Newbie Landlord needs advice

barnaby-bear

Welshwoofs wrote: »

I don't think calling his wife 'dippy' is really necessary. He also said that the tenant was shouting down the phone and being rude, so the wife rather than being 'dippy' may have been stressed and intimidated and simply agreed to get the T off her back.

The point is a decent letting agent or their receptionist would handle a difficult and demanding tenant, not be intimidated or be "fuzzled" and wouldn't have made the situation confused by agreeing to let the tenant shop around. The LL's wife was acting as his agent because he is self-managing and if she is confused or stressed because of her friend's personal domestic situation it shouldn't affect her role as agent of the LL. Most tenants have been on the receiving end of amateur LL's who mess them about, who use the cheapest unreliable workman, the tenant had been told the workman would come on multiple occassions and they didn't, from their perspective they have evidence tht you say they'll come but they never do. Yes it can be hard to find people to come out but decent ones don't cancel repeatedly and your tenant seemed to manage it. I apologise if you took it as an insult but really you shouldn't be using someone to field tenant calls who isn't properly trained or able to deal with difficult tenants. It sounds like the tenant didn't go ahead with the repair work without consulting you and your wife's agreement for them to shop around may have been interpreted as go ahead for the preliminary investigation. You seem to have chosen this firm on price - but their service, multiple cancellations, the uncertainty for the tenant etc. doesn't sound great would you really use a firm again for yourself who only turn up at the fourth attempt? To be honest your long explanation of your domestic situation should be irrelevent to the tenant - you don't go into work and say oh I'm not very good at this job, I'm using an unreliable supplier but they're cheap and I'm not able to handle this client because of my friend's domestic goings on - do you?

bumpoowee

Put yourself in the tenants situation. Dodgy boiler has broken down, your crap landlord has booked some crap cheapo plumbing company who don't bother to turn up to multiple jobs and waste your whole weekend waiting in for them.

You should count yourself lucky your tenants are more savvy than you are and managed to get the issue sorted. They also did it at only a slight increase in price the crap company you tried to fob them off with. It is reasonable for you to pay this extra cost.

mynameisdave

I really can't see why OP is getting such a hard time from some posters.

He's been slagged off for picking a contractor on price
- Am I imagining the but where he said he tried somebody else he used before and they were generally good?

He's been slagged off for taking so long to get it fixed.
-Well he could have just taken the first quote to sort it but that would have left the tennant without hot water for too long and he tried to rectify it sooner.

-He's also been slagged off for the quality of his boiler.
- As I understand it this was the first time its gone wrong and was fine until the gas board carried out work in the street and according to a professional this has contributed to the problem.

Really the guy has come her for advice and all some people have given is abuse.

clutton_2

""Dodgy boiler has broken down, your crap landlord has booked some crap cheapo plumbing company who don't bother to turn up to multiple jobs ""

this is so unfair - if you are new to any profession it takes time to find your feet, we all learn our new trades - you cannot know that a firm is "crap" the first time you use them.

i used 4 different builders before finding the one i now use who i can work with, who i can communicate with and who treats me and my tenants with respect.

in this scenario the firm promised to come - and then LET THE LANDLORD KNOW THEY WEREN'T COMING AND REBOOKED SEVERAL TIMES.. This in itself is very rare in the building industry. This is a sign of a responsible operative

So many tenants think that building operatives, in whatever trade, just JUMP to it when a LL makes a phone call - that is NOT how it is in real life.

it takes time and energy and commitment to develope a team of good tradesfolk to work with

give this LL a break

in any case ALL landlord legislation says about timing on repairs is "Reasonable" - this sound reasonable to me

if this tenant does not like this partricular response to a request for repairs, then may i respectfully suggest you buy a property and find out for yourself how long in the real world it takes to get repairs done ......

Welshwoofs

mynameisdave wrote: »

Really the guy has come her for advice and all some people have given is abuse.

That seems to be pretty much par for the course here for some reason. I rented for 20 years and I'm not a LL but it does seem to me that some posters here have a rather rabid view of LLs in general and the concept of 'talking things through' or 'finding a compromise' seems to fly by in favour of making as much trouble for the LL as possible in every situation possible.

I can honestly say that in 20 years of renting I only had one really duff LL. I had lots that were average and a few which were great. I've also had the following happen in various tenancies:

• Boiler broken, without hot water for 2 1/2 weeks (trade arrived in 3 days but needed to send for parts and was delayed a few days on another job)
• Bedroom window broken for 2 months after a tile from next door house fell and smashed it during a gale. LL wouldn't repair as it was being done on neighbour's insurance so I lived with a 'make do' job of bubble wrap and sticking tape in mid-winter.
• Cockroach infestation through the air vents of a London apartment, was rehoused (cockroaches were all over the block as it turned out).
• Shower leaking all down wall of kitchen below it - turned out to be bad tile grouting which I fixed myself (after confirming with the LL that was OK and them paying for the materials) as it was a simple job.

With the exception of the window issue, in all cases the LLs sorted the issues out as soon as they reasonably could (i.e. as soon as they were made aware of the situation and/or as soon as trades were available).

Now for those who are saying that the tradesman must be 'cheap' because they can't turn up on the spot. Total and utter rot. My OH was a plasterer before retraining and would frequently have his diary full for 3 weeks in advance - he always used to say that if someone can turn up on the spot, you really want to wonder why they're not busy!

