"Wear and tear" in a rental property

milkydrink

black-saturn wrote: »

How do you know she's working the system and whats someone elses car got to do with it?

Well Sarahlouise seems to have read & pieced together many of miss k's threads & wrote this....
of course you are right ...benefits should be discussed on the benefits forum..but in general threads is where Miss K`s methods are revealed..it would be strange not to reply inthat particular thread. Yes...this site is to help with money issues...but Miss K does not need any help with her money!! She receives her wages, her student funding, disability living allowance, enhanced tax credits re DLA, direct payments for her own care which she spends on an au pair, childcare addition to tax credits (and possibly student related also)..even for days she does not work and in addition to the fact that she has an au pair to care for her child, she self certified her own mortgage(well knowing that there is no way she will lose DLA as she knows how to play it), she is working her way to being a landlord - does she need help with money?? No...she has got it completely sorted. Would anyone mind if they thought she needed care..of course not! Miss K has a mother who was an underwriter for DLA ..Miss K finds a condition that is undiagnosed but in unpredictable and unproven so DLA kicks in ..strangely so does her brother (though she has no idea what he claims for!!) - Miss K needs no help with money ..in fact I am sure she has taught a few of us "jealous thickos" a thing or two ! Of course most people would not manipulate the benefit system in this way - but for Miss K it is getting her on the property ladder etc. She could open her own website ... howtogetDLAwithoutbeingdisabled.co.uk .. now THAT would make her a fortune!

Miss K hasn't denied it, the reason I mentioned the cars was because I found the whole thing so similar. How dare we question public money spent on benefits or cars. Its odds on she has a brand new car out of it too. I will not accept that this is bullying. Miss k is probably having a right good laugh at us now. At those of us that are annoyed by it (& can do nothing, but carry on paying) & at those that defend her (& don't mind keeping her & her au pair).

sarahlouise210

kimevans wrote: »

Miss K hasn't denied it, the reason I mentioned the cars was because I found the whole thing so similar. How dare we question public money spent on benefits or cars. Its odds on she has a brand new car out of it too. I will not accept that this is bullying. Miss k is probably having a right good laugh at us now. At those of us that are annoyed by it (& can do nothing, but carry on paying) & at those that defend her (& don't mind keeping her & her au pair).

To be fair Miss K has middle rate care and lower rate mobility so does not get provided with a car - but she does have a car which she is able to drive at times of her choice even though she has unpredictable blackouts!

only posted to stick up for miss K (on this occasion) as she does not get a mobility car...fair is fair. oh..how do I know - because she has told us just about everything!!!

kittiwoz

I was interested by the vitriol directed against missk_ensington so I had a look at the au-pair thread and I can see why you guys are so angry with her. Her comments make her sound absolutely awful and I'm sure she's someone I'd hate to meet. However, none of that has any relevance to this thread. A relevant reply would go something like this:

Cream sofa? What on earth made you think that was a good idea? You can ask to see a receipt for cleaning but ultimately you're just going to have to get new covers in a more appropriate colour. You could try contacting the manufacturers, otherwise you could find a local seamstress to make some covers up for you. The advantage of the second option is you can choose a fabric which is not only darker or patterned so that it won't wear so badly but also easy to clean. I would suggest Scotch Guard is also a very good idea. I don't think it is reasonable for you to charge the tenant. You'll just have to look on it as an investment in the further rental value of the property.

I can understand you being annoyed at the tenant smoking. I hate cigarette smoke and find the smell very pervasive but it is hard to see how you can charge her for the extra cleaning if she has cleaned already. You should not need to repaint the walls, it should be sufficient to wash them down with sugar soap. If the tenant has not done this I think it would be reasonable to request that they do or to charge them for the time taken to do that since I would say cigarette smoke is beyond reasonable wear and tear. I would say £7 an hour is a reasonable rate for washing the walls. Soft furnishings absorb smells particularly so carpets, curtains and sofas all need to be cleaned and vacuumed. Airing the flat by leaving windows and doors open (while someone is in obviously) should help. If you can get some activated charcoal (one of those fridge fresheners you get in the Lakeland catalogue or open up a water filter cartridge, it is much more effective than ordinary charcoal or baking soda) and leave that in a bowl for a couple of days that should help. If you do a search on the Old Style boards you will find a couple of threads about getting rid of the smell of cigarette smoke which might help.

