Tenant sent the builder home!

[Ilovemychocolate]

I am a landlord, and rent a house out to a young couple.
There is some urgent work that needs doing to it, so I arranged for a builder to attend the property yesterday and today to carry out the work, at my expense obviously.
At lunchtime the tenant sent the builder home, as her cat had escaped and she said the cat wouldn’t return if the builder was in the house, he was plastering so hardly creating a huge amount of noise.
Not withstanding that her original tenancy agreement stipulated no pets, (which I overlooked as she is very pet orientated) am I being unreasonable to ask her to pay for the builder when he has to return next week to finish the work?
She didn’t phone me first to check if it was ok to send him home, I called her when I found out she had, and she swore at me, saying she didn’t give a fuck about the building work, she was more concerned about finding her cat.
I am bloody livid right now, the work should be finished by now, and now I’ve got to stump up another £250 for an extra day!
And before anyone piles on, yes I have a cat, yes I get she was upset, and yes I know the rules about pets have changed since May 1st.

The swearing is absolutely not on.
I'm a tenant with a pet and I make sure my dog is kept safely away when someone comes round. I make arrangements so that's shes not in the way. I promise we are not all like it.
I also got permission for my pet first and I adore animals but respect my LL.
You can actually still evict now due to breach of contract and damage to the house. So there is actual fault. Many of us would love a LL like you.
If you do think about selling be warned that if you cannot sell you cannot rent it out within a certain time frame.
Good luck with future tenants.

I'd be sending in the Goon Squad.

Yeah let's leave Thumper (I know I changed his name, it just felt right) out of it. He wasn't around for this situation. He just lived his little rabbit life leaving pellets that were easy to clean! Convenient little fellow!

If I employed a builder to work on my own home and during the work my indoor cat* went missing and I knew she would not return while he was in the house then I would send the builder home until I found her. Is it hot where she is? That would be an additional worry if an indoor cat ran off.

YANBU to be annoyed but plastering is not urgent, the condition of your property will not deteriorate because the plastering is delayed. It's inconvenient and will cost a bit more but this is work being done to your asset and you should therefore suck it up. It's not as if it's unusual for building work to go over budget for all sorts of reasons.

*I don't have an indoor cat but my cat is an utter numpty who hides in stupid places when she's scared and I have been putting off building work for years because I'm worried about her ending up under the floorboards or inside a wall.

Sell up. It’s not worth the hassle and grief.

I genuinely did miss that bit, and I hope your daughter is ok.
Im really not saying this for a dig, it really is another reason as to what I've said before, that to be a landlord you either need to be a full time landlord, or give a cut to an agency to manage, or sell up. Being a landlord isn't an easy ride, managing tenants, repairs, meeting regs, dealing with voids etc is a lot of work even with good tenants and the changes over the last few years means the system really isn't designed for small scale landlords. It's only an easy ride for those who completely neglect their duties and give LLs a bad time, or have enough money to throw at someone else to take the flak for them (eg investors). Trying to do it as a one man band with one or two spare properties isn't realistic anymore.

I don't know what to tell you, to be honest. Some people really take leave of their senses when it comes to their pets. I don't know if it's because of more isolation after Covid, but I know people who have really gone off the deep end where their pets are concerned. One friend's dog started to dictate all our plans because she refused to leave him at home, ever, unless she could get a babysitter for the dog. So there were many places we couldn't go, including our favourite restaurant. And I think cat people can be even more dotty about their animals than dog people. I'm an animal-lover too, but some people have really lost it over their pets.

Good tenants are hard to find. If she's good in other ways, I'd probably pay the 250 but tell her that you had to do that, so could she please not interfere with things you've arranged in future.

I'm not sure about the legal side of things but surely a landlord doesn't have to be present when they have a builder etc doing essential work to the property that has a tenant in it. As long as your tenant knew in advance that work was going to be done(which I can see they knew from your post) you've done what you were supposed to be doing as their landlord. The tenant had no business sending the builder home early ideally he should have called you as the owner to say that your tenant has told him to leave and what should he do next, his contract is with you as you're the one paying him for work to be done. I get that you're not best pleased that her actions have cost you am extra days pay to your builder when he could have finished the job on time if she hadn't booted him off early, morally she should pay but she will probably find some loophole that means she doesn't have to unfortunately

You can ask the tenant to pay for the plasterer's extra day and an apology for swearing at you but she may just refuse. If you let her know that her behaviour is making you consider selling the property and she realises that she is likely to lose her deposit due to the damage caused by her pets, she has no incentive to limit further damage. I think you're between a rock and a hard place. You have my sympathy.

