What are landlord forumites doing with tenants?

Kostandia

A question to members who rent out property and if Martin Lewis team can advice: I'm desperately worried about my rental property over this winter. If the 3 tenants don't put the heating on regularly enough because of the high costs this winter, there will be a massive problem with damp, mould & condensation building up inside. What on earth do we advise tenants to do? Its a terrible situation. I have always advised my tenants to keep the house warm and ventilate during winter months (especially bedrooms where they keep the doors closed and drying wet laundry inside). But if tenants put very little heating on this winter, it's a recipe for disaster in terms of increased interior damp triggering mould growth. What on earth do we landords do? 

Ps. for any of those who get narky about landlords...this is not a personal profit rental, it's my very elderly mum's little cottage now rented to pay for her extensive care & dementia costs. Every penny of rent & much of my income goes to mum's care, including me caring part-time. 'wealthy landlord"?... No...not straining the NHS. So please be kind and focus on my genuine question.

in_my_wellies

My friend rents in the village. After a discussion her landlord has just provided her with a fancy new washing line, fixed up an outside line for drying undercover, pegs and hangers. 
She hopes she'll be able to dry outside all winter and rarely use the tumble dryer or dry inside. 
Hopefully both tenant and landlord will benefit 

chris_n

I don't know the answer to your question but I can see nearly as many threads where tenants are saying they have mould issues and the landlord says its their fault as we have about energy bills!

MattMattMattUK

Ultimately if tenants damage the property the you evict them, you retain as much of the deposit and/or take them to court to obtain the funds to rectify. 

Mstty

Ultimately, a lot like covid, there is a decent amount of compassion and care for Tennant's if they are open and honest about their situation.

If they approach us with issues we will do our best to help them get through.

However with most on Universal Credit and working they should have enough extra money with the current handouts to get through.

Mrs T (no relation to Mr) will announce her new measures within one week of taking office.

I suspect our UC tenants will be fine.

[Deleted User]

Putting aside your circumstances for renting, then the business-like thing to do is to reduce the tenant's rent or contribute to the energy bills.

If it would cost you say £1000 to remedy mould and damp after the tenancy ends, then give the tenants £500 towards energy bills and you will both profit from the situation.

macman

3 tenants: is this an HMO, or a joint tenancy?

Grumpy_chap

Mstty said:

Mrs T (no relation to Mr) will announce her new measures within one week of taking office.

When I read that line, I immediately thought of Maggie and wondered what she had to do with it.

It took a while to sink in that we will soon have a new Mrs T in charge.

Swipe

As long as they don't dry washing inside, having the heating off won't cause any damage as long as they wipe any condensation off the windows in a morning and air rooms on a dry day for 10 mins. Source: I heated just one room for 12 years in my previous detached bungalow and no damage sustained.

ispookie666

I saw this last year, mould around windows.  When the tenant vacated, I went around spraying mould spray.  Maybe next time i'll use bathroom paint for the rooms.  I'm hoping the PIV ventilation unit will help reduce the damp.  
The only added bonus for my tenants - I have 3.5KWp solar panels installed and i hope their electric bill is a lot lower due to this and they are being wise and using electric when the sun shines.  The worst month used to be decemeber with average of 3KW generation per day.  

ispookie666

Swipe said:

As long as they don't dry washing inside, having the heating off won't cause any damage as long as they wipe any condensation off the windows in a morning and air rooms on a dry day for 10 mins. Source: I heated just one room for 12 years in my previous detached bungalow and no damage sustained.

Many moons ago when I was renting,  used to dry clothes in one of the rooms and the window used to be open 24x7, never heated the room.  Worked really well.