tenant asking for burglar alarm to be installed!

[Frecklesandspecs]

They have been in our house for about 6 months with no problems with security ect but suddenly got a call asking if we would have a burglar alarm installed so they can feel happier about going on holiday!
Is this a valid reason for us to fork our a few hundred quid ?
(have no idea how much it will cost in reality but it can't be cheap)

Happiness is a room without a roof - Pharrell.

I think they are chancing their arm with the alarm.

Is the guttering actually broken / blocked? If so you need to sort it.

Tenants should not be responsible for the upkeep of the exterior of a property (i.e. gutter, etc.).

But hey, here in the UK, so-called landlords get away with EVERYTHING. The amount of properties there are for rent by wannabe landlords in the UK that would be illegal in other developed nations is incredible. It renders the UK a developing nation in my book. Government regulation should be introduced re. standard of property for renting.

It is said that if you are renting out a property, a good landlord would provide a service. It doesn't matter whether you can live with the noise / draft / intermittent hot water. I am sure someone out there can live in a house with a hole in the living room. Would they think that is acceptable to everyone?

Fact is, if it's your own home, you are a LOT more likely to accept things that you may not accept if it was not yours. If you look at good rental properties that professional landlords rent out for investment purposes, they are often a lot nicer than actual owned homes.

not sure how that relates to a request for a alarm.

"They are also complaining about the gutter "

snowbells

er, actually, no. There are government regulations about property standards, and agencies that will take action if they are breached.

sorry to spoil a good story with facts.

There are a lot of landlords who get away with it though. I had two. When I was a student, some girls who lived in another house owned by my ll had to use their neighbours shower and toilet for a significant amount of time. This was seven years a go tho. My last landlord was terrible but we kind of got our own back

I agree with SnowBells, there are now loads of amateur landlords out there trying to make a quick buck and forgetting that their property is someone's home, that they are paying for (often through the nose). The OP sounds like she wants to get away with the minimum and expect her tenants to pay to live in a house that isn't up to par.

Ha, that's funny specialsubject.

Here in the real world, it doesn't quite work like that.

For example, a flat I rented had a leak in the roof and I got a small waterfall coming into the kitchen every time it rained. After weeks of the agency ignoring my calls, during which time the entire flat became coated in mould and half of it was uninhabitable, I called environmental health. They came round, shrugged, told me they'd had loads of complaints about the agency, and unfortunately there wasn't really anything they could do about it.

I could go on.

Oh I forgot to add, I had to go without electricity for a week because the waterfall was trickling down onto the main fuse box.

But kittens, your bad experience doesn't mean that all, even most, landlords are like that.

Plenty of landlords (including me) could tell horror stories about tenants, but it wouldn't be right to extrapolate that and generalise about tenants either

I was responding to specialsubject: "There are government regulations about property standards, and agencies that will take action if they are breached."

I realise my experience doesn't mean all landlords are like that. But in my experience of over 10 years renting, landlords and agencies just don't give a shit about property standards and regulations. To simply state that there are regulations and if they're breached action will be taken, is ignoring the reality of the situation.

If you can't afford to do repairs on a property you own you absolutely should not be renting it out.

specialsubject & BerylStreep we should have know this would turn into a LL bashing thread !

PigletJohn yes I did see that but I still fail to understand why SnowBells has to go off on one about how terrible all LL's are.

kittenmittens I totally agree however the majority of LL's DO have money to do the repairs and do carry out them out usually quicker than they do on their own property. There are shocking LL's out there, but not all of us are and as Beryl there are just as many shocking tenants.

Heels and beryl, I agree. For every bad landlord there is at least one bad tenant! BUT there are bad landlords that get away with a lot despite all the rules and regulations.

We had no heating for five years and no gas safety certificates. We stayed because we have a dog and he was the only house we found that would accept him. Turned out that was only because the agent told them he was a small dog. He was small at first, then he became a 9 stone rottweiler.

I asked for the hearing to be fixed as it was August and I had a baby due in sept. Couldn't have another cold winter. I had t heard from him in four years before then. He said it did work and I should stop moaning. He turned into a dick. Heating was not fixed. When DD was 2 weeks old he gave us an illegal eviction notice telling us to move out ten days before Xmas. I called the council saying he had no gas safety certificate and we had no heating. His wife came round pretending to be my best mate.

She said she agreed we should have heating and fitted a whole new central heating system. I said I didn't want all that work around my newborn. Dust etc. she didn't care.

We had a new shower fitted when DD was a few days old. The shower fused the whole house and we had to wait for western power to come out. I had emcs and the birth was extremely traumatic. I struggled with Breastfeeding for the first few days so supplemented with formula. I had no electricity to steralise, boil a kettle etc etc. I can't tell you the panic I felt when I knew I wouldn't be able to feed PFB if she needed it. I was an extremely nervous first parent and couldn't eat for over two weeks because of the fear I was doing it wrong I called the landlord to report it. He said, and I quote 'that's not my problem, I'm out for the day. I'll sort it tomorrow but it's not my responsibility. ' I can't tell you how I sobbed.

By the end the arguments were so petty. The doors had never fitted or closed fully. She wanted new doors to come out of my deposit as they worked perfectly before hand. I had to remind her the primary function of a door was to open and close.

We decided that as they could get a 20k fine for no has safety that we told them we'd report them if we didn't get full deposit back. We did get full deposit back

Some people shouldn't be landlords. Some people are great at it.

Sorry to have written such an essay. I own a house now with DDs DF and I'm so grateful I won't have to go through all that again

Dub I am sorry you have had shit experience with a shocking LL, there are some out there but I get sick of every thread like this tuning into a LL bashing one.