Ultimately I think you have to accept that you cannot control the behaviour of your tenants in what is there own home for the period of the tenancy. You know that the property is going to be lived in and between tenants you are going to have to try to restore it to a state where it looks like it hasn't been lived in and you have to plan for that in terms of choosing appropriate furnishings and also in terms of budgeting. Your mother is receiving rental income on the house while at the same time the value of the property is growing. She has to expect to have some expenses too. She has to approach it as a business, not just expect money for old rope.

milkydrink

sarahlouise210 wrote: »

To be fair Miss K has middle rate care and lower rate mobility do does not get provided with a car - but she does have a car which she is able to drive at times of her choice even though she has unpredictable blackouts!

only posted to stick up for miss K (on this occasion) as she does not get a mobility car...fair is fair. oh..how do I know - because she has told us just about everything!!!

I suspose she can use the £150 a week she uses for the bed & board of her au pair to pay for her car, after deducting £15 for food of course.

I will not add anymore to this thread as I think anyone who is annoyed by it is just on a hiding/witch hunt from the PC brigade. But if any of you who defend it are tax payers think about where that little extra from your hard worked hours goes as you travel home from work weary.

thesaint

kimevans wrote: »

I suspose she can use the £150 a week she uses for the bed & board of her au pair to pay for her car, after deducting £15 for food of course.

I will not add anymore to this thread as I think anyone who is annoyed by it is just on a hiding/witch hunt from the PC brigade. But if any of you who defend it are tax payers think about where that little extra from your hard worked hours goes as you travel home from work weary.

Thank you for not posting on this thread from now(I honestly would thank you, but those damn forum glitches).

I do not support any benefit cheats, I find it abhorrent and cheats the most vulnerable of our society out of extra funds that could lift them out of dire situations, and I am of the opinion that those who you think are supporting the OP are of the same opinion as myself.

I will try and defend anyone who I feel is being harassed by a group of like minded (bullies?) individuals though.

Zara33

thesaint wrote: »

The OP may have used the words Au pair first in this thread, but it was alluded to many times before she took the bait and felt the need to defend herself from further bullying. It was one of the alleged bullies from the other thread who started pasting the OP's comments from another thread onto this one to carry it on here.

Oh shucks i guess that alleged bully is me then! because it was me who posted the part about her mother being an alleged lawyer, with x amount of properties who didn't know where she stood on wear and tear. :rolleyes:

I hope you don't treat all newcomers to this board the same way you have treated me certainly isn't very mse style now is it.

Doozergirl

thesaint wrote: »

I do not support any benefit cheats, I find it abhorrent and cheats the most vulnerable of our society out of extra funds that could lift them out of dire situations, and I am of the opinion that those who you think are supporting the OP are of the same opinion as myself.

I will try and defend anyone who I feel is being harassed by a group of like minded (bullies?) individuals though.

THANK YOU!

Zara33

epoman wrote: »

Nail. The. Head. On.

If some of you are so sure the OP is a benefits cheat then may I suggest that rather than set yourselves up as the Forum Police you simply go here:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/BenefitFraud/DG_10014876

If you do not have enough to trigger an investigation then you really have no cause to be making what are very serious allegations on this board.



Was it really necessary to be so condecending?



This is his Forum. The fact that he allows these bully boy tactics to hound people off the board is irresponsible.

Thanks for that link i will make it my civic duty to contact them and give all the details that Miss K has left on this forum and they can assess whether it's benefit fraud or not.

Guy_Montag

Zara33 wrote: »

Thanks for that link i will make it my civic duty to contact them and give all the details that Miss K has left on this forum and they can assess whether it's benefit fraud or not.

Please please please do!:T :T :T :T :T :T Hopefully they'll be able to get the IP address from where she was posting & trace her that way.

Zara33

Would love to carry on debating but...i have to collected my child from school and give him lunch.
:wave: