Tenant has disabled his smoke alarm

[RachelDod]

We let out a small flat in london and my DH and I live in a rented flat as the flat we own is too small for us to live in and for various reasons we didn't want to sell it. We let it out fully managed through a very well known national estate agent and pay the full management fees.

At the beginning of November after a routine inspection by the estate agent they informed me the tenant has removed his smoke alarm from the flat. No reason given. I explained I needed him to put this back ASAP for obvious reasons, and also insurance etc and asked the letting agent to let me know when this had been done.

Since then I have chased twice and the property manager has said she has asked him to send a photo of it when it's back in place - he still hasn't. I'm very concerned about this and have emailed the property manager saying this and just get replies of "I haven't heard back from him".

Apart from a couple of months of late payments the tenant has been paying rent on time and the property (apart from this) seems to be being kept to a decent standard. What would you do in this situation? He is in a fixed term contract with another 8 months to run before a break clause.

You need to push your agency to sort this if it's fully managed. Inform them that he is in breach of contract and request that they send him a recorded letter telling him such; and asking him to replace the fire alarm and make an appointment within a month for someone from the agency to inspect.

You'll then need to get them to keep up inspections as documented in your contract agreement, incase he takes it straight back down. It may be worth asking the agent to enquire about why he removed it incase he is having issues that he didn't feel were big enough to bother you about; and fixed himself by removing the alarm. That is possible; many people fear eviction and don't want to contact their landlord needlessly. I did!

Even if he "puts it back" you'll never know whether it's been left in place or has batteries in unless you check all the time.

@NaiceShoes Thank you I suspected that, that's why I tried to outline our situation in the OP that it's not like I'm some kind of property magnate!

I think the property manager is letting me down here. I'm going to email her and say that this needs to be sorted ASAP and another inspection carried out. As far as I'm concerned as the tenant has deliberately damaged the property he is responsible financially for putting it right. If he won't do it I'll happily take it from his deposit but I'd rather not as there could be multiple things the deposit needs to cover.

I’m a landlord, I manage 6 properties and all I’d say is get a new property manager. Tenants do all sorts of things that it would be better they didn’t. I have all sorts of stories! But my issue is you are paying someone to manage and they aren’t. We stopped having someone manage ours as they weren’t doing a great job and not being honest with us, so I would review my position with the property manager first!

I have a few years experience as a landlord.

I'd be concerned WHY he removed it though - have you been able to check the flat yourself? I don't use agents, invariably they just make things more complicated.

Can you visit the property yourself while the tenant is home, at a pre-agreed, mutually agreeable time & date, and ask him?

I've done this as a tenant myself. The landlord had bought a cheap smoke alarm and positioned it badly so it went off at anything - even boiling the kettle (which I'm told shouldn't even be possible so it must have been an ancient thing). Have also lived in many places where the beeping of the battery dying has nearly driven me insane, we were very poor at the time and couldn't afford to waste the money on batteries - if he's missed a few rent payments he could be having similar financial issues.

To be honest though all of that is irrelevant to you , you pay a company to manage this, they should have the common sense to ask why he's done it and deal with the issues. I'd look for someone better or cut them out entirely as you're still doing all the work chasing they are meant to be saving you.

I only added my experiences because otherwise it's easy to assume he's smoking.