Maintenance Obligations and Wear and Tear in Finland

Disputes over dishwasher repair bills and invoicing floor wear from the deposit are by far the largest burden in the Finnish Consumer Disputes Board and the finances of Finnish landlords. The Finnish Tenancy Act (AHVL) assigns the landlord a strict obligation regarding the basic condition of the apartment, but the limits to the tenant's responsibility must often be interpreted from precedent cases.

Disclaimer: This guide provides general legal information. Drawing the line between normal wear and tear and liability for damages is always a case-by-case statement based on facts in dispute situations. Information last verified: March 2026.

1. The Landlord's Maintenance Responsibility

The main rule of the tenancy act is that the apartment must be handed over and kept in such a condition that the tenant can reasonably expect according to the age of the apartment and local circumstances.

Fundamentally payable by the landlord (and covered by the rental yield) are:

• The apartment's fixed household appliances and equipment: A refrigerator, freezer, stove, and the original dishwasher of the apartment age as electrical units. When a washing machine over 6 years old stops drawing water due to an irremovable motor fault at the end of its technical service life, the ordering, pickup, and payment of a new one invariably fall to the landlord to cover – it is completely useless to try to point this out as the resident's negligence or to deduct it from the deposit.
• Lifespan of surfaces and structures: If wall paints darken over 10 years as a patina of time and UV radiation, the price of repainting is the investor's risk and property improvement.
• The Housing Company Act responsibilities: It is the landlord's duty to oversee (as a shareholder) that the Housing Company manages the building's large pipes, water-circulating radiators, facades, sewers, and ventilation ducts; the tenant does not cover the basic cost of these (even if domestic water from under a leaking water trap is reported to them as damage).

2. The Tenant's Duty of Care (AHVL § 25)

Although the motors of the devices break down on the investor's wallet, Finnish law places a strict "duty of care" on the tenant.

The tenant must compensate for:

• Intentional or negligent damage: Such as physical collision shattering of a shower cubicle door, a deep cut in genuine oak parquet resulting from moving heavy furniture, leaving a dog to scratch the hallway cabinet doors to ruin, or smoking inside, which leaves a tar smell on the walls throughout the apartment (requires total ozonation and special painting to remove the smell, costing thousands bypassing the deposit).
• Notification and minimization duty: If a dishwasher starts dropping drops on the parquet or bathroom silicones detach causing a leak risk, the tenant MUST immediately notify the landlord of the observation. If the notification is neglected, and the floor molds to ruin leaking hidden for weeks, the delay turns the original innocent water damage (which the insurance would otherwise have covered for the host) into the tenant's factual liability for damages due to their passivity.

Drawing the line: Normal Wear and Tear (Tavanomainen Kuluminen)

Finnish authorities have outlined that perfect cleanliness when cleaning for a departing tenant at the end of the tenancy is a requirement (oven cleaned, grease removed from walls) – this is charged from the deposit. However, "marks of picture hooks", light-dimmed windowsills, and micro-scratches on the parquet next to doors are normal signs of life (Normal Wear and Tear), against which the owner has no right to invoice from the returned guarantee deposit.

Resolve Tickets Directly to Mobile with Landager

Information about a fault (such as a dishwasher not emptying water) disappears into a Whatsapp stream without dates – leaving the property manager without protection for the courts when having to prove when the fault was exactly reported. Landager's ticketing system operates on a mobile page aimed at residents. The tenant uploads a picture of the leaking washing machine directly. The system stamps the report (IP, timestamp) and drops the instruction page "Does the tenant routinely remove the lint filter?" -preventing unnecessary plumbers' maintenance visits (which easily reveal themselves as user errors and fall on the resident's bill) and automatically creates an immediate repair register on the property manager's page kept safe for disputes.

Back to Finland Residential Tenancy Act (Overview).