Tenants

[StickyTick]

My beautiful former home that cost us tens of £1000s to get ready for renting, has just been returned to us, after nearly 3.5 years. & it breaks my soul.
We will be spending £1000s again, and apparently, the tenant wont have to reimburse much, because they were there "such a long time, & that means a lot of wear and tear."

Their "budgie" turned out to be a parrot that flew from curtain pole to lampshade, pulling things out the wall, and pooing as it went. Nearly every double-glazing door or window handle is broken, the mud on all the new carpets shows their lack of respect, and those in the 3 bedrooms that escaped the mud, have been clawed by their cat. Damp everywhere, and no idea how to keep things clean. The bill to redecorate from loft to garage door is £6,000.

While they were there, they needed a new boiler, a new washing machine, a new gas hob, thermostatic shower valve, (the new one is also now broken), and a new fridgefreezer.

It's just been one long expenditure.
And, now I feel broken too ....

They didn’t need those things, your property did.

Did you never do an inspection?

Don’t you have landlord’s insurance that will cover a lot of those things? I say kindly that perhaps being a landlord is not for you as you sound quite emotionally invested in your ‘beautiful former home’.

@ToughTittyWhompus - I was paying for the place to be managed, & the lettings agency should have done regular inspections. Instead they now blame Covid for only going into the place every 14 months or so.
I think one of the women who did an inspection, was let go, shortly afterwards.

I’ve been in my rented property this long and I’ve had 4 inspections. The first at 6 months then the month before the offer of new contact. Just had my recent one - clean to a high domestic standard and no signs of breakages, smoking or pets were amongst the comments. Why did you not inspect? Why did you allow pets? Where is your landlord insurance? Why are you not going to panel - there are clear lines of difference between wear and tear (my scuffed skirting boards near the front door for example) and damage.

Ok. the word "need" is wrong. It's meant to suggest that these items "got broken" while the tenants were in the place.

These are all well known possibilities of letting a property. When you let, this is a risk you accept, particularly when you let to pet owners.

The contract we have is clear if repairs to appliances are needed due to tenants damage then the tenant pays. Why did you pay? Every time we have someone out the form had a box for the repair person to confirm we were not at fault.

My landlords inspected my house every 3 months for the first 2.5 years,haven't been inside in nearly 2 years because of pandemic,but other than carpets being a bit grained it looks as good,I've even paid for an outside tap,painted all the fencing twice with wood protector and paid to have the gutters cleared,windows cleaned every month,bought a dehumidifier because of condensation.

On the flip side, we rent and are pet owners. We have never returned a property in that state or required numerous new items over the course of a tenancy.

@MrsPear I had no choice but to pay. The lettings/management agency would automatically deduct any costs for work from the rent, they then paid the balance into my bank account.

Letting agents are largely shit. If you live in reasonable distance, I'd consider doing it yourself. Given the damage, it may even be financially better to pay for flights and hotels.

@YodaiamsaidI - do you fancy moving? Do you want a 5 bed house in Surrey

to be fair @YodaiamsaidI - that supposedly smily face looks quite scary!
You're being landlord-stalked

@RoseRedRoseBlue And it's exactly because there are pet-owners like you, that I didn't want to discriminate against pets.

@StickyTick I hope this admittedly poor experience doesn’t put you off! Funnily enough we are in Surrey too, but our budget definitely doesn’t extend to a 5 bed house 😂