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.

I love it when people post whole lines of laughing emojis to try and pretend they aren’t getting wound up lol

Yet the rabbit, cats, dogs, and the rest of the zoo came well before May 1st. And you just merrily accepted it again and again. Those were your multiple opportunities to be rid of this tenant.

So many posters here seem really heavily invested in OP evicting the tenant. It's really weird!

No, a judge can end it. Who you will apply to, and make your argument for why the breaches are so bad thr person should lose their home.

You don't get to decide, you get to argue why the breach is that extreme. It was and is possible. But it is not just any breach, most even if there were multiple would have little to no chance of justifying it.

Yeah a breach of the tenancy by having a pet, even before the new rules, would he difficult as grounds for eviction (though previously a LL could have issued a s21 without having to give a reason)
It's no longer a breach given protections around pets, but even if it were it's only the most serious breaches that can justify eviction. Same as being late for work is a breach of your employment contract but doesn't mean your boss can sack for it. It has to reach a certain threshold.

I know, and I’m absolutely pathetic for not doing it earlier, right now or in the very near future!!!!!!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hurrah! An excellent outcome for everybody. She is much less annoying now 😎

Is having a cat grounds to get her evicted? I would do that.

On many many posts, if the OP doesn’t follow someone’s advice (there may be 20 people giving completely different advice) then that person seems to take it extremely personally. There was one recently that morphed into cold water swimming (it wasn’t originally about that) and a few people were saying they did it and they were describing how they did it in a safe way eg minutes in the water vs temperature, building up your tolerance etc, and one poster was arguing and her final retort was ‘well don’t come crying to me when you die of hypothermia’, I just thought oh for goodness sake these people are literally saying how much they love it!

On a really really good day, most of humanity is a bit weird. Add a bit of hot weather and people just lose their shit.

And to everyone else - it’s OPs flat, OPs tenant, OPs electrician and OPs problem. Once you’ve given her ideas/legal stuff/anecdotes then it’s for her to decide what to do.

OP - sounds like you got a good result!

Surely if as some on here have said , that you should have been present while the work was being done , you could have stopped the tenant sending the builder home ? I don’t think that would be true as the tenant is entitled to to quiet enjoyment of her home , so in theory she could have chucked both you and the builder out and there would be nothing you could do about it ?

I'd said that, and it wasn't in the sense of strong arming the tenant into having the work done, it was in the sense of some level of supervision/relationship with the tradie, so the direction and authority was clear. Tbf to the OP she then explained she had previously gone to the property with him so he did know who the boss was, as it were, and the parameters of the job. It was in the context of the tradie going off the job and not letting the landlord know which i thought was weird.

I used to support vulnerable tenants into housing and we had to be quite strict about things like this because of the risk either of a tradie turning up, claiming they couldn't get access and still expecting payment (tradie equivalent of evri drivers!) or people not answering the door/forgetting, or tradies going to do one job and the tenant instructing them to do other jobs while they were there (for the tenants benefit) and then the landlord getting a big bill for work they hadn't agreed. So having a clear relationship with the tradie esp about the contract and payment is important, that's all.

Present whilst the work is being done?!
It is a 3 day job to eliminate damp in the house, clear cellar and plaster.
What was I supposed to do, take 3 days off work and sit on her sofa drinking tea?!
People be crazy on here 🤣

The builder left then informed me of the tenants actions, he is not going to stay in a house where the female tenant has asked him to leave, that would be ridiculous.

Good job I didn't say that he should have done that then isn't it...

I’m so sorry, I quoted your post but I wasn’t having a go at you, you have been calm and measured throughout, I was just trying to convey that he had communicated with me, but I totally understand his actions in leaving.

And I’m sorry (again!) if that sounded patronising, I meant in the context of some of the posters, you have taken a calm and measured approach to the OP.

Because she can't under the new laws......as stated numerous times.....

@Ilovemychocolate If you were given £1 for every person on here who hasn't read or understood your OP or subsequent replies, you'd already have enough to pay for the guy's revisit...

No worries, thank you. Appreciate you have had a lot of flak!

You sound like a great landlord to me! I’m renting and wouldn’t dream of adding dogs or a cat to the house even if my landlord agreed, unless I was willing to pay for any damage they caused.
As for the builder she should pay as it was her that sent him home. She needs to know that actions have consequences and she can’t just do that! Unreal!
It’s a scary business renting as you never know when you could be asked to pack up your life and move on, she should respect that and not take the piss!

Oh that’s great news. She gets a good deal with you OP so she probably knows not to push her luck too far!