What is fair wear and tear vs damage in a NSW rental?

Fair wear and tear is what happens to a property through normal, everyday use — you are not responsible for it. Damage from carelessness, misuse, or neglect is a different thing, and your landlord can pursue you for it.

This distinction matters enormously at the end of a tenancy. It is what separates a landlord making a legitimate bond deduction from one making an unfair claim. Getting it wrong — in either direction — costs real money.

What the law actually says

Under section 51 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010, when your tenancy ends — that means when you move out — you must return the property in nearly the same condition as when you moved in. The law carves out an explicit exception: fair wear and tear does not count against you.

Under section 166 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010, a landlord can claim from your bond for the reasonable cost of repairs made necessary by damage you (or someone you let in) caused. Again, fair wear and tear is explicitly excluded from what can be claimed.

So both provisions tell you the same thing: fair wear and tear is not your problem. Damage is.

Here is the catch. The RTA does not define where fair wear and tear ends and damage begins. There is no checklist in the legislation. The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal — known as NCAT — draws that line case by case, applying established principles each time.

How the line is drawn

NCAT looks at several factors when deciding whether something is wear and tear or damage.

Age and expected life of the item. A carpet installed the year before your tenancy started is not in the same position as one installed fifteen years ago. The older and more worn something already was, the less a landlord can fairly expect from it.

Length of the tenancy. A five-year tenancy will leave more marks on a property than a six-month one. NCAT takes this into account. Longer tenancies naturally produce more wear.

Whether the item was used reasonably. A door handle gets touched hundreds of times a day. Showing wear on a door handle is normal. A door handle that has been pulled off its fittings is a different story.

Depreciation. NCAT applies depreciation when assessing damage claims. That means even if genuine damage exists, you are not necessarily charged at brand-new replacement cost. If the carpet was already old and near the end of its useful life, a landlord cannot claim the full cost of brand-new carpet from you. They can only claim what the remaining value of the damaged item was actually worth.

This depreciation principle is important. It protects tenants from effectively funding upgrades for landlords.

Fair wear and tear — real examples

These are things NCAT would typically treat as fair wear and tear:

• Scuff marks on walls along hallways or near light switches, from normal movement through the home
• Carpet worn thin in high-traffic paths — doorways, in front of the sofa, along corridors
• Sun-faded curtains after a long tenancy in a sunny room
• Minor knife nicks on a kitchen bench from normal food preparation
• A dripping tap caused by a washer wearing out through ordinary use
• Paint fading or becoming dull over time through normal light exposure
• A small number of nail holes from hanging pictures — though this is one of the most common flashpoints in bond disputes, so photograph any existing holes in your ingoing condition report
• Garden ageing naturally — plants that grow, grass that thins in shade over years

The common thread: all of these happen to every rental property with ordinary use. No individual tenant caused them. Time and normal life caused them.

Damage — real examples

These are things NCAT would typically treat as tenant-caused damage:

• Large holes in walls from shelves attached without care, or from impact
• Carpet burns or stubborn stains that cannot be cleaned — pet urine, wine, cigarette burns
• A broken window from something thrown or from a door slammed hard
• A door frame chewed or scratched by a pet left unsupervised
• Walls painted in a different colour without the landlord’s permission
• A garden left completely overgrown and unusable through neglect over the tenancy
• Broken tiles from impact rather than age
• Deliberate graffiti or markings on surfaces

If you would like to understand exactly which of these a landlord can legally pursue you for, the article on what a landlord can deduct from your bond in NSW covers that in detail.

The grey area — where age matters most

Many disputes fall somewhere in the middle. An item shows signs of both age and tenant use. This is where the depreciation principle becomes critical.

Take a carpet that was already several years old when you moved in. You spill something on it. A stain forms. Is the landlord entitled to the full cost of replacing the entire carpet? Almost certainly not. NCAT would look at the carpet’s age, how much useful life it had left, and calculate a proportionate amount. An older carpet damaged might lead to a small claim — or no claim at all if it was already near the end of its life.

The same logic applies to bench tops, curtains, tiles, appliances, and paint. Age does not excuse damage, but it does reduce the dollar value of a legitimate claim.

This is also where disputes become most common. A landlord may describe something as damage. You may genuinely believe it falls within ordinary wear. NCAT is the place that resolves that disagreement. In practice, when a landlord wants to claim money from your bond, the burden is on them to convince NCAT that the issue is damage rather than fair wear and tear, and that the amount claimed is reasonable. If you are facing a bond dispute along those lines, the article on how to dispute a bond claim in NSW walks through the process.

What to do at end of tenancy

There are practical steps that protect you at vacate — when you move out.

Claim your bond first. Once you have returned the keys and moved out, you can lodge a claim for a full refund of your bond yourself through NSW Fair Trading’s Rental Bonds Online. Doing this first puts the onus on the landlord to actively dispute your claim within 14 days — a much stronger position than waiting to see what they claim.

Use the condition report. The ingoing condition report documents the property’s state at the start. At the end, the same report is the key reference document. If something was already marked as worn or damaged when you moved in, that is your defence.

Take photos throughout the tenancy. Not just at the start. If something breaks down, photograph it before and after any attempt to fix it. Date-stamped photos carry significant weight at NCAT.

Do reasonable cleaning. The s51 obligation covers cleanliness as well as condition. A properly cleaned property is harder to make unjustified claims against.

Be cautious about DIY repairs. Attempting to fix something yourself — repainting a wall, re-laying a tile — without discussion can sometimes make things worse. If you have caused damage, raising it with your landlord before vacate is often better than a discovered patch job.

For a full walkthrough of what happens to your bond at the end of the tenancy, see how to get your rental bond back in NSW.

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The most useful thing to carry out of this article: fair wear and tear is the landlord’s cost of doing business, built into every tenancy by law. Normal use of a normal home produces it. Damage is different — it comes from carelessness, misuse, or neglect, and the older the item involved, the lower the legitimate claim against you.