The calculation is pretty simple: office chair casters + parquet flooring = trouble with the landlord. Anyone who has ever had to explain a scratch or two in a high-quality wooden floor during a handover knows that awful feeling: that brief moment when the desk chair rolled off the mat and left a deep scratch can have lasting consequences. First, you have to look at it yourself for the rest of the tenancy as a potentially serious reminder. And second, it will leave at least as deep an impression on your wallet… Really? An expert offers partial reassurance: it is not automatically the tenant who is liable for this kind of damage.
- Who is liable if an office chair leaves grooves in the floor?
- Tenancy law: what is meant by “use as intended”?
- Change of scene: different rules apply to commercial premises
- Important: the right casters for the relevant floor
Who is liable if an office chair leaves grooves in the floor?
Acting as a go-between between landlord and tenant during rental property handovers is part of the daily routine for a property manager. “Floor wear is an issue at every flat handover,” confirms Silvia Wiedenmann. The team leader in the “Property Management” department at “Anders Wohnen – Immobilien & Hausverwaltung” in Weilheim regularly handles flat inspections. “It is not always specifically about signs of wear caused by office chairs, but more generally by furniture.” However, she can confirm that the combination of real wood parquet and an office chair is not exactly a harmonious one. It does not take a particularly trained eye to spot at first glance in an empty flat where the desk and the chair that went with it used to stand. “The marks left by office chair casters are immediately visible not only on parquet floors, but also on laminate, vinyl flooring and even carpet.”
You do not need any special knowledge of physics to identify the cause of the problem: On an average office chair, five twin castors sit at the ends of a star base and transfer the weight of the chair and the person sitting on it to the floor. Even though most hard plastic castors are coated with soft rubber to prevent damage to floors from the outset, the laws of nature take effect elsewhere. Since the chair and its occupant can easily weigh between 50 and 150 kilograms, two relatively thin plastic discs remain a very poor basis for adequate weight distribution despite all precautions. In short: the softer the surface and the heavier the weight, the deeper the chair sinks in. Wood parquet flooring is particularly susceptible, closely followed by laminate and carpeted floors. The consequence of this admittedly impractical law of nature: if, for example, you push yourself backwards to roll the short distance from the desk to the wall shelf while seated, a wooden floor will soon look like a miniature railway track landscape. The crux of the matter: the damage is irreversible, because compressed wood fibres cannot simply spring back and the parquet has to be sanded down to the level of the deepest groove, resulting in a considerable loss of material.
Tenancy law: What is meant by “normal wear and tear”
Case law decides who has to pay for the damage on a case-by-case basis. There is no clear-cut answer to this question. According to Silvia Wiedenmann, the magic phrase is “normal wear and tear”. To explain this, the real estate specialist gives a practical example: “If there is a desk in a flat, say against one wall in the living room, where someone sits from time to time, then after ten years of tenancy the floor will naturally show a few signs of wear.” The passage of time would also become visible elsewhere, for example in the entrance area: “There, it cannot be avoided that from time to time a small stone gets dragged across the parquet and leaves a scratch.” In the kitchen too, a pot or a glass may occasionally fall and leave dents in the floor. Marks can also result from furniture that has stood in one place for a long time or has been moved around a few times. “With such normal signs of wear, no landlord would seriously think of making the tenant pay for the parquet.”
The situation is different if someone sets up a home office and spends ten years rolling around every day for eight hours on an office chair in front of their desk. “That leads to scratches in the parquet that have nothing to do with normal wear and tear,” says Silvia Wiedenmann. In reality, the truth lies somewhere between these two extreme examples: “Unfortunately, flooring is what causes the most disputes. Landlords generally accuse their tenants of having damaged their property – tenants refer to ‘normal wear and tear’.” Ideally, the truth should be found through a settlement – a popular compromise is for part of the deposit to be withheld and used by the landlord to help cover some of the renovation costs. “Although, generally speaking, it must be said that even the most beautiful parquet has a ‘lifespan’ of ten or at most 20 years.” After such a long period, the landlord usually has to have the parquet sanded down – and during that time they have also received regular rental income for many years. Fortunately, the property manager says that in the vast majority of disputed cases, the two sides meet halfway. “Very few cases end up in court,” she says.
Change of scene: Different rules apply to commercial premises
Commercial letting is a completely different matter. According to the expert, an entirely different body of case law applies here. “First of all, I should say that commercial premises – whether a shop or an office – are only very rarely fitted with real wood parquet.” Most landlords opt for easy-care laminate or plastic flooring from the outset. The “lifespan” of such floors is assumed to be a maximum of ten years, so after a few years of tenancy the material may be handed back in a worn condition. “If, as a landlord, I want to lay wood parquet in my commercial premises, then I have to clearly assume that it will be subjected to much heavier use than in a private flat, for example due to customer footfall.” In her experience, the law very clearly strengthens tenants’ rights in this area.
The expert also has a practical tip for landlords: “Anyone who wants the most robust floor possible that they won’t have to worry about for a long time should opt for vinyl flooring.” She says this trend has become visible in recent years. “The material is extremely hard-wearing and has a lifespan we have not yet seen the end of.” In addition, it is available in many different designs: tile look, wood look or in various plain colours.
Of course, care can also be taken on the other side to avoid stress when the property is handed back. Not all office chairs available from specialist retailers have castors. Especially in the “Living office chairs” segment, which is aimed primarily at people working from a “home office” and takes its “style” cues from living room furniture, there are also office chairs, armchairs and work stools with fixed legs. For anyone who considers an ergonomically adjustable, swivel desk chair with castors important, Sebastian from “hjh OFFICE” has a few tips to share.
Important: the right castors for each floor type
The best way to avoid trouble with your landlord is still to prevent any damage in the first place. Specialist retailers are well aware of the issue and therefore offer various solutions. “Almost all office chairs come from the factory with hard plastic castors so they roll well on carpet,” explains Sebastian Schmurlack. So if you want to place your office chair on parquet or laminate flooring, you should also order the right replacement castors for hard floors . “The castors can be changed easily on almost all swivel chairs. You just need to check carefully beforehand which castors are supplied, because two pin sizes have become standard: 10 and 11 millimetres.” The small difference makes it almost impossible to tell with the naked eye which fitting is installed in the office chair in question. “It’s worth measuring carefully,” says Sebastian. A set of castors costs between 15 and 25 euros. “That not only gives you peace of mind, but also added value: the chair glides much more smoothly on parquet, laminate or tiled floors.”
However, the expert is keen to point out that complete protection can never be guaranteed: “Where mechanical forces are at work, something can always happen.” He therefore also recommends placing a proper mat under the chair. Here, the differences in quality are huge: “I would strongly advise choosing a polycarbonate mat and keeping your hands off PVC products.” The reason: polycarbonate is, firstly, a much harder material than PVC and, because of its greater weight, lies flatter on the floor: “That means less dust can get underneath, which, when you roll the office chair around on the mat, acts like sandpaper on the floor underneath,” says Sebastian. Whatever type of plastic is under your workstation: “Lifting it up regularly and cleaning underneath won’t do any harm.”