Hi, just wonder whether anyone here has used any repair plan on their rental property. I think this is probably more applicable for landlords living a bit far from the property (e.g. different cities).
I have used YourRepair for a while and don’t like them at all and wouldn’t recommend them. I bought a home plus plan from them and I thought it shall cover heating and electricity issues as it advertises to do so.
Recently there was an issue with underfloor heating caused by a tripping fuse which I thought should be hard to fix. They sent a few different people to the property and couldn’t figure out the root cause. Then they declined to cover this issue and said the issue needs investigation hence not covered anymore. I was kind of shocked! It seems that they don’t want to cover any issues that require any extra investigation. It’s like if there is a problem I would have to know what the root cause is otherwise they won’t cover; and I pay them £500 a year for this. Doesn’t really make any sense to me.
In the end, I spent £200 finding an electrician who found out the root cause and fixed the issue; he had to come twice as some parts needed replacement.
I’d appreciate if anyone can recommend a reliable repair plan covering the general issues related to heating and electricity.
I have emergency cover which is an optional extra on my landlord insurance. I had to call on it about a year ago for a tenant who had no hot water. I was impressed by the response time. I called on a Saturday evening and the engineer attended 8am Sunday morning.
Yes I think it’s a good idea to have an emergency cover on the landlord insurance and I do have one too.
But because I live a bit far from the property I also want to have a cover of general repairs so that for non-emergency problems tenants can reach out the repair company directly to make an appointment to sort out the issue.
I think the only way would be an estate agent but that has its own pitfalls
I used to manage my properties remotely and had a guy I would leave jobs to .
When I moved back all the money had literally paid for nothing .
I’ve learnt if you want the job done and done properly you need to have significant amount of knowledge and stand on top off them to make sure it’s get done and done to the standard you want
In this industry literally no one can be trusted
I’ve been hoodwinked by trades I have had decade long relationships with
They all get comfortable and cut corners
The ones of websites are worst of all
Unfortunately, this has been my experience too. Firstly of heating ‘engineers’, general trades and more lately of electricians. I’ve educated myself on exactly what the jobs are that need doing, to a greater extent how (materials and methods) and what the regs are. Yes, you have to stand over the vast majority of them and make it clear that you know what they should be doing. The rare ones I find that are top notch I make sure I recommend strongly to my local community whenever asked.
I have had too much bad experience with estate agent as a tenant so will pass them unless I really have to.
I still remember I rented an apartment once and the water tap was leaky; they hired someone to fix it but charged my landlord a lot because my landlord lived in HK.
Unfortunately decent reliable tradesmen are rare nowadays.