Just how far can a landlord take it?

I'm referring to reinstatement of an industrial/factory unit after moving out. After a few short years the landlord (one of the big developers) were so useless as to not even reply to our request to renew the lease that we moved out. As I write this the lease still has a few weeks because we moved out very early.


Last week I arranged to handover the premises and they sent 2 property officers who refused to accept the premises as they were. We had already spent a good few days removing all decoration and the unit was far better than when we moved in. After quite a heated conversation they produced a list of requirements for reinstatement, when I say list I mean 3 pages (front and back) of utter madness.


For example:


We have the walls now an off-white colour - their letter states must be 100% white.


The drill holes from shelving we had already fiiled-in but they want each wall re-plastered (not just patched) and then 100% white.


ALL electrical work to be ripped out, even the main MCB so the next tenant starts from zero,


New toilet seat, new u-bend for the sinks, ceiling must also be 100% white, aluminum windows must be able to open freely on their complete axis...


The list goes on and on. Naturally my response so far has been to ignore it - basically they are asking us to rennovate a 20 year old factory unit into a palace so that they don't have to do any work.


Their justification of this is that the lease says "reinstate to bare shell" but they are really now taking the p*** and of course holding back the deposit. Their other threat is that if any of this is still outstanding at the end of the lease they will appoint a contractor and pay him from my deposit. No doubt their own exhobitant contractor who will burn up the deposit in no time.


The irony is it was a disaster when we moved in, floors flooded and damp, I paid to have the windows repaired. I still have the pictures of the original dump and they say that it means nothing as I took it "as is".


I think I'm going to stick it out. Anyone else suffer something similiar?

Tks. In my time here I think I have realised that arguing with them will just cause me untold stress. SMC it is then.


They called earlier to ask what the next handover day will be, I told my staff to tell them some b.s. about the contractor not having finished yet. A fax arrived 30 mins later warning that if we are late then it will count as a rollover to the next month and....must pay 1 month rent. They didn`t even say it would be pro-rata just jumped straight in with a full month.