regardless of how carefully a tenant treats a room.

What adjudicators actually weigh

When deciding how to apportion a claim, adjudicators typically look at six factors:

• The age of the item at the start of the tenancy
• Its quality and condition at check-in
• Its expected lifespan for that type of item
• Whether the damage reflects reasonable usage or genuine neglect
• The number and type of occupants (a family home wears differently to a single-occupant flat)
• The length of the tenancy itself

What this means for your inventory

None of this apportionment maths is possible without a starting point, which is exactly what a good check-in inventory provides. To put a claim on solid ground:

• Record the age of carpets, decoration and furnishings at check-in, not just their condition
• Record quality as well as condition — a budget carpet and a premium one depreciate differently
• Keep receipts and invoices for anything replaced or redecorated, so a real depreciation schedule can be applied
• Photograph the starting condition of anything that wears with normal use — carpets, paintwork, worktops — so later comparison is possible

With tenancies now open-ended under the Renters’ Rights Act since 1 May 2026, this record-keeping only gets more important: the longer a tenancy runs, the more apportionment maths comes into play, and the more a thin check-in report costs a landlord at the end.