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Landlord problems

(28 posts)

Started 8 years ago by rob_88_rover
Latest reply from minus six

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rob_88_rover
Member

Hi

I am after some advice please. Currently, I am renting a flat in the city centre. It is the first time i have rented property in Scotland after living previously in England. Last week, my landlord came round to do an inspection. A day or so later, they emailed me highlighting a problem they have regrading water damage in the bathroom. I do not think this is fair, as the problem was there when i arrived in the flat (something they acknowledge) but I am worried they will unfairly bill me.

I have paid my deposit into a Landlord Deposit Scheme, but how much protection does this give me? At the end of the tenancy, would the landlord simply bill me with what they consider to me my damage? Or, is the bill agreed first between us? What happens if you disagree with your landlords assessment?

Thanks for reading

Posted 8 years ago #
dessert rat
Member

I have used the Deposit schemes quite a few times, both as tenant and landlord. Generally I would say they are pretty fair, you get a chance to argue your case and they are def not tilted in favour of the landlord, if anything the feel slightly towards the tenant.

The key with any dispute that ends up with them to adjudicate is evidence. So if you have an acknowledgement from landlord/agent that the problem is pre-existing, then that’s a big positive. Even better would be any historical request by you for them to fix which was not acted on or completed.

At the end, the landlord will be asked to submit several (usually three) quotes for the work to be repaired and that amount will be held back from your deposit by the Deposit Scheme people. You also should have the chance to get quotes. Then both parties get a chance to submit as much or as little evidence to support their side of the case. The Deposit Scheme people then decide based on what was submitted and apportion money from the amount held accordingly.

Posted 8 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

I've rented a property for a number of years and have only had occasion once to make a claim against a tenant.

Firstly, if there was water damage in the property when you moved in the landlord should have put it right. You should have also reported it at the time (not clear form comments whether you did or not). If the damage was reported, and acknowledges as part of the moving in report / inventory, then they have no case. Any damage caused as a result of them not putting the fault right is their responsibility.

The deposit scheme requires pretty detailed evidence before they will allow a claim, and you also have the right to comment, they don't just rubber stamp any claim.

In my case the rubber seal had come away round the bath, but instead of reporting it to me they just continued to use the shower, which led to water running along the floor into a cupboard.

Instead of a £7 repair to replace the bath seal if they had reported it. I ended up with a several hundred £ bill to replace the floor in the cupboard. I had to provide evidence of the cost to me, and also my time spent, which was also factored in (they also left the place a tip).

Posted 8 years ago #
Nelly
Member

It's a 2 way street, but definitely not skewed to the landlord.

When we rent, the inventory contains detailed info, photos etc and is signed by all parties to save future "confusion".

We had tenants who habitually left sodden bath towels in the small bedroom with the door shut. This, allied to their habit of not using the central heating resulted in mould growth on the walls.

Given that said tenant had asthma, we concluded that he wasn't the sharpest tool.

As we are decent landlords, we told him what to do, which products to use to wipe the mould off etc and agreed a timeframe to conclude this remedial work.

Once completed to our satisfaction, we wrote to him again and told him that a repeat performance wouldn't be looked on positively.

In your circumstances, I would say look at inventory carefully and see what you are signed up to - as that's all that really counts.

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

@rob

You've certainly come to the right place, this forum is a veritable vipers nest of unabashed landlordism

My advice is to let the bills mount up and do a moonlight flit when the time is right

Screw them before they screw you

You're welcome

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

@bax young grasshopper careful not to despise anything too much

I appear to have become several things I used to despise (wage slave, mortgaged to my work etc)

My best man was a very ethical and kindly landlord called parsley please don't think of him too harshly

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

@gembo, despite this unforgiveably apologistic outburst, i'll give you a top tip

Clear Spot on Resonance FM, just started a minute ago

https://www.resonancefm.com/schedule

Cherry Blossom Quartet. 1/5. A week of Tenzing Scott Brown plays, adapted for radio by Johny Brown, featuring Tam Dean Burn and a company of actors and sound artists, produced and presented by Bad Punk. Tonight: 'Bill Drummond Is Dead'. Bill Drummond lies on a mortuary slab in a Liverpool FC football strip and thinks about this life, that life, and the other life. Ghost Mind improvise a soundscape reacting to Tam's reading of the text. [Repeated Tuesday 9am.]

Posted 8 years ago #
dessert rat
Member

@ Rob - some good advise here and some straight off EEN comments.

Wouldn't recommend the midnight flit - pretty much every bill is the responsibility of the tenant, not the landlord. So other than a few phone calls & a bit of hassle landlords don't give two hoots about them. Any normal landlord or agent will have taken references - its really not hard to track people down these days. Utility companies can chase for 5 years (6 in England) for unpaid bills - goes on credit score etc.. not worth the risk.

