Rental Houses - Painting

Are you allowed to paint in rental properties there? I know here in the US we usually paint a room or two to our personal tastes and then have to repaint it back to its original color when we move out but I'm wondering if that is generally allowed over there? (I know it may depend on the owner but just generally speaking).

I think it would depend on the terms of the rental agreement.

Most of the places I’ve rented in the UK will barely even let you hang a picture on the wall, let alone paint it. The only painting I’ve ever done in a rental is touch-ups to the original paintwork before I move out, to cover any marks or holes.


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Yeah I was kind of expecting that. My husband was asking. And so many places have... interesting... wall paper so I know there is nothing you can do with that. Wow, some of the wall paper. hahah

Were you looking at rentals in London or Edinburgh?


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Also in the UK,  you will likely have an "inspection" on your rental every 3 months or so.  It's fun!

My husband's old house that I moved into with him was a great find, it seems.  Below-market rent, lovely area, and we painted the bedroom and bathroom to our taste and left them when we moved out.

Also, our landlady was only inside twice in the 4 years that I lived there... one of those times was right after I'd done some tiling (there were cracked tiles around the bath letting water seep into the stone wall behind them) and we'd painted in the bathroom.  She didn't say anything about it.

When we moved out, after her inspection, she said we left the place better than when my husband moved in.  We got our full deposit back even though the bedroom and bathroom were painted "our" colours.

You'll probably find landlords are a lot more particular here. Ours walked around with us documenting every pull in the carpet and scratch on the wood floor, and cracking plaster from settling before we moved in. Carpets and floors are in the condition to need to be replaced soon. She also told us we aren't allowed to hang anything, except on the hooks left by the previous tenants. Nice? None of them are in the places we'd want and now we have nails we aren't allowed to remove.

We're allowed to go nuts in the house, can paint and hang things all we want. Our landlords are pretty chill about that. We just have to take it back to magnolia (white) if we do it.

I thought I wanted to, but I won't want to paint it back...

hahaha good to know. Thanks all. Yeah as suspected, it'll be depend on the landlord.

I don't have a problem NOT painting. But the not hanging things, well that just isn't going to fly. If I get one of those landlords, we'll be investing in the 3M adhesive hooks that peel off when you need to take them down without damage to walls. I've had good success with them here and see they sell them over there as well. Just in case.

I've had two landlords and the first one didn't do any inspections (he was super chill), and our current ones do one per year.  So every 3 months seems like a lot, although we haven't had many different landlords.

We had to get permission to hang things but our contract said 'permission will not be withheld unreasonably' or something.  They gave us permission in writing right away and thanked us for asking. 

I've never painted a flat I've rented but I noticed when we were looking for a new one that one house had a box bedroom with paint that was clearly done by the previous tenants for their child--so I assume if we had moved in there, we would have been able to repaint.

Yeah I was kind of expecting that. My husband was asking. And so many places have... interesting... wall paper so I know there is nothing you can do with that. Wow, some of the wall paper. hahah

Oh, yeah. Isn't the wallpaper amazing? We saw one place where we almost went blind fro the sun flash reflecting off the gianormous gold foil roses in the pattern on the wall opposite the window. 

Oh, yeah. Isn't the wallpaper amazing? We saw one place where we almost went blind fro the sun flash reflecting off the gianormous gold foil roses in the pattern on the wall opposite the window. 

I haven’t got around to decorating my house at all, so the lounge and 2 of the bedrooms still have the lovely ‘one wall of paper, 3 walls of paint’ design.

The living room has cream wallpaper with green flowers, then the second bedroom has purple and gold swirls (was a 16-year-old’s room) and the third bedroom has bright pink patterned paper (was a 13-year-old’s room).

Luckily my bedroom is all paint and no wallpaper.


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We hired an interior decorator to help us with our house.  She floated the idea of wallpaper and looked at her in shock and horror while screaming "NOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Then she showed me the paper she was recommending.  HOLY COW.  There are beautiful papers out there.  We have the typical one wall in our lounge.  But we've completely papered our bedroom.   

Not a flower or swirl in sight though.  Both are just about texture and a bit of shimmer.

Also in the UK,  you will likely have an "inspection" on your rental every 3 months or so.  It's fun!

Which you don't have to agree to because in England, every tenant has the right to "quiet enjoyment" of their home. However it does mean that you can't complain if they haven't fixed their repairs if they are not allowed to see what you have told them need to be repaired. The inspection is for the landlord or their agent to check for what repairs they need to do, not to see how you live.

As England also has no fault Section 21 "notice to quit", when your fixed term ends, you might find the landlord issues that, but they will have to pay the letting agent to find another tenant.

Even if you agree to a mutual convenient time for them to look for their repairs, they are not allowed to ask to inspect the property too often as that is considered to be "harassment".

You could ask the landlord if he/she minds you decorating, but make sure you get their acceptance of that in writing.

As everybody else said, it depends on the landlord. I would reach out to them and see what they say. Pose it as a "if we were to paint the rooms back to the colour they were upon our move-out date in future on our own dime, would we be allowed to pain rooms how we want?"

For our tenants, they asked if they could change the blinds. We told them it was fine as long as everything went back to the way it was prior to them moving in. If they don't, we will have to keep at least some of their security deposit to put it back to how it was. If they wanted to paint, I'm sure we would have been fine with that as well as long as they were paying for it and putting it back to how it was prior to move-in. We're pretty flexible like that and will keep security deposits if people take the piss. Yours might be just as flexible so it never hurts to ask