Local Authority Dictating Home Decor

[geegee888]

The local authority for the city where I own a rental property has just introduced a new rule that the entire property has to be carpetted, for noise reasons. Not just mine, all flats and houses with 3 or more unrelated occupants.

I was wondering whether anyone considers this a good idea or whether the prevailing view is that its a breach of privacy? My tenants love their sanded wooden floors, they are easy to keep clean and hard wearing and practical, and suit the style and age of the property.

(this is on top of mains smoke alarms, co monitors, intumscent door seals, 30 minute fire resistant self closing doors, cookers chained to walls in case of toppling, annual inspections, fire safety action plans, fire extinguishers and fire blankets, special locks that cannot be locked from the inside in case of fire, only allowed to use a lease approved by the local authority, etc..

Price of doing business. Ex local authority flats are up to a 1/3 cheaper than those in private ownership. This is one of the reasons.

Get good underlay and cheap carpet. Get an impermeable barrier laid between them if possible. When tennants move out, assess the carpet and either professionally deep clean them or replace them.

I think it's a reasonable request for houses/flats above ground level, providing kitchens and bathrooms are exceptions to the rule.

If there is no one actuallty living below your flat (pub and take-away premises) then I would investigate an appeal as this does not seem reasonable in those circumstances, and you already have noise-deadening measures in place. Can you invite them round to inspect?

Its a listed building in a historic part of town. As a sensible, well educated mature adult who has been a landlord for many years, I would like to make decisions about my properties myself, to the benefit of my tenants and my business. Carpet in large rental properties is just vile and anything hard wearing just downgrades the look of the property. Believe me, if it was as easy as buying cheap hardwearing carpet which would last, I would have done it by now!

Apparantly the local counsellors voted on it against the property department's advice, and there are two law suits going ahead, so there is as yet hope. Really feel like selling up this time and investing abroad instead - does anyone know which countries don't have similar to the HMO Regulations!?! Surely there can't be an annual inspection anywhere else in the world and all this OTT treating tenants like children?

YANBU if they are insisting on CARPET in the kitchen AND bathroom

So, is this ex local authority rented accomodation or all rented accomodation?

Its nothing at all to do with ex local authority accomodation Raspberry. Its private.

What small town said - I think a lot of posters misread the OP.

OP, you may be able to argue an exemption based on commercial premises below and/or your special underlay.

I can totally understand banning laminate/wooden flooring in flats. If you've ever lived below someone with it you'd understand why. Making it compulsory in shared houses that aren't oficially split into maisonettes (creating an upstairs flat) I don't get.

Do any of the local councillors own carpet stores?

I would hate it. Carpets give me the heebie jeebies

It is important for flats above the ground floor though. Not many flats are designed well enough to counteract the affect of uncarpeted floors.

I have always wondered why so many private lets have cream carpets though. Isn't that terribly stressful for everyone involved?

LOL, quite possibly...whats the betting as soon as it starts, we get a card through our doors advertising a new business selling "HMO Specilalist Carpet Installers". It is the same local authority which has just had many employees charged with fraud over their Communal Repairs Scam Scheme, and should have had the same with their attempt at installing a Trams network...

"There will be no exemptions under any circumstances"...

With the ash deadening, thick floorboards with all gaps filled and strong 200 year old build quality, the noise insulation properties are actually extremely good.

Under what law are they making this requirement - the HHSRS whilst covering noise doesn't give them the power to have such policies?

Do you think they will really come round and check though?? so maybe you could just ignore it as you say, your on top of commercial property and your downstairs neighbours unlikely to complain so noone will ever know!

YANBU though its a ridiculous rule and i feel sorry for people who have to have carpet - it is much cleaner with hard floors. and if they expect people to have carpet in kitchen well that is just gross!!!!

We have lived under people with wooden floors before and yes we could hear them but big deal, I wasnt particullarly bothered by it and wouldnt expect them to have carpet just as i wouldnt expect myself to have carpet

The Civic Government (Scotland) Act and the Housing (Scotland) Act I believe, which give the local authorities very wide authority to issue Guidance. So the new ruling was actually made under the Guidance for HMOs - in other words, it has never been before Parliament but simply those counsellors who made the ruling at a committee meeting, although they don't have the power to legislate...

All sounds very dictatorial and undemocratic to me. I wonder if Parliament would actually pass a law stating that all HMOs must be carpetted?

They will check - it is inspected annually. They send round two inspectors to check that you still have six electrical sockets per bedroom, that your smoke alarms monthly testing logbook has been filled in, and the sealant on your bath is still in good condition, etc.. Entire massive local government department dedicated to it, employing hundreds.

I think it is reasonable. The (lovely) family that live above me have taken up their carpets and put down wooden floors. I've gone from not knowing they were there to hearing every knock and thump and scream of their two little boys. I'd be delighted if carpet was a regulation in our case.

That sounds fantastic. Hard surfaces on upper floors in flats are as anti-social as people who come home drunk at midnight and shout and slam doors.

Worse, because the drunks usually quickly pass out.

I'd also add the people who renovate houses and don't lay a single scrap of carpet to deaden the sound of footsteps, TV, scraping chairs etc. I've got one of those next door.

If you don't like dirt buy a Hoover or a detached house.

Oh, just noticed that you are a private landlord with a portfolio of properties geegee

Homes Under the Hammer has great deal to answer for.

Oh really then what a waste of money them actually sending people round annually to check for carpet. can think of much better use of everyone's council tax than that!
Is it only applying to scotland?

cream carpet is actually not too bad to keep clean. never heard of rug doctor and such like?

op you have my limited sympathy, because of the location of this particular flat. but really, you are a professional landlord and should be professional about things like this.

The carpet issue aside, it is good to see Local Authorities policing landlords with some sort of vigour.

I have had nearly a decade and a half of dealing with crap landlords who range from the merely lazy to the actively crooked. With the exception of our currently landlady who has been great, the attitude of every single landlord I've come across is to cream as much money off their tenants and to turn a deaf ear to repairs and the most basic maintenance of the property. T

A plague on all of them.

Firawla, the regulations were brought in, I think, after a fire where three students died in a flat with bars on the window in Glasgow. Too many landlords were renting out unsafe accommodation in certain areas of city - charging vast amounts for rent, and becoming rich while their properties were death traps.

Annual inspections are a good thing, and when my DS moves out to go to uni, I will sleep easier knowing that his flat will be registered and inspected.

Never heard I'd rug doctor and such like?

Did you mean to sound so rude?

firawla The council don't need to send anyone round until someone complains about noise nuisance. If they find there's no carpet despite specifying it, then that's it.

By the way, most companies who sell magical noise-deadening stuff to go under laminate are lying.

There are some very effective noise deadening materials but they cost more than private landlords looking to make as much money for as little outlay as possible are willing to pay.

BTW OP if your tenants are the type to tread food into the carpet, noise won't be the only thing that drives the neighbours mad. Decaying food attracts vermin even if it's not mashed into the shag pile.

If you can't afford to make your business model work with the kind of tenants you attract then you're going to have to get into another business.