On the flip side we currently have a a family in one of our properties (two children under 3) that have been there 9 months, in that time they have had a new kitchen floor and flooring, two weeks after they managed to flood the kitchen, after mucking about with the pipe of the outside tap that had been isolated for the winter. Then fridge freezer broke, it was replaced in 48 hours and we compensated them for all their lost food. Then last week the washing machine broke, it is a 4 year old Bosch. The repair man went out 48 hours later and advised us that the machine has probably been overloaded, we can't prove it so yesterday they had a new Bosch delivered. The house is always filthy dirty when DH goes round, but it is their home, so we say nothing.
One weeks after moving in they advised us that the re home of their cat had failed and they had had to go and collect it and could they now have a cat, as animal lovers we didn't say no.

Ehm… specialsubject… that is kept very quiet then. If so, show us where this can be found. Chances are those 'standards' you talk of are sub-standard really and cover only the basics (access to water?).

If not, thousands of landlords will be peeing their pants now.

Also - I wasn't LL bashing. I did say that if you look at good rental properties that professional landlords rent out for investment purposes, they are often a lot nicer than actual owned homes.

That means there ARE good landlords out there. My dad is a LL - but everything is kept in really good shape. All his flats are re-painted before a new tenant moves in. If the last tenant was in the flat for over 5 years, it's even re-carpeted. Last year, he spent a fortune getting the chimney of one of the buildings replaced. However, there are no hard rules for what a landlord should do. For every good landlord, there will be at least one who wants to get by with the bare minimum.

By the way - my dad's tenants even receive Christmas presents. I still remember going around all the flats/houses with my parents around Christmas time when I was younger to deliver hampers with wine, Christmas cakes and cookies, etc. which was my job to wrap up nicely… hence, the gift wrapping skills my DH is jealous of, lol. My parents continue this tradition still.

It's dub. I've NCd.

Sounds like I know where to go to find the good landlords

I have to say heels, I'd be giving them notice. If I treated my tenants with respect then I'd expect the same back. Sounds like the house is furnished too? I wouldn't do that because I'd feel they'd broken my stuff. I do feel for you because it doesn't sound very nice

I used to want to be a landlord but seeing the hassle, I'm not sure it would be worth it...

dub unfortunately we have no proof it is down to them so we just have to suck it up. We know they are looking for another property as they want to move away, they gave their notice two months ago but that fell through so we know they are going soon. Easier if they go willingly. They pay their rent on time and we have a good inventory so they aren't that bad. It is a part furnished house so just white goods, but they are doing a good job of getting through them lol
On the whole the good tenants far out weigh the bad and if you have done things properly you usually come out on the right side.

DH loves the whole process of BTL's. Finding the right property, doing the sums. Buying the property getting it all decorated and up together for the rental market and then managing it. It is worth doing and is our nest egg.

Oh that sounds like such fun HaveToWearHeels! It's just a shame that by doing so you're pricing those less fortune than yourselves out of the market and exploiting them while you're at it.

I have nothing but contempt for landlords. I don't know how you can sleep at night. And you have the gall to refer to people as 'bad tenants'. You're just selfish and greedy. Have you ever stopped to think that tenants have no respect for you because you're exploiting them?

All people want is a decent home they can call their own and a bit of security. But when you can't afford to buy and there's no social housing because buy-to-let landlords have made it all but impossible for you to do anything but rent from private landlords, it's impossible to feel secure anywhere.

Some of the attitudes in this thread are disgusting and entitled. I'm appalled but not in the slightest bit surprised.

yawn...here come the whiny, ill-informed, entitled, unable-to-reason landlord haters as usual.

not having a gas safety cert is illegal. Someone who puts having a dog above the safety of their kids (by staying in an illegal property) beggars belief.

stop paying money to slum landlords. There IS a choice. You might have to move house though.

there is a social housing shortage partly because lots of people bought under right to buy. It is not all caused by landlords.

housing is never free, go whine at the bankers who provide your mortgage too. And I hope you do something really useful for a living. Like providing shelter, maybe?

No specialsubject I don't have a mortgage. I can't afford one.

I am in my final year of a fully funded PhD and I work two jobs. I can barely afford to keep up with the rent and bills.Before that I did admin work which was often poorly paid and on temporary contracts. Is this a useful enough job for you? What on earth constitutes a useful job by your standards? What business of it is yours anyway? Am I any less deserving of a decent place to live than a single mother? Or a nurse or a teacher?

I have rented ever since I left home at 19 - I'm 32 now. I've had to move a ludicrous amount of times - over 15 - in the past 13 years for various reasons including landlords needing to sell, landlords refusing to carry out basic repairs, condemned boilers they refused to replace, raised rent, houseshares falling through, etc etc. I'm afraid on my budget all I've ever had is slum landlords. So if I stopped paying money to them I'd be homeless.

I'd like you to point me to all these wonderful choices I have because for the life of my I can't see them.

I have no idea why you bring in dogs to the conversation. I don't own a dog.

I am bemused that you think I'm whiny and entitled because I believe people should have the right to their own home. I think there should be far more social housing. And you're right, it isn't just the fault of the landlords, it's the fault of the government for allowing the landlords free reign to buy up all the properties to rent out at a profit. It's scandalous.

Yes, the Government should definitely control ALL property purchasing. And property full stop. Like in communist Russia.

And for the love of christ, it's 'free rein'. Not free reign. That actually makes no sense. NONE.

Oh, right...

So people don't mind there to be minimum standards everywhere (schools, NHS)... but not so for housing?

Why don't we just abolish OFSTED reports and get rid of any checking of any school?

Good landlords would have nothing to fear if there were processes in place. It would simply cut out the crap ones.

And it's not actually 'like Russia' - lots and lots of developed nations have rent control or have laws that are much more on the side of tenants/ Particularly in those countries where tenants form the majority (governments want votes after all) - which the UK will sooner or later be more like.