Private Landlord adopting Office Hours telephone calls

googler

googler.. wrote: »

Hope he is.!!!!!!

Oh, great. The copycat (googler..) is back....

babe-ruth

FATBALLZ wrote: »

A lot of tenants are in jobs where they can't use the phone. For that matter, a lot of landlords have jobs too so can't answer the phone. So getting hold of each other during the day can be pretty difficult.

Lets face it, job or no job, everyone (at least everyone i know) has a mobile phone and anyone with a job has a lunch break

BitterAndTwisted

What would I do? Have a separate phone line for my landlording business with an answering-machine attached to it. Leave a message that all incoming calls are listened to several times day or whatever. Then screen them and ignore the troublesome tenant if their calls are trivial. Leave the other tenants to think you are available 24/7 until they learn differently.

G_M

G_M wrote: »

When I go to a concert I put my mobile on vibrate so I can answer quietly and have a whispered conversation without disturbing other concert-goers.

As a landlord, I always jump when my tenant rings - that's what I'm there for.

One time the tenant had a bedside lamp blow during the night, so naturally rang me and I rushed over (stopping at the 24 hour Tesco on the way to pick up an appropriate replacement 9 watt bulb). If I'd insisted on 'office hours' how could he have coped?

Oh dear - maybe I DO need to spell out my advice to the OP.

MOST BUSINESSES WORK OFFICES HOURS. SO SHOULD YOU.

Some businesses also offer an out-of-hours emergency facility - it's up to you whethr to offer this.

There are few matters in property management that cannot wait till the next day. Real 'emergencies' can usually be dealt with by turning off the stopcock/gas supply or dialling 999.

FATBALLZ

babe-ruth wrote: »

Lets face it, job or no job, everyone (at least everyone i know) has a mobile phone and anyone with a job has a lunch break

In most cases, maybe. However the main point is you need to cover out of hours emergencies, so at least check your messages within a few hours. Non-emergencies can be left til next working day, however tenants can't be left for days without heating/water etc.

babe-ruth

FATBALLZ wrote: »

However the main point is you need to cover out of hours emergencies

As stated in my original post (except for emergencies)

Also, if a boiler breaks down at 10pm on Friday night, other than call my plumber first thing Saturday morning what can i do to respond to the tenants phone call? If your boiler broke down would you expect your plumber (assuming you could get hold of him at 10pm Friday night) to attend to it that same evening?

babe-ruth

Off to bed now, is it ok with everyone if i switch my phone off now?

FATBALLZ

babe-ruth wrote: »

As stated in my original post (except for emergencies)

Also, if a boiler breaks down at 10pm on Friday night, other than call my plumber first thing Saturday morning what can i do to respond to the tenants phone call? If your boiler broke down would you expect your plumber (assuming you could get hold of him at 10pm Friday night) to attend to it that same evening?

Ok, I think I should apologise as I think I missed the bit about except for emergencies, however I would still say that all my previous landlords have been contactable out of hours for important but non-emergency issues (which are fairly infrequent), which is important to me because I struggle to find time during office hours to make non-work related calls. But if you have issues with one particular time wasting tenant screening his calls and answering them the next day if they aren't important seems fine.

johnbusby

babe-ruth wrote: »

Just thought it about time that i started acting like an agent and adopting agent open hours like most tenants have to accept.

Didn't realise it was a race to the bottom - most agents offer a terrible service so I don't know why you would aspire to be like them?

More seriously, I would expect my LL to pick up a call at a reasonable hours (7pm maybe) as I don't really get a chance to phone in office hours however I would never call after this unless it was a real emergency.

If I was a LL I would like to know straight away of any problems that may have a detrimental effect to my property whether they occur and 9am on a Monday or 11pm on a Friday

Googlies_2

Strange responses,

Landlords/Agents regularly claim they need to keep a set of keys to a property for emergencies, do they mean only emergencies between 9 and 5?