Decorating A Rental: What Are You Actually Allowed?
Magnolia everywhere, a carpet chosen by someone who has never met you, and a tenancy that might run for years. Wanting to change something is entirely reasonable.
The rules are less restrictive than most people assume, and the risk isn't really about permission. It's about what comes off your deposit at the end.
The short version
- You need permission for anything permanent. Painting, wallpaper, drilling, flooring, anything that changes the property.
- You don't need permission for anything you can take with you. Furniture, rugs, lamps, freestanding shelving, plants.
- Get the yes in writing, including whether you have to put it back.
- Décor has a life of about five years in deposit adjudication, so a landlord can't usually charge you to repaint walls that were already tired when you arrived.
The default position
Unless your agreement says otherwise, you can't make alterations to the property. Painting a wall is an alteration. So is putting up a shelf, changing a light fitting, or laying flooring.
That sounds harsh, but it's the standard arrangement in any rental: you have the use of the property, not the ownership of it. The practical question is not whether you technically need permission, but whether you'll get it.
Read what your agreement actually says first. Some ban alterations outright. Many require written consent, and a good number say consent won't be unreasonably withheld, which is a stronger position for you than most tenants realise. Why the written agreement matters covers what to look for.
What you can do without asking anyone
Quite a lot, and this is where most of the actual improvement comes from.
- Furniture, rugs and throws. A large rug changes a room more than paint does.
- Lamps. Rental lighting is almost universally a single harsh ceiling bulb. Two or three floor and table lamps transform a room and cost very little.
- Freestanding shelving and leaning ladder shelves. All the storage and display, none of the drilling.
- Plants. Cheap, effective, and yours when you leave.
- Removable window film for privacy or ugly glass.
- Command strips and washi tape for pictures, tested on a hidden patch first. Our guide on what to use instead of Blu Tack covers why the obvious option is a deposit risk.
- Swapping soft furnishings and storing the landlord's originals safely to put back.
That last one is worth doing properly. Keep whatever you take down, boxed and undamaged, so it can go back exactly as it was.
How to actually get a yes
Landlords refuse vague requests and accept specific ones. "Can I decorate?" sounds like an open-ended risk. "Can I paint the second bedroom in Farrow and Ball Cornforth White, using a professional decorator, at my own cost?" sounds like someone who will improve their asset.
What helps:
- Be exact. Which room, which colour, which product, who's doing the work.
- Offer neutral. A landlord's fear is a purple feature wall they have to cover three times. Neutral shades get approved far more often.
- Offer to return it to the original colour at the end if they want. Often they won't, once they see the finish.
- Mention length of stay. Someone planning to be there three years is a better bet than someone six months in.
- Point out the benefit. Freshly painted rooms let faster.
A good relationship makes all of this easier, and our guide on keeping a good relationship with your landlord is genuinely relevant here rather than just nice advice.
Get it in writing, and be specific about the end
Email is fine. What you want recorded:
- What you're doing, and where.
- The colour or product.
- Who is doing the work.
- Whether you have to reinstate it at the end, and to what standard.
Point four is the one people skip, and it's the one that costs money. "Yes, go ahead" a year ago becomes "you were supposed to put it back" at check-out. Ask the question explicitly and keep the answer.
Before you start, photograph the room as it was, with dates. Documenting the condition of your rental explains how to keep that evidence usefully.
Doing it anyway, and what that costs
Plenty of people paint without asking. Sometimes nobody ever notices, particularly if the work is good and the colour is neutral.
When it goes wrong it goes wrong at check-out, and the landlord's claim is the cost of putting it back. A dark colour needing three coats and a stain block is a genuinely expensive thing to reverse.
Worse is bad work rather than unauthorised work. Paint on the carpet, drips on the skirting, a wonky shelf pulled out of plasterboard. Adjudicators are markedly less sympathetic about mess than about the fact you painted at all.
The five year rule that protects you
Here's the part worth knowing before you accept any deduction for decoration.
Deposit adjudicators work on the basis that decoration in a rented property has a useful life of roughly five years. A claim for redecorating has to take account of the age and condition of the paintwork before you arrived.
So if the walls were four years old and scuffed when you moved in, a landlord can't charge you for a full repaint as though they were pristine. Most of that paint's life had already gone. The Tenancy Deposit Scheme's guidance on damages sets out how that apportionment works.
They also look at how long you were there, how many people lived there, and the difference between the check-in and check-out condition. Which is exactly why your own dated photographs matter so much.
Fair wear and tear can never be deducted. Scuffs on a hallway wall after two years of normal life are wear and tear. A hole where you mounted a television is not.
Where the line falls
| Usually fine without asking | Ask first | Expect a no |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture and rugs | Painting a room | Removing walls |
| Lamps and plants | Wallpaper | Changing the kitchen or bathroom |
| Freestanding shelves | Shelves fixed to walls | Replacing flooring permanently |
| Command strips, tested | Changing light fittings | Anything structural or electrical |
| Removable window film | Garden changes | Anything needing planning or building regs |
Things people forget to ask about
Pets. Not decorating, but the same permission conversation, and the rules changed under the Renters' Rights Act. How to approach your landlord about pets covers it.
Mounting a television. The most common cause of unexpected deductions. It's drilling into a wall, and the bracket holes need making good properly.
The garden. Planting is usually fine, removing established plants or a tree is not. Who's responsible for the garden covers the rest.
Smart devices. A video doorbell replacing an existing one is usually fine to ask about. Anything wired into the mains needs an electrician and permission.
At the end of the tenancy
If you agreed to reinstate, do it properly and early. A rushed job the night before check-out looks worse than not bothering.
If you weren't asked to reinstate, don't assume you have to. Get the original permission email out and read what it actually said.
Either way, photograph the finished state on the day you hand back the keys, ideally with the check-out report in progress. Getting your deposit back and your deposit rights cover what happens if a deduction turns up you disagree with.
The honest summary
Ask for what you want, specifically and in writing, and include the question about putting it back. Most landlords say yes to a careful tenant proposing neutral work at their own expense.
Where you don't get permission, the removable route genuinely works, and costs you nothing at the end.
And if a landlord refused everything and then charged you for redecoration anyway, that's worth other renters knowing. Reviewing them on Marks Out Of Tenancy is how the next person finds out what they're dealing with.
This guide covers England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own deposit schemes and rules. General information rather than legal advice, and your own tenancy agreement governs what you may alter. Source: Tenancy Deposit Scheme, guide to disputes and damages.