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CALL US NOW FOR A QUOTE 01772-620108 News Just In!Damage to unfurnished properties is costing Landlord thousands
Monday 17th October 2011
Landlords with unfurnished properties often fall into the trap of thinking that as there are no actual 'loose' contents, there will be nothing to worry about at the end of a tenancy. However, according to Inventory Clerks, landlords can face very expensive repairs due to damage on doors, walls, carpets and worktops and is urging landlords to have professional check-ins and check-outs to avoid potential costly bills.
Pat Barber said: “A rented property is made up not only of contents, but of fixtures and fittings too and these are often the most expensive things to repair. A recent example brings to life the potential costly damage facing landlords with unfurnished properties. A tenant had cut out a large piece from a sitting room carpet where there was a sizeable burn. He then cut carpet from inside a fitted cupboard and placed it in the hole in the sitting room carpet. Fortunately, the Inventory clerk carrying out the check-out inspection had the experience to detect this kind of damage and managed to save the landlord the cost of a new carpet. “Another recent case featured and landlord’s hand written inventory that consisted of a short list of contents covering just one A4 page. During the six month let the tenants set up a cannabis factory in the garage, causing damage to the structure of the house due to fitting of heating and watering systems. The tenants also wrecked the property, leaving a huge amount of rubbish to be removed. Extensive cleaning, repairs and redecorating needed. However, due to lack of firm evidence of the original condition, the landlord had to cover all these costs himself.” According to Inventory Clerks, the most common damage found in unfurnished properties includes the following: • Doors and walls - Damage/holes from impact, walls - nail and screw holes, drilled
cable holes, impact indents from door handles, general excessive dirt and marks.
• Painting and redecoration - Tenants repainting without permission in outrageous
colours. Often redecoration is required before the property can be let again.
• Carpets - Stains, burns, tears, sometimes whole sections cut out due to tenant
damage and replaced with off cuts of a similar carpet found inside cupboards or
wardrobes.
• Light fittings - Tenants take bulbs and lampshades, sometimes whole fittings and the
bare wires are hanging from the ceiling.
• Kitchen worktops – Damage, burns to worktops, knife marks in worktops and chips. • Kitchen appliances - Damage to ceramic hobs, one recently was cracked right across,
fortunately the inventory was professionally compiled and the tenant was made to pay
for a new hob. Broken shelves in fridges, damage to washing machines and dish
washers.
• Bathrooms - Cracks in sinks toilets and baths - bathroom suites are very expensive to
replace and sometimes hard to match when replacing only one item.
• Windows - Common damage are chips and cracks, broken window fittings. • Gardens - If the condition is not clear at time of check in, gardening is very expensive
£20 per hour is normal and the landlord, without any firm evidence, will be picking
up the bill. Every area of a garden needs to be listed on an inventory, not just the
grass, but the condition of the borders, weedy or not, patio - weedy, mossy, stained
etc. Loose or broken flagstones as always detail is needed to be able to judge what
additional damage has occurred.
• Cleaning - if the inventory does not categorically state the cleaning condition of every
area, then the landlord will be stuck with the cleaning bill after the check-out.
Property Inspections NW is committed to excellence and professionalism in the property inventory process and works hard to ensure that all landlords, tenants and letting agents understand the importance and benefits of professionally completed property inventories. ‘Casual’ landlords pay the price of careless lodgers
Beware of the online EPC cowboys Written by Housing Energy Advisor on August 8, 2011 Energy Performance Certificates, reporting on the energy efficiency of your home, have been a legal fact of life for home sellers and landlords since August 2007, and you would hope that the market would have settled down by now. To some extent it has, with many reputable firms and individuals involved in providing EPCs, but sadly the online domestic EPC market can still sometimes have a real flavour of the ol’ Wild West about it, with some of the cowboys who are still out there. Just Google ‘cheap EPCs’ and they’ll come galloping out of the sagebrush. ‘EPCs from £24.95,’ is a typical website headline offer, designed to grab home owners who think they can easily beat the quote they have from an estate agent, because of course, ‘everything is cheaper on the internet’. ‘How can these people do it so much cheaper?’ is a question that home owners apparently don’t bother to ask in the rush to get their credit card out. Energy Assessor Magazine is currently looking at Rogue EPC Panels, as they are known in the industry, and has uncovered some real horrors which affect both customers and assessors. It should be said at once that the panel of assessors who actually provide the EPCs on a freelance basis, are not the ones in cowboy boots and stetsons. They are strictly regulated and monitored, and anyone with anything dodgy in their background would be unlikely to pass the vetting procedure to become an accredited assessor in the first place. The online EPC providers however, the people who put up the websites and take the orders, are completely unregulated. It is some of these businesses that cause problems for customers and the industry. Sometimes they don’t supply the ordered EPC, probably because they can’t find an assessor to work for the pittance they are paying, or because of their poor reputation, since often these rogue outfits don’t pay assessors for their work. Assessors who have worked for the cowboys and are owed money are left with no choice in the end but to cancel the EPC, so that they can at least recover the money they paid to lodge it on the national database, but that then leaves the customer with no EPC, having to start – and pay – all over again. Recovering money from these rogue outfits is next to impossible for both assessors and customers, since the address given on the website is often not where the business is actually based, and in any event, once a business name becomes too toxic for comfort, the cowboys just pick a new one and carry on, leaving aggrieved assessors and customers behind, along with their debts. A more sinister development affected a woman in London recently, who checked on her EPC and found that it had been falsified and was therefore of course invalid. She had to get another assessor, this time a reputable one, and pay another fee, but she has complained to the appropriate authorities, and she tells her story of what happened in Energy Assessor Magazine. The Institute of Domestic Energy Assessors has been lobbying government for some time to take some action on these problems, but the government is doing nothing at present, which leaves individual home owners to fend for themselves. It is worth stressing again that not by any means all EPC providers or panels online are cowboys, and it is usually fairly easy to spot those that are by Googling their name to see what is known about them. Alternatively, contact an assessor direct, either through the Landmark website at www.epcregister.com or by getting your estate agent to recommend someone who isn’t likely to shout ‘Yeehaw’ when you pay. Written by Terry Wardle, Editor of Energy Assessor Magazine
Also check out this story from a consumer who has been scammed CLICK HERE!
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