Awaiting the usual from Man The Barricades, wont be long now.

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

@bax, clear spot is capt. Beefheart? Observatory crest is the capt. At his most mellow. Bill Drummond tried to persuade Julian cope to kill himself to boost record sales and I think penned song Julian Cope is dead I shot him in the head. Bill Drummond also sent echo and the bunny men on a uk tour of ley ines so they played Stornaway with three paying customers, lost big style but then he burnt a million pounds on Skye.

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

Jura it was.. a million went up the lum of the old boathouse. The locals were finding scorched £50 notes drifting in the wind for ages afterwards

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

[+] Embed the video | Video Download Get the Video Plugin

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Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

Poor Julian moaning about some of the million belonging to him. Hardly rock and roll. Drummond to give him his due says he struggles to explain burning the money to his children

Posted 8 years ago #
unhurt
Member

"the problem was there when i arrived in the flat (something they acknowledge)" - this sounds to me like they have already admitted it was a pre-existing issue. Ideally it's noted on the inventory from when you moved in, but even if not I would hope even a verbal acknowledgement would help you. In your place, I'd probably respond to them stating that as they are aware this was already an issue when you moved in, and ask for written reassurance that they won't attempt to hold you liable for this repair.

Maybe worth contacting Citizen's Advice? - they advise on private sector tenancies, amongst other things: https://www.citizensadviceedinburgh.org.uk/

Posted 8 years ago #
wee folding bike
Member

gembo did he have a tail for doing jobs of every kind?

Posted 8 years ago #
Nelly
Member

@bax

"this forum is a veritable vipers nest of unabashed landlordism"

Not quite.

In fact, as previous threads will show, a number of people on this forum have become landlords - not always by choice.

I am sure there are plenty uncaring landlords, also plenty tenants who do accidental damage to property believing that all landlords are as rich as Croesus so sod them.

On the flip side, and in my experience the majority of tenants are simply trying to get on with their lives, and are getting along well with their decent (in many cases accidental) landlords.

It's not all black and white.

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

Thanks @ weefoldingbike. As long as the job was related to technology yes. Though these days he is in love and less available

Posted 8 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

"@bax

"this forum is a veritable vipers nest of unabashed landlordism"

Not quite.

In fact, as previous threads will show, a number of people on this forum have become landlords - not always by choice."

Indeed, I could tell you my riches to rags story as a result of being an accidental landlord...

I'm probably £30K poorer as a result of being a landlord (though some of that is down to market crash of 2008).

Buy flat for £96K in 2006 to live in.
Try to sell flat for £115K in May 2008.
Crash happens in June 2008, repeatedly lower price till eventually £90K, sell it 3 times, all fall through with 1-2 weeks to go to completion.
Flat lies empty for 18 months at a cost of £743 p/m (mort/factor/council tax).
In 2010, after 18 months and savings now gone, we decide put a tenant in and take it off market, this gives us an income of £565 p/m. We're now only losing £100 p/m.
We rent it for 5 years with loss reducing form £100p/m to £30p/m over the period due to reducing interest rates, and small increases in rent.
Last year we decide to put it on the market again, home report value of £105K. You guessed it 2 weeks later Brexit happens. Still on the market now a year later at fp £100K

We're still losing £30p/m, and unfortunately had to put of the 2 Caribbean cruises this year.

One day we will sell it and the pain will end. I have longed for that day since 2008, but still it never comes.

Posted 8 years ago #
crowriver
Member

As they say in the ad disclaimers, property prices can go down as well as up. Yes it's galling after the baby boomers rode the wave of the property bubble to early retirement. However it seems that's a one off. Still, it could be worse, you could be paying rent...

@rob_88_rover, in order to make a claim against your deposit the landlord needs to prove the water damage started while you were the tenant, and that you did not report it. Evidence might include any inspection report prior to you moving in, photos, etc. If they don't have that them it's your word against theirs, and deposit scheme unlikely to award them compensation.

However best is to try and resolve amicably if possible. Maybe put something in writing as advised above regarding your understanding of the issue.

Posted 8 years ago #
neddie
Member

What Baldcyclist describes even has its own term:

"Zombie landlords"

Posted 8 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

"Zombie landlords"

Yes and no, trapped in the sense that the real barrier to selling is, well the tenant. We get lots of viewings, lots of +ve comments, but no-one buys. Truth is the flat is always a tip when viewings happen, tenant has no motivation to 'present' the property, they don't really want to move. And certainly trapped in the sense we couldn't sustain more than 4 or 5 months mortgage without a tenant, though it is easy to get them. Always rents in lass than a week.

