Money Moral Dilemma: Should I charge my tenant for damage?

tain

"Hi Mr or Ms Landlord, I can't figure out the cooker controls"

How on earth is breaking them more acceptable than this very brief conversation?

tindella

Can't believe you're even asking the question. Of course you shouldn't - if you didn't show her how things work, it's your fault! What kind of landlord are you?

Marvel1

tain wrote: »

I'm disagreeing with everyone here, on a number of grounds.

a) These caps can be quite expensive if you need to get the specific ones from the manufacturer. You can't just google any old generic one and assume them cheap things are the right ones. Have you ever tried to get a replacement shelf for your fridge? They're made from about 50p of plastic, yet they'll happily charge £80 for the replacement. That's one shelf, and you often have 2-4 of them.

b) You could assume that the tenant broke all 4 if it was a 4 hob cooker.

c) What if these caps were really darn obvious how to use, and the tenant is just throwing the 'you didn't show me' thing as an excuse? If it's the caps I'm thinking of, they're pretty straightforward.

d) What else does the landlord need to show the tenant just in case they break it? How to sit on the sofa properly? How not to put metal into the microwave? Explain to them that only the key you give them is suitable for the front door, and forcing the wrong key so the lock breaks isn't going to be acceptable?

I got a gas hob, turn on and done, no removing anything required, simple as one would expect.

Any other important details that is not simple as above you need to tell them.

Marvel1

tain wrote: »

"Hi Mr or Ms Landlord, I can't figure out the cooker controls"

How on earth is breaking them more acceptable than this very brief conversation?

Seems the landlord has great difficulty in relying the information in the first place.

JayD

No - it is your fault for not explaining how to use it in the first place.

stmartinsdiver

Definitely not. Instructions should have been left or explained to her when she took occupancy.

happyinflorida

Is this one of those really old fashioned gas cookers that has decorative caps on the top of each ring?


Is this what was damaged?


Need more information - as usual to be able to give an answer.


Firstly have you got a contract which states about damage done and what will happen if any damage is done by tenent?


If not, why not?


Why didn't you show your new tenent everything before they moved in or on the day they moved in?


If you're not going to show people how to use things, I would say it's not quite right to charge them for any damage.


Although these caps, if they're the ones I'm thinking of, are fairly obviously decorative and need to be removed, but possibly your tenent isn't of the highest intelligence or has very little experience, ie is very young, so this might be why the cap got damaged.


Learn from this, show them everything and how it works and ask if they need you to put notes around the house, on display, near each item that they're going to have a problem with using it, ie it's complicated.

tain

cjdavies wrote: »

Seems the landlord has great difficulty in relying the information in the first place.

That doesn't make any sense. In my example, the person trying to use the hob does the decent thing and asks, rather than just breaks it.

Can you imaging having a mate staying over "I couldn't get the TV to turn on, and now all the buttons at the back are smashed in"??

tain

cjdavies wrote: »

I got a gas hob, turn on and done, no removing anything required, simple as one would expect.

Any other important details that is not simple as above you need to tell them.

You're totally missing my point. This isn't about hand holding through their entire tenancy. It's about not breaking things just because you don't know how they operate.

Let me phrase it a different way:

The landlord could have done a much better job and told the person how to use the hob.

The tenant is still responsible because they damaged the landlord's property.

At no point does the landlord assume responsibility for the actions of someone else, and the lease agreement will very likely say the same. It's pretty simple - you don't get to break someone else's property just because you think you have a get-out clause when they didn't baby you through the whole process.

takman

tain wrote: »

That doesn't make any sense. In my example, the person trying to use the hob does the decent thing and asks, rather than just breaks it.

Can you imaging having a mate staying over "I couldn't get the TV to turn on, and now all the buttons at the back are smashed in"??

tain wrote: »

You're totally missing my point. This isn't about hand holding through their entire tenancy. It's about not breaking things just because you don't know how they operate.

But your are assuming they went to use the hob and were unsure of what they were doing and then tried several times to make it work.
The most likely scenario is they simply turned it on as you would a normal hob and the damaged occurred, not expecting that you need to remove something first.