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..

You're going to put the rent up by 3-400£ a month? Are you new to this or just really bad at it? In your dreams you are!

I'll also have to put the rent up by around £300-400 per month as theres no way I can afford to carpet 8 rooms including living room and kitchen. Or sell it.

It will cost you at least £3600 a year to carpet 8 rooms? I think not. And renting to students doesn't automatically mean you have to replace it every year or two - as new tenants come in, take the state of the carpet into account on the inventory (and, obviously, don't then use it against them to lop off a load of their deposit). Even spending less than £3600 will allow you to get decent carpet that can be cleaned and last a lot longer than two years.

Firawala the dictat on carpets applies only to Edinburgh.

The fire in the flat in Glasgow resulted in deaths because there were metal bars across the windows of the basement rooms, preventing them being used as fire escapes, and they had piled so much rubbish in front of the actual back door, that they were unable to use it. Ironically Glasgow was the only local authority at the time to have the HMO Licensing system in place, but this was an unregistered property.

All other major fatal house fires in Scotland since, and there have been several, have involved council houses let to families, which are subject to far less stringent requirements than HMOs.

First time I'd heard that two makes a "portfolio"!

The kind of tenant I rent to is young and not particularly good at keeping a home to Martha Stewart standards. They generally aren't evil or bad tenants, but carpets is not something that is going to work long term with them from a hygiene point of view. Its just madness. Its not possible to force people to hoover or have high standards of housekeeping - unless of course you actually moved in with them, gave up work and personal relationships and became their personal concierge.

My business model can't work because of ridiculous and constantly changing levels of government interference. It would challenge any business, as it allows for no business certainty or financial planning.

I've never heard of such a law in this country (England)

I think it will cost at least £3600 - the flat is 2400 square feet. And the underlay has to be a very thick, high quality to satisfy the requirements. If I put in cheap rubbish carpet it really will be an annual cost as it just won't last.

In previous experience, when I took the carpets out, you simply cannot remove trodden in chewing gum, really bad sick stains that haven't been removed at point of impact, cigarette burns, and certain food stains, by cleaning carpets. So you either get into the situation of the carpets deteriorating quite quickly or demanding carpets are replaced at tenant's cost if damaged at all.

Whereas with the wooden floors, they are hardwearing and easily cleaned. And look less like a dosshouse...funnily enough, I like to provide accommodation that nice people would actually enjoy living in.

I agree that it's very stressful making sure people do things properly. But this is your business and whether you own two or 200 properties it's usually described as a property portfolio, generally by the people who own them.

If you can't adapt to the rules then I'm afraid you'll just have to give up the business and do something else.

Someone will buy your properties, even if you have to sell them at a loss to another private landlord who uses the discount to accommodate the cost of complying with the new regulations.

Or you could sell to people who plan to be owner-occupiers. It doesn't really matter what they plan to do with them after you've gone.

Its not "doing things properly" - the flat is already licensed and inspected to the nth degree. The tenants can't even smoke a cigarette in it or you deafened by the smoke alarms. "Doing things properly" is providing an environment which is clean and a non-deteriorating standard each year to tenants moving in - which wooden floors enable and dingy, dark carpets slowly deteriorating do not.

I think the problem is particularly a Scottish one, and to do with the way they want to run the country and Scottish politics, which seems to involve a desire to be involved in every tiny part of everyone's lives.

I honestly wonder when they will demand spy cameras to be erected in HMOs, so our tenants can be watched going about their daily activities.

Its not new regulations either - its new Guidance. This is not a law which has been passed by Parliament.

You get though that you can't just add 400 quid a month to the rent because thats what you spend? If the flat could attract anywhere near that, it would already, ergo it can't.
Landlord 101.

It's outrageous that they are forcing this upon private LLs and tennants. It's a great idea in council properties where the tennants should provide their own carpets when they wear out, but it is far too nanny state to force it on private rentals.

Could you charge a higher deposit and take some of that if there are stains and cigarette burns and the like after each tennancy ends?

I'm pretty sure actually I could add that or more to the rent and still get it. My tenants each year tell me its harder and harder to find a 6 bedroom HMO in Edinburgh. For the last 3 years, we've had groups trying to outbid each other, although I stuck to my original first offer. Believe it or not (I know some think landlords the spawn of the devil), I don't want to be greedy.

Would also have to ask for a much larger deposit to take into account the possible replacement of carpets.

What local government don't seem to get is that someone, somewhere, has to pay for all their whimsical ideas.

Meant to say, they find it hard to find a 6 or even 5 person HMO in central Edinburgh because so many landlords sold up after they enforced the sprinkler system ruling on double uppers - they are now such a rarity that the remaining ones are like hen's teeth, yet groups of young people do want to live together in shared flats. Although the Scottish Government seems to want them to stay at home.

My tenants are invariably English, coming to Scotland to study.

