Landlord refuses to sign inventory

[Bumblebee3000]

We've recently rented a house that from the very start seemed badly taken care - there were various problems like a mouldy washing machine/curtains, broken curtain rails, etc. When we arrived to meet the inventory clerk, we signed a 2-page document of handwritten inventory notes (we broadly agreed with them) so that we can get the keys - she mentioned she'd send us the official inventory later. 2 weeks of phone calls later the landlord finally sent us the 65-page inventory (the clerk said that he only wanted it sent to himself). It did note many of the issues but we made a detailed list of amendments with photos and sent it back to the clerk who added it to the original inventory and re-issued it to us, asking us to send it to the landlord, which we did.

 

The original inventory did not have his signature on it and when we asked him to countersign the amended inventory, he refused, stating that he wouldn't do it as we are an "interested party" and therefore I'm assuming he doesn't trust our amendments. At the same time he has disputed the condition of many of the items, stating that we had "accepted" them on the inventory despite us only providing our signature in respect of the original 2 pages of handwritten notes and despite the requirements in the tenancy contract, which he clearly violated. For example, he did not do a pre-tenancy clean of many of the areas of the house, the garden, the washing machine which is fully mouldy and uncleanable (according to his own cleaner), repair of the broken curtain rails. In fact, he chose to pay a professional cleaning company to go over the mouldy curtains (it made zero difference, which they had warned him about) rather than provide a new set. They're cheap curtains but now he's saying the mould is dead so the black stains on them are no longer an issue. Anyway, we seem to have been fooled into "agreeing" with a whole bunch of disrepair issues that we weren't aware of (due to Covid, when we viewed the house we weren't allowed to look at the curtains, which were hidden behind furniture, so we couldn't see the mould, for example). 

 

Our main issue is that in view of the landlord's "unique" way of dealing with disrepair, we want to protect our deposit and are therefore concerned that he is refusing to provide a signature on either the original or the amended inventory. Does anyone know what the implications are of this if to comes to the deposit/adjudication? 

Edited September 16, 2020 by Bumblebee3000