Newbie Landlord Question - tenant request

mlz1413

I'm with the majority these people sound like a nightmare that's started happening.

You're allowing pets and they can't even fill and paint a 6" piece of blown plaster!

Put your foot down this is how they agreed to rent it and if they wanted something different they should have said at the start. If they don't like it they can leave the deposit and take a hike.

PayDay

I painted the house before my tenants moved in. Nowdays they paint it and I pay for the paint. The colour doesn't bother me. They sort the repairs out too and if they need a tradesman, they take deduct the bill from the rent. It works well for us and they have been in the house for years.

There are over 1 million buy to let mortgages in the UK and then add on those that rent on a residential mortgage. I believe it is still a tenant market.

Aiko_2

Thank you all for your comments - I really appreciate it.

After a restless night we've decided to offer to waive the rent for ten days to allow them to paint whilst living elsewhere if they will sign now.

This isn't what I want to do. I'd like to get down there and paint it myself but we've moved to the US now so can't do it. I've ruled out family and friends for assorted reasons - time factors, poor decorating skills(!), already presumed upon them too much etc - so we'd have to get professionals in on their schedule - so we'd lose the rent money anyway and have to pay for the service on top of that.

My second choice would be to find other tenants but it's so late in the day and not a bog-standard easy house to rent (you wouldn't choose it if you were a BTL'er) and the house insurance will refuse to cover us if the house is unoccupied. If I'd known this was coming I'd have continued to market the house for other prospective tenants but when I rang other letting agencies yesterday they were as vague as you'd expect. Yeah they might have someone but when pushed on specifics it all became nebulous and it was clear they were just spouting lines to reel me in.
It's a bird-in-the-hand situation and the tenants know how to play it.

So I'm waiting now to see what the tenants response is. If they have another card to play.
Doing this seems like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea - loss of rent which could be long term vs alarm-bell tenants but I don't want to lose rent at this stage.
The rent for our house is going towards the rent here and although we have a company expense package for this first year which covers some void periods and relocation expenses, I'm afraid to start off on that foot from the beginning especially when we have so many start-up costs in the US right now. It's just too stressful. When we're sorted then we may well feel differently.

Reading all your comments and warnings (thanks, forewarned is forearmed), I'm not at all comfortable with our decision to try to apease these tenants but I really hope it's the lesser evil in the current set of circumstances.
But if it all goes tits-up then it's good to know you guys are there to hear my woes!

chappers

All I would say is be very careful of letting tenants paint your property.
Their idea of an acceptable standard could be way off everyone elses and then when you come to find new tenants you may find that the place needs doing anyway due to their shoddy work.
If you are going to go down this route make sure they use a colour scheme approved by you in the first place and have it written into the inventory.
With regards to choosing tenants it is difficult, good tenants are not always easy to find and i would go out of my way to keep them happy, however bad, pain in the ar5e tenants are never worth the hassel. i would rather lose acouple of months rent to find decent tennants rather then jump in with bad ones,I appreciate it's hard to tell, these people may be model tenants once they have got what they want. Just be sure you have the right people in, particularly as you are living so far away.
Do you have an agent working for you, if so insist on regular contact with them and make sure they keep you fully updated of the rent situation and let you know as soon as any rent arrears occur.

clutton_2

if you are living abroad then legally you have to have a uk manager for the property.

i would not touch these tenants with a bargepole myself - especially now i know you are abroad -

how on earth you are going to self-manage extraordinarily demanding tenants like these from overseas is a mystery to me ......

Bungarm2001

I have to add my two pennorth to this..they are in my humble opinion royally taking the pi$$ Gawd knows what they will come up with later on in the tenancy...like others on here I would have told them to get lost, but then again, I am in the UK and can pretty much be at the door within a couple of hours of any of our properties, so I can see why you are under pressure.

Do these tenants know that you are abroad??

I hope you have someone competent to look after your interests here while you are away. I too have to point out that by law, you have to provide a UK address as a contact.

PayDay

As the property hasn't been decorated recently, what is wrong with getting the house decorated? I confess to being slightly shocked when reading this thread to find that many LLs don't want to look after their assets

chappers

It's not about neglecting your assets, if the property is in a fair state of decoration then why should the LL have to decorate it.
My own house hasn't been decorated for over 5 years and is apart from the hallway is still in the same state of decoration as when it was last decorated.
The new tenants viewed the house over a month ago and said they wanted to rent it. they saw it's current state at the time, now a few days before they want to move in they are demanding the LL decorate the place.I think he has been more than reasonable offering them a 10 day rent free period to decorate the house (I hope they do a decent job).