stevetodd Posted August 17, 2007 Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 On the day my tenants moved out they told me that the window would not open, so last week I meet a rep from the double glazing company to see if they would fix it free of charge under their 10 year gaurantee. He eventually managed to open the window and exlained that it had been caused by extreme carelesness and there would be a charge of £124.55 (when he showed me the damage it was obvious he was correct). I had to travel up to London from Dorking which in total took me just over 3 hours. I have told the tenants that I am adding £50 to the bill for my time and travelling expenses. Obvioulsy when doing the inventory check etc there was no charge as I see that as part and parcel of a tenancy change, there was no charge of any kind in connection with either preparing, signing up to or administering the inventory. However I see this differently as I had to make a special trip to the property which I would not have done if they had told me about the problem while they still lived there, as they could have allowed access to the glazing company. Does anyone have any views? I do not want to be unfair, but on the other hand my time is of value too (3 hours of my time in my profession would earn about £90 so I think £50 is reasonable for both my time and travel expenses). The contract does state that I am entitled to deduct reasonable cost and compensation from their deposit, my thoughts were that my travelling expenses are certainly a cost and my time is worth of compensation (subject to reasonableness of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trenners Posted August 17, 2007 Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 Hi Stodd, In my view you are NOT being reasonable. It is your property and your responsibility to maintain it. I appreciate that the tenants have damaged the property and it is therefore fair that they pay for the damage that they have caused via deduction from their security deposit. ie: the repair bill from the double glazing company. However, trying to charge the tenant for your travelling costs and your time to co-ordinate the repair is unfair as it is not the tenants fault that you live a distance from the property and it is not the tenants responsibility to co-ordinate repairs to your property especially after the tenancy has ended. This goes with the territory of being a landlord. Some contributors to this forum will probably disagree with me .... but I know, as a tenant, I would be very peeved if a greedy landlord tried to charge me for time and travelling expenses to maintain the rental property. If the landlord had a lower paid job then would the hourly rate be less ? This is totally unreasonablle. I would also comment that under the new tenancy deposit protection laws I would be very surprised if the arbitrator would allow such expenses to be deducted from the deposit. Don't be mean - deduct the cost of the repair and refund the rest of the money - is my advice ! Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevetodd Posted August 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 Hi Stodd, In my view you are NOT being reasonable. It is your property and your responsibility to maintain it. I appreciate that the tenants have damaged the property and it is therefore fair that they pay for the damage that they have caused via deduction from their security deposit. ie: the repair bill from the double glazing company. However, trying to charge the tenant for your travelling costs and your time to co-ordinate the repair is unfair as it is not the tenants fault that you live a distance from the property and it is not the tenants responsibility to co-ordinate repairs to your property especially after the tenancy has ended. This goes with the territory of being a landlord. Some contributors to this forum will probably disagree with me .... but I know, as a tenant, I would be very peeved if a greedy landlord tried to charge me for time and travelling expenses to maintain the rental property. If the landlord had a lower paid job then would the hourly rate be less ? This is totally unreasonablle. I would also comment that under the new tenancy deposit protection laws I would be very surprised if the arbitrator would allow such expenses to be deducted from the deposit. Don't be mean - deduct the cost of the repair and refund the rest of the money - is my advice ! Mark Well the alternative to me was to hand the co-ordination over to my maintenance contractor, who had already informed me that he would charge £60 per visit and 10% management fee on the glazing contractor's costs (my maintenance contractor has keys). This would have resulted in a charge of £85.14 incl the vat. On reading your answer I think I should have just gone along with that instead of trying to save them money. £30 for 3 hours equates to a salry of less than £20,000 which in central london it would be difficult to find a landlord on such a low rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Dewsberry Posted August 17, 2007 Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 Have to agree with mark on this one ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevetodd Posted August 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 Have to agree with mark on this one ! Hi Rodent, It's ok I have already emailed the tenants and told them that I would not add any cost to the sub-contractor's costs, I called the NLA and they said it was unreasonable. To Mark I think its a bit unfair of you to call/insinuate that I am mean, surely anyone can see I was trying to establish what was fair in these circumstances. I've learned my lesson, next time I will use my maintenance contractor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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