Guest post by Polly Phillips
When the oven broke in the flat that I first rented, my landlord didn’t fix it for 5 weeks. For my wok-wielding flatmates, the inability to bake didn’t present a problem but for me, fresh from university and still not in possession of my own saucepan, it was a huge issue. My diet of takeaways and oven chips became just a deluge of takeaways – a habit that caused me to pile on the pounds almost as quickly as my bank account could shed them. While my landlord did eventually agree to come around and fix the oven (messily, reluctantly and using his own shoddy tools), there seemed to be no incentive for him to fix it speedily and nothing I could do to make him. Oh and he refused to give our deposit back at the end of the year.
Since my first steep learning curve of a tenancy, rules and regulations have tightened around landlords, most notably in the deposit department. Now landlords must put their tenant’s deposit in a government backed protection scheme and provide credible evidence as to why it shouldn’t be returned within ten days of the end of the tenancy. If tenant and landlord can’t agree on how much of the amount should be returned to the tenant, the deposit is protected by one of the three tenancy deposit schemes until the dispute is settled.
And now, as a landlord myself, I’m on the other side of the fence. I find myself growing fatigued by the frequency with which some tenants demand the services of plumbers, electricians and the like. One set of tenants I had repeatedly blocked the drain by failing to scrape their plates clean before rinsing them, while another wanted an electrician to be called each time a lightbulb needed replacing. Time after time our tired plumber found enough rice to start up a Chinese takeaway, while our local electrician now sends us a Christmas card each year. Yet as a landlord, wanting to retain tenants, there was little I felt I could do.
My experiences on both side of the tenant/landlord divide have taught me vital lessons. The first is, no matter how well you think you know your landlord and no matter how reasonable he may be, when money is involved relationships can quickly unravel. Both tenants and landlords should protect themselves by keeping dated, written records or any and all communications between you and the other party. You never know when you might need them to hold either tenant or landlord to account, or persuade him to come and fix your oven!
Secondly, as a landlord, I have to remind myself that whenever my tenants are being particularly trying, they’re sitting on my biggest asset, and keeping them happy is what my livelihood depends on. Since my first light-bulb averse tenants, I’ve made sure to always give my tenants the right information in the simplest form available. I’ve also employed a hands-on managing agent and made sure that I’m easily available at any given time to contact if case of any issues. The longer problems fester, the more expensive they can become and when it comes to paying the mortgage, any tenant (within reason) is better than no tenant – provided that they know to change a lightbulb that is…
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