My tenant informed me via text at 7pm that there was no hot water or heating and boiler was dead. I immediately called in my British Gas emergency cover who confirmed an engineer would call hopefully within 2 to 4 hours but it maybe up to 6 am. Tenant is saying that they want me to pay for a hotel for them or compensate financially as cannot be without heat through the night. Is this reasonable as I have acted to get this sorted within minutes of it being reported? If I do compensate would one nights rent be sufficient, presuming it’s all up and running by the morning?
Hotel?? Rubbish You have acted very quickly. Do you have a couple of portable heaters they can use?. How long have these been tenants? If this was their own property they would have to get on with it
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Are you kidding?! Whenever my boiler breaks, I take the whole family to stay in the nearest Hilton! Don’t you?
Seriously though, I would advise you to have a couple of oil filled rads on hand so that you can drop these round asap to any tenant in this situation. That shows you are doing all you can to mitigate the situation in the meantime.
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Overcoats for us poor joiners
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Thank you Colin. Yes was thinking same. I suppose a nights rent for goodwill would be ok. She’s been in 3 years. I did it once for them a couple of years ago overnight. But it’s not even bern one night yet. What would you suggest if it goes over one night?
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Exactly! Yes I have done that before. What would you suggest if it goes over 24 hours thanks.
Legally your responsibility is to provide heating . There is no specification to the type of fuel .
Provide them with electric convection heaters.
We have a few spare in the houses for this kind of eventuality .
I moved tenants in at the end of September .
They were coming in at 8pm.
I put the heating on only to find there was hot water but no heating.
The divertor Valve jammed because the heating was not used since March ( a 21st century problem with energy efficienct insulated houses….).
They grumbled the next day alleging the house was freezing and wrote me a terse email demanding heating.
I went round and the heaters were off in all apart from one room so they got an email advising them how to use a convection heater and that turning it on was a prerequisite for it to emit heat ……
The engineer came in that afternoon tweaked the valve with a screwdriver and the boiler was good to go
We ask about credit history , affordability etc etc but I’ve never asked them if they have common sense
It’s a shame there’s no filter question for common sense for tenants…
Maybe it’s time to guage pragmatism at viewings too … but the house may remain empty .
On an aside I went to a bills included student house yesterday (-4 degrees C outside).
One student was in shorts and t shirt alleging the house was freezing
The living room and kitchen windows were open. The thermostat in the living room was set at 23degrees C . They had used ÂŁ50 in a week vs ÂŁ50 for the last month. The room was at 16.7 C
I turned the thermostat to 20 degrees C and locked it and advised close the windows and wear whether appropriate wear.
The leader of the pack came down to tell me I said I would leave the thermostat open. I agreed but stipulated only as long as it was not abused.
I quoted NHS , government and WHO guidelines to heat the house are 18 for safe health which is referenced in their contract .
Knowledge is power
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patience.
I don’t use an emergency cover service as it’s not cost effective. So, on the rare occasions I’ve had this problem, it’s been a few days. Ts have always been understanding and usually shower/bath at a friend’s or nearby family member’s home.
I’m a big believer in having new (i.e. < 10 years old) boilers that are serviced regularly. A boiler is the one appliance I believe LLs should invest in (but many don’t).
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Agree with others. If it drags on, pop to the shop & buy a couple of oil filled radiators. You have acted very quickly to resolve. Worse case scenario is a boiler failure which could take a couple of weeks to get fixed or replaced. This is acceptable, if you have acted asap, which you clearly have. Your tenants have unrealistic expectations.
Who has the heating on through the night? Tell them to get their PJ’s on & snuggle down.
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I’ve had exactly this and my tenant did not demand a hotel. I think I’ll reduce this months rent by £200, as goodwill . Got a heater in the next day . Boiler about to be finally fixed today but was due to electrical issues. B Gas came three times all only doing inspections no fixes after I’d added this cover in. Now they want me to pay them £5000 for a new rewiring. I got another firm in and the new fuse box and curcuit will be a fraction of the cost. About to cancel B Gas cover as only fix what’s they’ve installed it seems
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Find a good small firm/ individual cen. htng. guy and just stick with them . B gas “overheads” are too much . Generally I have found the big firms workers do not care and I have dealt with plenty utility companies.
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Thank you. How long have they had no boiler for? I think they do quote for very expensive jobs yes.
I tried this but I could never get anyone in a emergency. If it’s out of hours. I do agree with you though.
The reason this has all happened apparently is that BG came out that day to do gas safety cert and actually left the spur switch off at the back of the boiler when he left. So it was their fault! And they actually failed my cert, saying a pipe needs to be double insulated in the cellar due to regulations. All the appliances, meter, boiler etc were fine. And my last few gas safety certs never mentioned this…
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Thank you that’s really useful and all good points.
Thanks she is a very demanding tenant. And says it’s against the law to have no hot water or heating etc. it’s a good point about the boiler yes
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Yes common sense seems to go out of the window and I will get some heaters. I have done in the past but I took them back as tenant was using in her other property she rents out! Thanks for your insights.
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Regarding water
I always have an electric shower and gas boiler heating taps to bath
If electric shower breaks they can bath
If the boiler breaks they have electric showers
Cover your options for heating the house and hot water to the house because unfortunately tenants don’t get repairs take time
There is no boiler fairy
It’s a given that they have unrealistic expectations
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If you ever have a T say “it’s against the law to…”, just respond with, “Wow, I had no idea. It would be really helpful if you could send me a link to the legislation.”
That should keep them occupied for long enough for the boiler to get fixed because there is in fact no law that says a LL who takes reasonable action to repair a boiler can be prosecuted for not providing hot water and heating during the repair period.
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Many Landlords have as little common sense as tenants . How hard is it to have 2 or 3 convection heaters stored at home which are dropped off in these situations ?
How hard is it to have at least one electric shower in a rental.propery to provode hot showers if the boiler fails ?
How hard is it to have a 2 ring electic camping hob stored up in case the cooker fails ?
How hard is it to leave a few bottles of sink and shower trap /drain unblocker .
Its called planning
ahead /contingency plans .
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all my places have elec showers and gas cen htng. I do have convection heaters ready at home.
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