Renting and maintenance

hebron

Hi
If you rent a flat out, who pays the maintenance charge: The owner or the tenant?

Thanks.

concerned43

look at your tenancy agreement - it should say LL

princeofpounds

Technically anyone can pay a maintenance charge. The question is who is liable.

The owner is always liable. If he fails to pay, the freeholder can recover the money from him.

The owner can choose to charge extra rent* or ask the tenant to pay as part of the contract (which practically speaking amount to much the same thing, although there are slight legal differences).

However, if the tenant does not pay, the block will come after the owner, who must sue the tenant. The block will not see the tenant as being responsible.

* Note that just because you are being charged for maintenance, it does not mean that you can automatically pass this through to tenants. All you can do is charge market rental rates and hopefully this will cover your maintenance expensese adequately enough - sometimes it won't!

olly300

The LL.

The freeholder has no legal contract with the tenant, who is probably on an assured shorthold tenancy agreement.

The freeholder only has a legal contract with the owner (leaseholder) of the flat. This means the freeholder can only pursue the owner (leaseholder) of the flat for maintenance charges.

As stated you need to ensure the rent you charge your tenants covers all maintenance amounts that the freeholder will charge you plus your mortgage and maintenance costs for the flat itself.

hebron

Thank you for your replies, I should have been more clear and said that it was myself thinks of buying and letting a flat out and I was doing my calculations and unsure if this would be down to me or the tenant.

Jowo_2

I say your are better off factoring it into the rent and paying it directly, or avoiding properties that have steep service charges in the first place.

We nearly took a landlord to court in our block of flats who went overseas and stopped paying towards the maintenance charges when he let his flat out. He said the tenant was supposed to pay it and wasn't aware they'd stopped but by then the tenant was long gone and he had to stump up £400.

hebron

Thanks for making it clear for me.