My heating engineer (solid fuel) routinely needs booking 2-3 weeks in advance!

I do think people are a little too quick to judge here and a little too quick to take a Salemesque standing against all LLs

Jowo_2

Tenants cannot expect repairs to take place any faster than a normal householder can get them done. They can use the work arounds that any householder experiences with brief interruptions to hot water supplies (boil a kettle!) while the landlord later compensates them for this.

Landlords are subject to all the usual problems in arranging engineers to call that anyone else experiences, including difficulty finding some at certain periods and experiencing unreliable ones.

The tenants sound rude, impatient and uncooperative. The landlord met all his legal obligations. The fact that they have extraordinarily high expectations is not his problem.

Geenie

mynameisdave wrote: »

I really can't see why OP is getting such a hard time from some posters.

He's been slagged off for picking a contractor on price
- Am I imagining the but where he said he tried somebody else he used before and they were generally good?

He's been slagged off for taking so long to get it fixed.
-Well he could have just taken the first quote to sort it but that would have left the tennant without hot water for too long and he tried to rectify it sooner.

-He's also been slagged off for the quality of his boiler.
- As I understand it this was the first time its gone wrong and was fine until the gas board carried out work in the street and according to a professional this has contributed to the problem.

Really the guy has come her for advice and all some people have given is abuse.

I agree. The OP did their best to get the situation sorted and responded quickly. I can't believe what is being posted here!:rolleyes:

OK the tenant didn't have hot water for awhile.....this happens to many people whether renting or owning. Sometimes it is difficult to get a plumber out, and then we have to wait for hours and days until they arrive! It is part of life I'm afraid.

Halliron

Thanks for the additional posts.

Some clarifications: I didn't pick the plumber because of price, but because they were quicker than the other option (well, supposed to be..) and becaue we'd found them reliable before. Is £98 + VAT per hour before parts considered a cheap plumber? If so I should change career! The other plumber was more expensive as she was paying for an emargancy plumber to come out on a Sunday.

Also, to respond to "To be honest your long explanation of your domestic situation should be irrelevent to the tenant", I agree, which is why I haven't discussed it with the tenant. As I said above I only posted to give you guys some context as to where i was coming from.

franklee

Halliron wrote: »

who would do it for £115 (+parts), but get there that morning.

Unfortunately they then said they then cancelled until that evening, and then cancelled until Sunday morning, and then until Sunday evening.

I'm sorry but three cancellations from a company called "reactfast" :rotfl:

I'd far rather have an appointment if a bit later on from a reliable company than being kept messed around during three cancellations so I'm not surprised the tenant lost confidence in "reactfast" after all the tenant had no way of knowing how many more times they were going to cancel. How near each appointment did they cancel? Was the tenant left hanging on till near the appointment times only to be let down?

I think you should chalk it down to your choice of contractor letting the tenant down and pay up. If the tenant had phoned their quote would you realistically have turned it down after that history gave the tenants such a bad impression of your choice of company?

What was the price difference anyway? "reactfast" £115 (+parts) and £98 + VAT per hour. Tenant's choice £160 initial call out + £300 repair. Yet how can you know what "reactfast" would really cost as they hadn't even been out yet, once they saw the problem they could have cost more. Some parts are expensive, like main control pcb circa £150 if purchased directly on line, so that's without the plumber's mark up. Of course that's without any further cancellations from "reactfast" for when they returned to do the repairs.

I think you need to do some patching up of the landlord tenant relationship as you've given out an unreliable and cheapskate one so far and it will not bode well for the future IMO.

barnaby-bear

franklee wrote: »

I'm sorry but three cancellations from a company called "reactfast" :rotfl:

I'd far rather have an appointment if a bit later on from a reliable company than being kept messed around during three cancellations so I'm not surprised the tenant lost confidence in "reactfast" after all the tenant had no way of knowing how many more times they were going to cancel. How near each appointment did they cancel? Was the tenant left hanging on till near the appointment times only to be let down?

I think you should chalk it down to your choice of contractor letting the tenant down and pay up. If the tenant had phoned their quote would you realistically have turned it down after that history gave the tenants such a bad impression of your choice of company?

What was the price difference anyway? "reactfast" £115 (+parts) and £98 + VAT per hour. Tenant's choice £160 initial call out + £300 repair. Yet how can you know what "reactfast" would really cost as they hadn't even been out yet, once they saw the problem they could have cost more. Some parts are expensive, like main control pcb circa £150 if purchased directly on line, so that's without the plumber's mark up. Of course that's without any further cancellations from "reactfast" for when they returned to do the repairs.

I think you need to do some patching up of the landlord tenant relationship as you've given out an unreliable and cheapskate one so far and it will not bode well for the future IMO.

I think another big issue here was the unprofessional multiple channels of communication; the tenant sounds like they were quite aggressive and really trying to let you know they wanted something done but really your agent (aka wife) should be able to handle such calls professionally and agreeing to them shopping around has made it very unclear - the whole faff about her being stressed because of other stuff shouldn't come into how she handled the tenant or does in the future. If a company cancelled on me three times I would be very cross with them - but the tenants only come back is you.

The tenant has every right to refuse all viewings in the future when they leave and there are dozens of other ways resentment can cause problems on both sides.