But we're far from being being in financial hardship, it's a painful annoyance for sure, but we live pretty well all things considered, certainly compared to many.

When it does sell, eventually, we will do reasonably well from the equity that's in the property. Although we were losing £100 a month, the tenant is paying £250 a month off the mortgage.

We live with the pain/annoyance because there isn't an account / isa / relatively safe investment that would give that sort of return on a £100 per month investment. Sometimes when I look at it in those terms I think we should actually keep it for another 10 years (that might unwittingly end up being the case anyway..).

So it's not all bad, we will get 'paid' at some point.

Posted 8 years ago #
SRD
Moderator

Our scenario similar to baldcyclist, although we didn't leave flat empty but went more or less straight to letting after sale fell through. Still lost thousands of pounds despite eventually selling at a decent price.

We should all know better than to generalise about any class of people, but having been both tenants and landlords sure reinforces that.

Posted 8 years ago #
gkgk
Member

@Baldcyclist - you could have avoided 12 months of that CT by removing furniture and telling the council it's empty, I think.

Surprised to hear a £105k HR flat isn't selling at £100k at moment, if it's in Edinburgh, unless you're trying to sell with ongoing sitting tenants or the HR is old and doesn't factor in some deterioration of some sort. Market is red hot just now, I think. Flats around 100k routinely selling 10k or more over HR.

Don't know details of course but worth speaking to a mortgage chap, if that £600ish rent isn't covering payments on a sub £90k mortgage, imho.

Posted 8 years ago #
Min
Member

Market is red hot just now, I think.

We keep getting begging letters from Estate Agents desperate for houses.

Posted 8 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

Flat is in Livingston, don't think it has rebounded as Edinburgh has. There are other flats in estate been on far more than a year.

Flat has a tenant in it, so 2 month exchange isn't appealing to a lot of people, as we'd have to give tenant notice

We did get 6 months council tax free from what I remember. And on another property, my mum died in the March of 2008, so we were left with 2 properties we couldn't sell, we kind of moved between the 2 to get the CT saving then eventually sold my mums house to McEwan Fraser for 70% of it's value. That really annoyed me at the time too, but in fairness it gave us the deposit on the house we live in now (which is really the reason we could afford for it to sit empty after losing savings).

Re mortgages, we were badly advised. We stayed on SVR because the bank told us at one point we couldn't fix the rate without going onto a buy to let mortgage.

Wasn't until we'd decided to sell last year that bank then tried to sell us a new fixed rate that wasn't buy to let. Told us then that so long as flat had been lived in we didn't need a buy to let mortgage. That annoyed me too, as I could have been paying £80 a month less on my mortgage for 5 years! If we don't sell it this time I'll fix the mortgage.

Re market, detached properties where I live now sell quickly, actually everything does, even smaller flats etc. Don't know what is wrong with market in Livi.

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

we will get 'paid' at some point

Let's hope so, Baldcyclist..

the majority of tenants are simply trying to get on with their lives

Indeed they are, Nelly.. shivering away in the mouldy box room.. too scared to turn on your central heating cos they can't face the utility bills..

Security of tenure is out of reach for so many in this country, alongside ever-dwindling employment opportunities

While no one could suggest with a straight face that the landlords of this forum invented free market capitalism, you'll recognise that the current situation is entirely unsustainable

The millenials may be generation snowflake glued to a cheap contract smartphone, but watch out for the generations behind them.. they'll have sharp teeth, cold eyes, and no sympathy

Pray to your retirement gods that Universal Basic Income becomes a reality

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

Hey Bax, I thought Rosa Luxembourg wrote a pamphlet pinpointing the rise of free market capitalism exactly at the point of landlords proliferating?

Funny term Land Lord. Neither owning land nor lords except say Lord Roseberry busy selling off all the farm land in the west of edinburgh to CALA.

Posted 8 years ago #
Nelly
Member

@bax, did you lift those last 2 paragraphs straight off the comments section in The Guardian :-)

My wife and I purposely set a rental significantly less than market rate - as we want decent people longer term and we are not chasing quick money, have just revamped the entire bathroom and decorated the entire flat at considerable cost.

Our current tenants know that they are on to a brilliant deal and act accordingly.

When some (previous) numpty and his flatmate with more disposable income than I causes a room to be mouldy because he is stupid - that's not my fault, nor is it because they are skint - I know what these guys did for a living.

I know that some landlords are terrible - but I don't fall into that category.

Tarring everyone with the same brush isn't clever.

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

tarred with a brush.. ?

you'd be getting off lightly there

;)

Posted 8 years ago #

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