To expect a landlord to have told us this before signing lease?

[Lexi334]

Moved into a rental a couple of months ago. Let through a large local letting agent.
We viewed the property with the agent, submitted our application then the landlord requested to meet us herself so we came for a second viewing at the property with the landlord. We were here for an hour while she showed us a round and generally chatted about the property.
We got the keys a couple of weeks later and came into the property to find a “handbook” with all kinds of requests to do with the house:

• which garden plans should be watered on which days, and when each particular plant should be pruned


• under what circumstances we can/can’t use the outdoor access to our back garden (mid terrace) - allowed to walk round the side once per week to take bin out and once to take bin back. No other access for any reason!


• boiler pressure needs to be topped up every 5/6 days - it’s in the attic 🙄

Pretty annoying and odd but it is what it is.

I arrived home from work a couple of weeks ago to find a Gardner in cutting the grass in the back garden. When I asked him what he was doing there he said the landlord asked him to continue doing the front and back gardens - grass cut, borders tidied and weeded, pots maintained - at a cost of £40 per fortnight “to be paid in cash or by bank transfer by tenant” is what she’s emailed him.

Not long after I’ve had a window cleaner put a note through the door saying the windows were cleaned and we now owe 2 payments. It’s £12 per fortnight. Again, contacted them and the landlord has requested it. Again, to be paid by the tenant.

Ive spoken to the letting agent who contacted her (this process takes about 10 days to get a reply back 🙄) and she says this is regarded as “general upkeep” that we need to do on the property and she prefers it done to her standard by a “trusted professional”. So on top of the rent that I’m paying (which is already very high for the area), she expects over £100 a month to be paid in “general upkeep” too.

Surely this should have been disclosed before entering into a lease? Obviously I planned on maintaining the windows/garden etc but surely it should be my choice as to whether I do that myself or pay someone else to do it?

The boiler thing doesn’t sound good. We had to constantly top up the boiler, eventually it deteriorated to every 2 days and then every time we put the heating on.

It can be indicative of a leak but in our case it wasn’t, we needed a new boiler. I can’t remember which part it was that had broken but it was basically the same price for a new boiler.

Make sure you flag the boiler issue and request it is investigated and repaired (or replaced). Not acceptable to top it up constantly.

LL (and ex-tenant) here.

No, you don’t have to pay this.

Either LL pays direct, or you pay less rent.

under what circumstances we can/can’t use the outdoor access to our back garden (mid terrace) - allowed to walk round the side once per week to take bin out and once to take bin back. No other access for any reason!

That bit is probably written into the deeds of the property. I would not expect anything else to be honest in a mid terrace. We once lived in a similar house where there was right of access for bins and maintenance etc, not the right to traipse through your neighbour garden all the time.

She has no right to impose all that and will be the landlord from hell if she gets away with this. The letting agent needs to explain to her that she can’t do this.

She sounds like high maintenance!

The gardener and window cleaner are just a bit batshit.

As for the boiler, we had a boiler you needed to top up every couple of weeks for 8 years. In that time we had a number of heating engineers come out, many appeared to fix the issue, none actually did. One guy said that if we wanted to get it totally fixed we would need to replace the entire central heating and hot water system (pipes, radiators the lot) because the leak was so small it was unidentifiable. Obviously replacing the entire system would have been a huge disruption, lifting carpets and floorboard, channeling out walls, plastering, redecorating etc. We felt the inconvenience of topping it up every so often was less than the inconvenience of the whole new system however as home owners we could make that decision, had we been landlords we would have out the whole new system in between lets.

Good grief OP. I've been privately renting for 24 years and have never experienced anything like this.

The most extreme I've had is not to leave the house while the washing machine is on. This was an extra requirement added to the tenancy agreement.

Our boiler needs topping up, you just adjust a valve, it's a sealed system and perfectly normal. Something to do with water pressure. Newish house do not limping along.

Yes, I assume this is a covenant.

Wholly unreasonable.

Unless specified in the AST, it’s not contractual. Suggest you email her and ask her to stop these works or if she continues them they will be at her cost.

