Our tenants have broken their bed

[TrickyD]

It is one of those ones which have a lot of slats each resting on a little ledge. The ledge came off so the slat fell.
Is this something that the tenants should normally pay to get fixed?
No doubt, despite it being a very small job, any handyman would charge around £60.
Unfortunately the property is 96 miles from our home, else DH would pop over equipped with hammer and nails.
They are nice tenants, so we will probably pay, but what normally happens when breakages like this happen?

I have a slat bed which is fine, and I shag fairly often. Not all slat beds are like that. 😂

I'm a bit pissed off now though, cuz years ago I rented a flat with a really crap ikea futon-type sofa. It broke and the landlady took the cost off my deposit.

Bloody Hell ameliajoan, I didn’t say I thought tenants should pay, I just asked what normally happened about this sort of breakage,

You could have just read the OP.

I've never broken a slatted bed, but it depends on the slats I suppose. I have 5 beds, all with slats and I Airbnb the house too. Never lost a slat yet. The big bedsteads are all 20+ years old too, (although the mattresses are new).

@TrickyD

Bloody Hell ameliajoan, I didn’t say I thought tenants should pay, I just asked what normally happened about this sort of breakage,

You could have just read the OP.

I’ve read your OP and all your subsequent replies.

Even if you didn’t know, they are your items. Why, even for a brief moment, would you think they should pay for your items?

@TrickyD

Thank you for your concern, Scruffymac, I am sure you will be disappointed to hear that all deposits are lawfully registered.

And before you ask, all gas and electricity checks are up to date.

In your own words , it sounds like you are making quite unjustifiable deductions.

Anything else you want to you to query?

Do you pay your income tax too 🤣

(Sorry, that's another classic aimed at landlords).

As an aside, as an ex-AST landlord, if the slats has broken, I would expect the tenant to replace, but the side rail is wear & tear. As a tenant, I would have got the screwdriver out.

As an aside, as an ex-AST landlord, if the slats has broken, I would expect the tenant to replace, but the side rail is wear & tear. As a tenant, I would have got the screwdriver out.

Notwiththeseknees It’s not their bed. The bed belongs to the OP so of course she should pay.

It’s not often a good idea for tenants to try their own repairs in case they go wrong and they’re liable for more damage.

Even if you didn’t know, they are your items. Why, even for a brief moment, would you think they should pay for your items?

Because I am a grasping cow grinding the faces of those unfortunate to have to rent my shitty house with its fragile unsuitable beds and determined to extract the last penny from them.

@ameliajoan

As an aside, as an ex-AST landlord, if the slats has broken, I would expect the tenant to replace, but the side rail is wear & tear. As a tenant, I would have got the screwdriver out.

Notwiththeseknees It’s not their bed. The bed belongs to the OP so of course she should pay.

It’s not often a good idea for tenants to try their own repairs in case they go wrong and they’re liable for more damage.

Don't be ridiculous. So the LL supplies a good sofa, tenant trashes it so LL replaces? In your dreams.

Is it always the case that if a tenant breaks something, then the landlord is responsible? I find that quite shocking.
I would expect to come to a mutual agreement about the condition of furniture etc, so that there is concensus about reasonable wear and tear (landlord's responsibility) and damage - wilful or accidental (tenant's responsibility)
Can see why it's so expensive to rent if landlords have to cover all costs like that. They must have to factor it in to the rent

It's not clear. Eg my son's tenants just broke the toiler and the shower head/arm and I paid £400 although clearly they broke them and they are quite new and were fine. I suspect they had a row in there or something but just seemed simpler for me to pay as is never very clear what is wear and tear and what is not. On the other hand my student twins in 4 rented houses in the last few years every single year the landlord has deducted lots for things that had been broken.

@TrickyD

Even if you didn’t know, they are your items. Why, even for a brief moment, would you think they should pay for your items?

Because I am a grasping cow grinding the faces of those unfortunate to have to rent my shitty house with its fragile unsuitable beds and determined to extract the last penny from them.

😂😂😂 OP! 🤣

I have acknowledged that we are responsible for the bed, and as they are nice tenants we are not going to make a fuss about it, but this does not seem to have sunk in to certain posters

I bet you're wishing you'd never bothered asking, Tricky

Even if you didn’t know, they are your items. Why, even for a brief moment, would you think they should pay for your items?

Because I am a grasping cow grinding the faces of those unfortunate to have to rent my shitty house with its fragile unsuitable beds and determined to extract the last penny from them

A woman after my own heart!

If they broke it (as opposed to wear and tear) they should fix it. I broke my bed and it was simply a case of tightening screws

Is it an IKEA Malm bed? They are notorious for the slats dropping off the little mental shelf. Easy fixes on google.

SchadenfreudePersonified I certainly didn’t expect to have three pages of replies. I thought that when I said, about six posts in, that I understood I was responsible and would pay and replace, everyone would be happy and go away..

Forlorn hope!

The landlord is responsible for maintaining furniture and appliances etc if they choose to let a property as furnished @Whenwillow. They can always let the proerty as unfurnished. If the tenants break something through negligence, the landlord can charge them, but not if it just breaks from wear and tear or the tenant was using the item in a normal/correct way.

Do you not even know us Tricky? How naive you were!

Only another 37 pages to go before people move on to another victim.

Yes SchadenfreudePersonified, I might just as well have posted on AIBU Posters might even have been more civil.

To be honest OP, you are obviously going to get criticised because even though you have agreed to pay, not knowing the basics like this is very bad when you are a landlord. This is a major problem now, people becoming landlords without informing themselves of their responsibilities. I think maybe there should be some sort of driving test equivalent that people take before becoming landlords.

Clearly now you know that it is your responsibility to repair the things at you provide, whether that is the property itself or the furniture you provide. If you can prove that it was not normal wear and tear that might be different. This also applies to breakages after tenants leave. It is hard to prove they are not wear and tear.

There are other things I am not sure about (but you should be) like carpets for example...I have a feeling that after four years a rental carpet is deemed to have no value and so even deliberate damage could not be charged for.

Well OP. I think you should replace it.

I will come back every half hour to tell you, just so you're clear.

"I have acknowledged that we are responsible for the bed, and as they are nice tenants we are not going to make a fuss about it"

I dont understand. What would there be to make a fuss about?

Jeez that would take about ten minutes to fix, I can’t believe they bothered you
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