Why this landed on landlords
Furnished and part-furnished lets turn over sofas and armchairs constantly, and tenants leave seating behind more often than any other item. That puts landlords and agents in contact with this rule far more than an average household.
Upholstered seating made before 2019 contains long-lasting fire-retardant chemicals. In Scotland it is banned from landfill and must be destroyed by high-temperature burning rather than buried or shredded for parts.
The responsibility follows the waste from whoever produced it. When a tenant leaves a sofa behind, it becomes the landlord's waste — not the tenant's, and not the letting agent's unless they take it on.
What counts in a typical flat
In a furnished let the list is longer than people expect. It is not just the three-piece suite — padded dining chairs, a desk chair in the box room, a futon in the spare room and any loose cushions all count.
Mattresses are the common misunderstanding. They are genuinely outside these rules and follow their own route, so a mattress and a sofa from the same flat are two different jobs.
Wooden dining chairs with no padding, and deckchairs, are outside it too. If there is no fabric and foam, it is ordinary bulky waste.
- Sofas and sofa beds
- Armchairs and recliners
- Padded dining and kitchen chairs
- Desk and office chairs
- Bean bags, futons and floor cushions
- NOT mattresses, beds or curtains
Void to turn round this week?
Seating kept separate, the rest cleared the same visit, and one set of paperwork for the file.
Where the risk actually sits
The rule that matters commercially is the mixing one. If old seating goes into a general clearance load, the whole load becomes contaminated waste rather than just the sofa. A firm clearing your void cheaply by throwing everything in together has created a problem with your name on the paperwork.
As the waste producer you carry the duty of care (your legal responsibility for waste you produce), and failing it can carry a penalty of up to £5,000. Liability can follow the waste back to you even where somebody else handled it badly — the detail is in our licensed waste carrier guide.
So the question to ask any clearance company is a short one: do you keep upholstered seating separate from the rest of the load? If the answer is vague, that is your answer.
Charging it to the deposit
Belongings left behind are not fair wear and tear, and removal costs are a legitimate deduction from a tenancy deposit — provided you can evidence them. That has not changed.
What has changed is the cost of the sofa element, because it can no longer go in with everything else. If you are claiming for it, keep the photographs of what was left, the invoice, and the waste paperwork.
Our collections come with a duty of care transfer note, and upholstered seating goes out under the code used for this waste, 20 03 07. That paperwork doubles neatly as evidence for a deposit claim — the wider rules are in our guide to fair wear and tear.
Making it a non-event
Record the furniture in the check-in inventory with photographs, so there is no argument later about what was there and what condition it was in.
When a void needs clearing, say up front that there is upholstered seating in it. It changes how the job is loaded, and a firm that knows in advance can plan for it rather than discovering it in the close.
We clear voids across Scotland, usually next day, with the seating kept separate and everything else taken in the same visit — see landlord clearance and flat and tenement clearance.
