Question for Landlords.

faerie~spangles

Cutting a long story short: The property is an ex council - ground floor flat with its own fenced in area covered in red chip stones, which if left untreated becomes weed strewn.

The upstairs neighbours have no issues with allowing the tenants use of the the communal, well cared for garden, drying and seating areas.

This week as normal the communal area was sprayed as well as the fenced in area belonging to the ground floor flat, this has been done since the ground floor flat became a private rental.

Thanks for reading this so far.


The tenant of the ground floor flat went ballistic this evening re' the weed kill spraying. She's moving out next week. There has been a 'For let' sign up for the past month.

Would you as a LL be upset if your neighbours looked after your property?

Old_Git

I would expect the tenant to look after it not the neighbours

seven-day-weekend

TBH, I think it is a bit interfering. The tenants are quite entitled to grow weeds should they wish.

My neighbour has painted the outside of our house before now whilst painting his own (they are adjoining terraces both painted the same colour) and we thought it was a bit of a cheek. We didn't say anything, however, because we are pragmatic enough to realise it saved us doing it.:rotfl:

Norman_Castle

Would you as a LL be upset if your neighbours looked after your property?

I would expect neighbours to ask before interfering with property they do not own.

aliasojo

faerie~spangles wrote: »

.....this has been done since the ground floor flat became a private rental.


The tenant of the ground floor flat went ballistic this evening re' the weed kill spraying. She's moving out next week. There has been a 'For let' sign up for the past month.

Would you as a LL be upset if your neighbours looked after your property?

I think this is one of those 'dodgy communication' issue times.

People who sprayed, did so as they have always done. They had no reason to believe there would be anything different this time.

Tenant (who I assume was not there when this 'habit' first started) is understandably miffed at the intrusion into her private space.

Tenant has overreacted imo and a simple, thanks but please don't do this again, would have sufficed.

LL should either ask sprayers not to spray in future, or inform tenants that spraying will be done unless specifically asked not to.

Either way I wouldn't expect LL to get upset.

Notmyrealname

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

TBH, I think it is a bit interfering. The tenants are quite entitled to grow weeds should they wish.

Not in my tenancy agreement. They have to keep the gardens in good order.

faerie~spangles

Old_Git wrote: »

I would expect the tenant to look after it not the neighbours

If only:( ..........

clutton_2

this spraying will probably have been done by the Council and not the LL, as the council will own the maintainance rights in a part council/part private block. This tenants landlord will have no control over whether the area is sprayed or not as it appears to be a jointly used space for which the council is responsible as Leaseholder.

If the tenant is leaving anyway whats the problem ?

G_M

Depends on the tenancy agreemnt. What if anything does it say?
If it includes garden maintenance by landlord (or his agents), well, that's what was done. If it says tenant is responsible, or says nothing, then the tenant is justified by this intrusion onto the garden of their home.

I assume the tenant was planning to leave before this happened if the 'for rent' sign has been there a month? So it's really not an issue now as tenant will be gone. Storm in a teacup, or the last straw, as I suspect other issues as well with the tenancy....?

As for your final question, if neighbours did maintenance once, I would go and speak to them. Thank them profusely, and then either

1) agree for them to continue and discuss frequency etc (and then incorporate it into my tenancy agreements if I was letting the property or
2) ask them politely not to repeat as I preferred to deal with the garden, external painting etc myself

Unless they had actually caused significant, costly, damage in which case I might request compensation.

But neighbour disputes are best avoided where at all possible

edit: as clutton suggests, this might be part of the lease with the council. Check. If so, that should be included in the tenancy agreement (as should any other conditions imposed on the landlord by the council, his mortgage lender, his property insurance etc)

smileytiger

We have a dark wood fascia triangle on the front of ours & the adjoining semi. We are owners they are tenants with our previous neighbours being their LL & very good friends of ours.
As we are selling I intended to treat/stain the fascia to bring the colour back as it had faded in the sun.
We asked the tenants if they wanted us to do their side aswell as it would have looked really odd for the 2 sides to be different as they are part of the same triangle, but also because i'd have to go onto their property with the ladders.
They were fine with it - but i wouldn't have dreamt of doing it without asking.
Similarly we've just had to replace a fence panel that blew down in a storm last week & we've gone 50/50 on the cost with them.
It's much easier to talk to neighbours whether tenant or owners about all kinds of stuff to avoid people having their backs put out so to speak

faerie~spangles

There had been no bad feeling or words said in anger before this incident.

When she moved in we told her she was welcome to use the drying area, seating area and any of the herbs in the communal garden.

The neighbour is responsible for the maintenance of the ground floor 'garden'. Another neighbour checked with the letting agent.

The council don't come into our communal area as we have transformed it into a proper garden, and yes if they did they would have sprayed her weed patch.

My neighbour who did the spraying is a professional gardener and is certified to use weed killer.