Ask to speak to the letting agency manager/owner asap and ask why they're giving you a fait accompli when they (should) know full well they cannot.

Say that you would never have entered into the contract had you known the LL was batshit there were going to be unreasonably onerous conditions.

Have you already paid the agency fee?

You do not need to pay for her gardeners and window cleaners. You do not have to grant access to them either. You do not have to water her plants. You do not have to top up the boiler, they need to fix the boiler.

They're mugging you off and you need to say no to all of it.

LampLighter414 · Today 13:42
Tory Britain

Have you wandered in from the Daily Mail comments section by any chance?

You can't impose a contract on a 3rd party so as has been said up thread, she can't enter into a contract (verbal or otherwise) with a gardener and window cleaner and tell then to collect payment from you. We'd all be doing it!!

Well the good news for you is that you can legally ignore all this nonsense.
We once rented our house out and had the big hedges cut twice a year but we paid for this as landlords.

I wouldn’t be paying for any of that!

She sounds a nightmare ☹️

As PPs said not binding, especially if not in contract.

I would expect to be made aware of any covenants before signing as these form the material facts upon which you decide to offer and sign the contract.

Hopefully she will pull her head in and the rest of your tenancy will be ok (IME sadly not great odds but one can hope) but if you want to reconsider and look for an escape from the tenancy have a look here at Shelter england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/housing_options/private_renting/tenant_remedies_for_unfair_trading_practices

It may be that you can unwind the contract if they have acted unfairly - unfair actions include misleading/ withholding necessary information, harassment etc.

Good luck with it all

God no, I wouldn't pay for that. It should have been incorporated into the rent if she wanted it.

The landlord took out the contract with these people so it’s up to her to pay them. To be fair, when I was a landlord I did the same, having a gardener, but just wrote the cost into the rent.

The access thing is totally fine and standard for a mid terrace - it would be the same for an owner occupier. The rest is batshit and she can get lost.

I would imagine the neighbours either side have requested that tenants only come through their gardens once a week. They may well have had problems from previous tenants wandering through at all hours. I would talk to your neighbours and see what they say. The other stuff is non enforceable by anyone. If she is letting the house out then the garden should be appropriate for that. I love gardening but I am retired and have the time to devote to it. When I was a fulltime teacher with 2 small children and no husband I wanted a garden I could keep tidy with 10 minutes work and nothing more. If her garden is precious then she needs to pay for its upkeep or accept that you will keep it tidy but no more. Window cleaners are hard to find so probably worth keeping if you can afford it.

The access thing is likely genuine as other PPs have pointed out. The other points are not, especially if they aren’t in your contract!

Absolutely this!

When I rented, the landlady would send her gardeners once or twice a year to trim everything back and tidy up, it was great - BUT - she ALWAYS made sure that the gardeners came with my knowledge and agreement. She paid for them.

Window cleaners I instructed, and I paid for, that was my choice

You need to go back to the Letting agent and tell them what @malmi says, this is indeed the correct advice. You are not obligated to pay for anything above and beyond the rent. You do not have a contract with the gardener or the window cleaner, so you will not be taking this over. If she wants to continue these services, she pays for them. HOWEVER the visits must be agreed with you in advance.

If you are in any doubt at all, speak to Shelter, they are BRILLIANT

I'd also say a pile of bollocks to the crap about the path! USE the outside access to your sodding garden whenever you want! it's your garden, you're paying for it. that sounds like some bollocks concocted by the LL and the sodding neighbours.

You should also use your back garden as much as you want. She is ridiculous. The letting agents must know this is bollocks. They're just hoping you don't know that!

I had all kinds of trouble when the previous LL tried to get me to pay her property service charge. I tried to tell her that it's a bill not in my name, that it could not be transferred into my name and was part of the cost of ownership of the property and that renting the house would cover it.

In the next house I lived in (with the gardeners etc) I never even saw the invoice of the service charge, it was all taken care of by the (really decent) LL.

Hope you get a decent response OP

As a landlord, I think that's bonkers! As well as completely illegal...