Tenant left us a mess

thequant

G_M wrote: »

"implies"? What if it states it does?

A worrying assertion, if true. I've never had to claim, and am not an insurance 'insider', so hesitate to question you on this - but it would certainly be useful (for me, and other landlords) to know.

A quick google produces:

Homelet policy document:

or see:

http://www.endsleigh.co.uk/Home/Landlords/Pages/landlords-insurance.aspx

Seems pretty clear. Doubtless there are conditions, but a blanket exclusion would be unenforcible (read challengeable in court) terms.

G_M the problem is the exclusions, so a document will say you are covered for X, but will then list Y,Z which are exlcuded. By the time you have gone through the exclusions you are not really covered for X.

The easiest example to demonstrate this is the "rent guarantee" product.

To be covered for this you have to follow all the correct protocols regarding serving notices.

95% people fall over on this, because you have to start the process of notices and eviction on the very day the tenant immediatly fails to pay the rent.

but lets say you do this, in an ideal world you have the tenant out in two months. with 1 & 1/2 months deposit and the excess on the policy you have nothing to claim on your policy.

effectively you are not covered, essentially and this one of the key tricks of this policy, the deposit money from the tenant effectively forms part of the excess.

tenant sh1ts on your £500 glass coffee table, the response "take out of the deposit".

because the policies are designed not to pay out, the claims are outsourced to a third party, who has a list of templated responses as to why your policy is not being paid out.

argomatt

Reue wrote: »

What exactly are you suggesting the landlord does? My last lettings agency attempted to "drop in" a few times and were always told to !!!!!! off and leave us alone.

The owners and agents are allowed to make periodic inspections of their property. The occupiers will be given notice of these inspections and invited to be at the property when they are carried out.

If they are not there, then the owner or agent can let themselves in to carry out the inspection.

If anybody had attempted to tell me to "!!!!!! off and leave us alone" then they'd probably find themselves being served notice to quit before long.

G_M

argomatt wrote: »

The owners and agents are allowed to make periodic inspections of their property. The occupiers will be given notice of these inspections and invited to be at the property when they are carried out.

If they are not there, then the owner or agent can let themselves in to carry out the inspection.

If anybody had attempted to tell me to "!!!!!! off and leave us alone" then they'd probably find themselves being served notice to quit before long.

1) that is not what the poster suggested. "Drop in" implies no notice.

2) Tenant still has option to decline access ("quiet enjoyment") even where notice is provided. There are multiple threads discussing the conflicting rights (LL/access Vs tenant/quiet enjoyment), but bottom line is LL should have either a court order or VERY compelling reason to enteragainst the express wishes of th tenant.

3) But yes, LL always has the option to serve a S21 in the appropriate time-frame.

YoungBusinessman

I obviously meant through the above practise, you could use a number of excuses. Even to talk about their lease or just any old excuse if you get in you can more or less see what's going on. Same if any problems you have to sort as a landlord or get someone you know in to do it then get them to have a spy about if you like. I'd notice chewed door frames and a massive skip.

PasturesNew

YoungBusinessman wrote: »

... make some drop ins so as soon as things go wrong, get on top of it.

Illegal. Could be had up for harrassment; could get a criminal conviction.

honey10

Our letting agent sends us a letter approx every 4 months to come and basically have a nosey. it works for us too, because anything that needs doing can be brought to their attention there and then and they can see we aren't doing anything illegal and that we are looking after the house as we signed to say we would.
We knew when we signed the agreement that they would do this, so if its written into the contract, why would you get annoyed?

sinbad182

PasturesNew wrote: »

Illegal. Could be had up for harrassment; could get a criminal conviction.

Behave for gods sake.

There's not a court in the land that would convict someone of harrassment for making a few 'drop ins'.

I'm not condoning unannounced visits from landlords, but let's not pass highly unrealistic anecdotes off as a genuine possibility.

G_M

sinbad182 wrote: »

Behave for gods sake.

There's not a court in the land that would convict someone of harrassment for making a few 'drop ins'.

I'm not condoning unannounced visits from landlords, but let's not pass highly unrealistic anecdotes off as a genuine possibility.

Illegal. Could be had up for harrassment; could get a criminal conviction.

Naturally a court would take into account the full circumstances. Harrassment can take many forms, but one aspect is exactly that: unannounced (and unwelcome) visits.

Of course much would also depend on the attitude taken during those visits (did the LL for example push passed the tenant at the door while the tenant was saying "Please goaway"?), and whether there were other actions contributing to harrassment.

Pastures was simply pointing out the potential risk, not saying that 2 or 3 friendly drop-ins would inevitably be harrassment.

I usually 'drop round' every year in the week before christmas with a bottle of wine for my tenants (assuming we've been on good terms!), and don't fear harrassment charges for this.

But if I did this without the wine, every week or two, purely to nose around, it would be a different kettle of fish!

ljane74

Thanks all. Well hubby has checked insurance he has. By luck he had changed his normal house insurance to landlord insurance when he decided to rent the place out and there is legal cover and accidental damage. He's going to speak to them on Monday to get more details so we may be in luck.
As we're using a company to manage the rental, hubby ask if he could drop in and he was told No in no uncertain terms. The company did make a couple of visits but as they had had to give the tenants notice they had relatively tidied up in time. We are changing management company as the ones concerned seem to be a bit useless. I don't know if recommendations are allowed but if anyone knows of a decent company........:)
Thank you all again for advice/discussion.

BitterAndTwisted

You might find that your insurers will be looking for categorical proof that the damage claimed for can be proven. Like a dual-signed inventory from the start of this tenancy and a check-out inventory as well.

Please don't count any chickens yet. And don't sack the agent until you have all the paper-work you need to start your claim.

What do you mean by "hubby ask if he could drop in and he was told No in no uncertain terms"? Pop round where?