Deposit paid back thru SCC and left with damages

[Dance Festival]

Hello to the the group, I'm the landlord and looking for advise please, damage was found after the 7 day period , as per the clause in our lease agreement attached, we failed to notify the tenants within the first week of any damages, at that stage we didn't know, it only came to our attention 3 weeks later once we had moved in and settled that the tenants had actually painted our varnished kitchen cupboards (they emailed us requesting to paint them as they felt they looked outdated) with pva paint, its impossible to wipe the units down without the paint rubbing off, we have before and after photos. We did hold back their deposit for this reason and it ended in small claims court and due to the clause in our lease we lost and have paid them back in full plus interest. A Quote to fix this is R8500. Can we counter claim for damages through small claims court, or are we wasting our time. Any feed back would be much appreciated

[Dave A]

Did you actually inspect the premises within the 7 day period?

[Basment Dweller]

You did not do an outgoing inspection, you paid back the deposit, and only now finding damages and want to claw back R8500 from the small claims court?

It sounds like this was handled poorly on your part as a landlord.

You should've done the inspection sooner, notified tenants of the damages and deducted the repair costs from the deposit thereby putting the tenant on the backfoot. Since you restored their deposit you have lost all leverage.

I have no experience with the small claims court, but the thought of it would compel me to right off the R8500 just to avoid the hassle and focus my attention on new tenants and new projects that put money in my pocket.