Frozen Pipes / Flood

Swipe

Even if the tenants are found liable, they'll be in no position to pay anyway. All part of the trials and tribulations of being a landlord I'm afraid.

clutton_2

""Even if the tenants are found liable, they'll be in no position to pay anyway."

but their guarantors will........



i have had water damage to a property and repairing it involved

humidifiers for several days
a new kitchen (base units),
new laminate flooring throughout the kithcn
new carpet and laminate in the rest of the ground floor,
loss of rent for 8 weeks whilst drying out and refurb took place.
fuel costs during the refurb
labour to do all of the above.....

This claim came to over £10k ....

i claimed on insurance, but the Excess was £1000 - had the tenants who did the damage had any money i would have taken them to court for the £1,000

chodges84

Exactly - Students are hardly flushed with cash.

I'm guessing the place was furnished too. I can well imagine they would just walk away, lose the depoit and say 'You're problem mate' to the landlord.

I would also like to agree with a few others that i don't think the tennants arecompletely at fault anyway. They could have left as early as mid december, no one knew it ould be this cold for this long back then. And they may not have known that the pipes would freeze and to leave them on.

I just asked my g/f if 3 of her student friends had left the heating on in their house and she says no. My g/f was not aware of the dangers of pipes freezing and neither are her friends. COnsidering they live in an old house in rural Gloucestershire they could have had a nasty surprise when they returned.

As others have said, these people go straight from living at home to a house of their own. I personally feel that the landlord should have either asked them to leave the heating on, or informed them that he would do it should a cold snap come. Perhaps he didn'tknow the dangers either.

I would say both LL and T are equally at fault, and if the landlord doesn't do things right he may end up footing the bill for everything becasue as I said, what have the tennats got to lose?

clutton_2

""what have the tennats got to lose?""

if LL takes them to court and wins - and i suspect he would get at least 50% if not more of the refurb costs, then tenants will end up wiht a CCJ - try getting ANY sort of credit for the next 6 years with a CCJ - or another rental.... or a new mobile phone.....

Why are "students" less able than other young people in organising their lives, taking responsibility for themselves, their homes and their heating.....

I have many many young tenants. and have NEVER had any of them turn heating off when away... they use their common sense....

the truth of this thread is that some "students" want to be treated as special tenants - they want to behave like idiots, damage property when drunk, not pay rent for the whole of the year, and yet wont take responsibility for their own actions.....


If student parent guarantors dont want to be responsible for paying these claims then they should be educating their off-spring about domestic heating and winter problems as well as the landlord....

Grow up is my response - and if that is harsh.. its harsh... life is about taking responsibility for our own actions.....

Pitlanepiglet

I imagine most student lets will have a parental guarantee, so the parents may be in for a shock. Perhaps the parents might regret that they let little Johnny or little Susie get to university age without any commen sense!

Why would it matter that they left mid December? This is the winter, this is what happens, it's not rocket science to assume that given it's the middle of winter it might get cold? Turn the timer back to shorter amounts of time and the thermostat down to a lower temp or leave the heating on but on a very low heat.

My tenant did this to me about 10 years ago - he went away for Christmas when -10 was forecast, he turned the entire heating system off, pilot light and all but didn't drain the system - he froze and destroyed the boiler, every radiator in the flat and some of the internal pipework. I had to have the kitchen floor reboarded in full - there was sheet ice about three inches deep across it. Luckily the kitchen units survived... Every radiator had to be replaced along with the boarding around each of the radiators. Then all of the carpets had to be replaced.

It was about £7k of work 10 years ago - the central heating had only been in about 3 years anyway so there was no real element of betterment to it from my point of view.

My tenant was damn lucky that the buildings insurance covered it (very rare for the damage to frozen pipes etc. to be covered, usually only the damage done by the water) and there was only a £250 excess which I deducted from his deposit.

He was a fully grown man in his late 20's - it's not about age, it's just about common sense! I guess to those of us who are a bit older frozen pipes are a more familiar part of our history, people who have always grown up with central heating probably have no idea that it actually gets very cold without it and that water freezes!

chodges84

"I have many many young tenants. and have NEVER had any of them turn heating off when away... they use their common sense...."

But if they don't know what will happen (i.e have never experienced it), then how are they to know to leave the heating on?

My thinking is that if I was the landlord, then I would have ensured that the tennants were going to leave the heating on a low setting whilst they were away.

I don't know whether they have to pay bills seperate to rent, if the rent includes utilities. If it was the former then I can see why the temptation would be there to turn it off.

And I do agree with you o the damage they can cause, especially when intoxicated (when staying at a mates house when he was at uni, one of his friends kicked the door in and threw up on the hallway when he got in, becaus he was so drunk he couldn't get the key in the lock).

I still think that it would be 50/50 blame. If you are not told something and have never experienced it, then how are you to know it will happen. My guess is the Landlord in this case probably didn't now it could happen either.

chodges84

"He was a fully grown man in his late 20's - it's not about age, it's just about common sense! I guess to those of us who are a bit older frozen pipes are a more familiar part of our history, people who have always grown up with central heating probably have no idea that it actually gets very cold without it and that water freezes!"

That is exactly my point. If they have never experienced it, then they should be told, as they probably wouldn't know. It would only take a quick call from the landlord to let them know the dangers and insist they leave the heating on. 1 minute phone call max.

I wouldn't even say it was down to common sense, it's down to experience.

chodges84

Just found the 'Winter Warnings' leaflet from our lettings agent. It specifies that the heating should be left on in order to prevent freezing pipes and flooding.

It says it could burst in the middle of the night and you could awake to inches of water, furniture damage and thousands of pounds worth of damage. It is very to the point, and a leaflet like this should definately be given to people in student lets (not because they are students but because most if not a of them will be on their own for the first time).

Clutton - just so you know, i'm not trying to pick a fight or arguing for the sake of it. I can see from your many posts on here, that you are very knowledgeable and professional in what you do. I think we could do with a lot more L/L's like your self in this country, rather than people who couldn't sell their house for what they wanted and thus rented it.

I just wanted to point out that if the tennants don't know of the dangers, then they are likely to do things like this to save a few quid. Unless they are warned of the dangers they may never know of the dangers.

Rosemary7391

I'm a student. I left the heating on low in my room over the break - its just common sense. A landlord shouldn't have to nanny students - they are adults afterall! Also, it may well say in the contract to heat the property, in which case they have no excuse.

Pitlanepiglet

chodges84 wrote: »

If you are not told something and have never experienced it, then how are you to know it will happen.

Sometimes I despair! Why do people need to be "taught" everything, what happened to learning and applying existing knowledge?! This is quite a basic one isn't it?

Water freezes when it gets cold - we all know that don't we? If you don't have your heating on it gets cold - that one's OK as well isn't it? Not rocket science? So....on from there if your heating isn't on and the weather gets cold then what's going to happen.....first year secondary school physics anyone?

A landlord can't tell a tenant everything - one of mine complained about mould in the bathroom - there was a built in extractor which worked on the light and a window in the bathroom. When we looked at it it was obvious that the bathroom window hadn't been opened in a long time - when queried, the tenant said he didn't like the noise the fan made so he avoided using the light...It was also obvious that he hadn't cleaned anything for some time....

The same one managed to turn the cooker onto automatic so it wouldn't work - he rang, I said "it's not on automatic is it" (it's easy to do) - no definitely not - I dispatch someone, he walks in, turns it off automatic, it works fine.

Yes, I think a prudent LL might want to remind his tenant's about the cold, especially in a student let - and if only to ensure that he's got a good negligence case against them if they still freeze the place up but let's at least try to use common sense...