Guidance is not rules. Is it?

Agree about carpets being dingy, unless you have no children, no animals, remove your shoes as you walk past the door or... vacuum clean a lot.

I think if such role is enforced the amount of rental properties that accept children will be considerably reduced, at the end of the day you don't want to b changing the carpets between tenants, or finding tenants who are not bothered to see a dingy carpet in their "new" home.

Outraged, it's not all landlords - just those that own a HMO - house Of multiple occupancy - where three or more unrelated people live, usually students or migrant workers who rent a lockable bedroom and share kitchen and bathroom facilities.

It is the very worst kind of rented property to live next to, as the inhabitants are often transient and often don't give a shit about disposing of rubbish properly etc, and don't have an interest in keeping communal areas nice.

I'm not saying all HMO tenants are like this, but many are.

Actually Agent Provocateur", the Guidance statest that bedrooms in HMOs in Edinburgh must not* have working door locks fitted.

The tenants are not in the least transient, as they stay for between one and three years, neither are they migrant workers. They are the doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, historians and social workers of the future.

What about kitchens and bathrooms?

DH woke the poor lady down stairs every morning at stupid O'clock because of his size 11 boots walking across the kitchen.

Easily fixed, he left his shoes off until after breakfast.

However I realy don't facy kitchen carpet in any where, but certainly not in a student flat.

Agent, thanks.

I don't think it matters though, a private arrangement is a private arrangement. I don't see what difference it makes how many people live in a property.

Under five minutes on Google = Commercial property underlay plus hard wearing carpets, including professional fitting, for 2500 square foot = £2,085. I certainly didn't pick even close to the cheapest underlay or carpet. You don't have to replace underlay every time you replace carpet and you keep saying you provide nice places to live thereby inducing people to keep it nice. I fail to understand why carpets immediately mean chewing gum, fag burns (when they can't smoke in your properties - your words) and rodents.

Point taken. But the ones I know of have various tenants who don't kn

I laughed at the idea that decisions taken by locally elected representatives are undemocratic, apparently because you disagree with them.

Well, its not exactly going to look like a nice period property any more with commercial quality carpetting, is it Toast? It downgrades the whole property.

The other HMO I have is carpetted, although we started removing the carpets and sanding the floors, and it is far harder to clean and present in a good condition after the tenants move out than the non-carpetted one. It just looks a bit of a mess unless you change the carpets every two years.

I do think cities should be for a variety of people to live in, not just a nice middle class, Boden wearing sector of it. Partcularly those city locations where familes wouldn't necessarily want to live, such as above licensed premises.

Sorry - don't know each other, and live very much as a single person in a shard flat with no communal responsibility. I did say not all are like this, but some inevitably are

Does the person exist who never spills anything in their kitchen?

Carpets wear ut faster than hard floors no matter how meticulously clean the people using it are.

I'm a student living in a nice period property in an area of town 'nice middle class Boden wearing' people generally avoid. I said commerical quality, not commerical appearence - ie. easy to clean and very hard wearing. I chose a sensible, plain colour, in a wool blend. Far better than the carpet in my flat (where there is also a cat and I don't take my shoes off) which certainly won't need replacing within the next 6 months (two years old at that point).

You started the thread to ask if it was a good idea, lots of people said it was (kitchen and bathroom issues excluded, I agree carpets in those rooms is far from ideal). Now you're just whining.

If your tenants trample food and chewing gum into the carpets then keep their deposits and find better tenants who obey your rules, which is what I meant by 'doing things properly'. If you still can't make the business viable then you are going to have to find another business.

I live in a London borough which has very tough regulations on entertainment outlets because they have a potential to be very bad neighbours.

There's no way I'd want to run a restaurant here because of all the regulations on hygiene, noise, opening and closing times, fire, fume extraction, alcohol licensing etc.

It's simply not what I do and I don't want to learn how to do it properly.

I do live next door to one though. It's no problem presumably because the owners took all that into account before they opened it.

Actually, there were some teething problems. It was empty for the first three years which made it as silent as the grave. Unfortunately living next door to an unoccupied building has its own problems so I wasn't that upset when people took it over.

It was noisy at first but after I mentioned it they took steps to put down proper noise insulation on the floors, put cloths on the tables, turned the music down and asked people to keep it down when leaving.

They are no trouble at all.

It can be done if you are willing to follow the local authority's rules which are in place for everyone in the community whether they live there or make their money out of it.

Look LimitedPeriod, when I was buying my flat in Edinburgh, I nearly bought one next to a licensed brothel (in all but name, its actually called a sauna). There are loads in this area, which is one of the most central parts. Its incredible what they will and will not allow in Edinburgh. They are mad keen on noise reduction, yet introducing a tram network (apparantly) and have no problems with brothels in operating in city centre streets - there are actually three of those within 1km of my flat.