Hi All,
My tenant has informed me of a career change and wishes to move into childminding. She would like to carry this out from her rented property. She has a partner, a young child and is hitherto an excellent tenant.
I’m pretty sure that my mortgage lender doesn’t allow for businesses on the premises, but does anyone else have any recommendations or had a tenant who is a childminder?
My primary concern would be for any accident (however innocuous) to occur on the premises and her public liabilities insurer to come knocking at my door.
The local authority would be best to advise as childcare requires permits and certificates .
Personally I would not allow it on the premises. As you ,rightly , say this is an insurance Pandora’s box.
I would speak to your insurers first and then the local authority.
The other issue is the footfall will increase the wear and tear of the property . Children can be unruly and you would need to take that into account for rents and your own maintenance . Some children cause more damage than pets painting and drawing on the walls and furniture.
Thinking as I write , this will mean a lot of safety checks from the local authority regarding fire safety. This is not an HMO so have you got all the necessary adaptations for child safety , fire safety , health safety , legionella etc
Who will pay those costs ?
Does the property have enough space ?
There are lots of things to check before deciding:
- whether it needs planning consent
- whether there are industry, health and safety and/or Council requirements that would need alterations to the property
- whether it changes the status of the property so that you would have to pay business rates instead of council tax
- whether there are CGT implications
- whether you need different insurance
- whether your lender would permit it
- whether there are any restrictive covenants on the property
- how the Council would view any neighbour noise complaints
- whether you would need a different type of tenure
- how you would recover the cost of the inevitable extra damage/wear and tear
Etc
Thank you so much for your comprehensive replies. Yep, don’t think I’ll be entertaining this one.
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Juat be vigilant though as she may decide to do it anyway may be worth a discreet check or two
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Insurance would be a big no from me , a tenant started selling honey and wax products from my rental and as soon as I knew ,4 months later the insurance went from £181 to £400 !
I gave the option to the tenant to stop and now I have a tenant who I believe carries on but I can’t find any evidence as she uses a PO Box !
And you are not allowed to look inside tenants personal boxes !
what did the rent go from and to?