renting enquiry

[guddy]

Hi everyone

We are moving to a lovely rental accomodation this weekend with a medium size garden which will need maintainance.Is the landlord obliged to provide us the tools to maintain it?
Iam not sure about the rules and my agent tells me that i have to look after it or employ a gardener if i dont have any tools.
Can someone tell me about the rules.
Thanks

Hi Guddy, I'm not sure if there are general rules on this - my rent contract has usually specified. On the last one I was responsible for maintaining the garden - weeding, mowing lawn etc but the landlord sent a gardener round once a year to sort out anything major. No tools were supplied but I just borrowed them off the neighbours.

Try Boot Fairs for second hand gardening tools - you can pick them up quite cheaply.

I am sure it is your responsibility to maintain the garden - the landlord deals with maintenance but not cosmetics.

We rent our house out "part furnished" but all the agent told us we had to leave were basic furnishings in each room and white goods in kitchen. We chose to leave things like cleaning materials and garden equipment such as bbq grills (built in bbq),a mower, clippers and spade to press the contractural obligation to maintain the property and garden. However this was purely at our discretion and current tenants seem to have a sporadic approach to bothering to use them. We have also had to employ people at least once a year to clip shrubs and trim hedges which has always been quite a big job for us.

You should be able to get basic tools such as a pack of trowel, fork and rake reasonably cheaply at Tesco or diy sheds especially at this time of year(often offers over the bank holidays).

hth

You can usually pick up tools quite cheaply at one of the big out-of-town markets too.