I don't doubt he's a nice bloke. But again, 'nice' isn't the same as being professional. He wasn't being nice when he didn't phone you, the paying client, to tell you he had left the job on someone else's instruction. Someone who he knew, given you'd been to the property and given instructions in person, wouldn't have been authorised to make any decision about the work. He might have been nice to get tenant in trying to help her get her cat back, but he's not being nice to you in leaving you to shoulder the financial cost of booking him again.

Just take the money you have to pay the builder out of her deposit. suing her for the cost would be a pain and expensive- so let her sue you when she gets very little deposit back- you will have a chance to make your case to the court- she is being very unreasonable and they will acknowledge that when making a decision.

I’ve successfully managed my properties for 30 years, and I’m very much a hands on landlord.
When tenants leave, I make sure the properties I have are completely renovated, redecorated, and fit for my next tenants.
With respect, without any landlord experience, please don’t attempt to give me advice on how to manage my properties.
This post was about a specific issue, that I have never come across before.
Your judgement of me does not take into account the many hours/weeks/ months I put into being a decent landlord for my tenants.

i tend to give my tenant the contacts of contractor and he arranges the date himself. Works for us.we have a good relationship.

your tenant sounds v immature.

Not allowing repairs. Getting pets without asking (rules only changed recently)
Letting her dogs ruin the flooring. Swearing at the landlord ??

@MissRaspberryRipples there is no legal requirement, just that as the landlord it's in your financial interests for things to go smoothly, and you have to accept that whilst in theory it does benefit the tenants, they're not likely to see it that way because it's inconvenient for them and not something they have control over. So unless you've got a good tenant it's sensible to assume you either need to be there in the morning to make sure they've got access, or pop in, or at least be on the phone.

As I've said this situation is more unusual but it's not unusual for tenants to forget, or tradies not to stick to days/times so tenants give up waiting in, and then have the issue of being expected to pay for time when no work has started.

Keep putting her rent up till she leaves.

This thread is mad. I’ve never had a landlord supervise work in a rental, what are they supposed to do, stand there and watch? And why is the OP getting so much grief for being a nice landlord, relaxing the rules, allowing the tenant to treat it as her home?!

Many of them who do know the law ignore it as they are paid by the landlords so have no regard for the tenants at all. They will happily act illegally if they think the tenant doesn't know their rights and won't kick up a fuss. Their regulators don't care ime.
I was in this industry for some years and saw this constantly.

@Ilovemychocolate I was only going by what you've posted yourself about why you haven't got the availability to deal with issues that have arisen.

@Ilovemychocolate as a landlord I've done all the Rent Smart Wales bidding but we're done with tenants now. We've a house in two flats and downstairs gentleman is lovely but has terminal cancer so we shan't be throwing him out. Once he's gone the upstairs tenant can take a flying leap out of there. She's been a pain in the backside. We'll just sell up. The other property has a lovely tenant, been there a decade she may move on. Then we'll sell that house.

Let overseas landlords like BlackRock buy up the housing stock, I really don't care anymore.

It’s Mumsnet that’s why 🤣🤣🤣

I have availability when the houses need completely renovating.
Damp issues that need fixing with the tenant in situ?
I will arrange and facilitate, down to the tenants to accommodate.
For there own well being.
It’s not rocket science.

As a long term landlord I totally agree - maintaining good yet professional relationship requires give and take on both sides.

I’ve never had a dispute with any of my tenants, but I can see how an unscrupulous tenant could pretend to be all nice and reasonable and turn uncooperative or nasty if things didn’t go their way.

I think legal advice is called for. Not just in respect of the issue at hand, but also to help firm a plan to end the tenancy (and possibly sell up) with the minimum of fuss.

YANBU.

I get she wanted the cat to come home (I have 2 and would feel the same). But sending the builder away - unacceptable and then swearing at you?? Totally out of order.

You were kind by allowing her pets, and I’d be asking her to pay the £250 for the builder to return.

I’d like to hear the other side of the story tbh. Sounds to me like the builder let her cat out. I don’t blame her for being angry and asking him to leave if so.