Tenants question: broken washing machine...

[Herhonesty]

Background: tenants, broken washing machine, repair man called out:

It turns out that there was a blockage of the pump due to a collar stiffener (plastic thing) stuck in there. The charge for this is £50+vat for the call out and repair. This is would be from the tenants as they had this new about a year ago.

Estate agents suggest either:
the landlord pays for it and then we warn the tenants that if something like this happens again they will be responsible for the full charges as its negligence
Or:
We both split the cost of this charge and move on.

Which option do you think?

Both options sound OK to me except maybe it's not worth arguing with the tenants about splitting it as the amount of money is quite small? And whichever you do, explain to the tenants that it was caused by their carelessness and they'd have to pay if it happened again.

are they otherwise good tenants and keeping the place well? If so, be nice to them and keep them sweet, but make it totally clear that this is a one-off in the interest of goodwill.

I think either option - but, as a tenant myself, these collar stiffeners come out of shirts unpredictably so I'm not sure I'd call it negligence as such. If i as the landlord supplied a washing machine then I would accept this specific cause of the blockage as wear and tear I think...

the collar stays should have been removed before the shirt was washed though so not really wear and tear

Oops, I've never known that. Luckily we don't own many shirts between us :)