Hi, my first post here, I’ve only started letting out my old property 6 months ago but need advice.
The tenant reported issues with electricity tripping over multiple times a day over a prolonged period of time.
After 4 visits from 2 different electricians costing a lot of money for me, the problem was diagnosed: it was the tenant’s own faulty fridge. The property comes with a fridge freezer anyway, so I’m not sure why she needs that extra space, but anyway.
My question is, since the problem was her own appliance, do I send her an invoice for the cost of attending to this? Can I do this? The property is in excellent condition, we recently replaced the fusebox and had all the testing done according to the regulations, so I’m so frustrated that I had to pay hundreds of pounds because of something that was not my fault and I couldn’t preemt.
I think it is legitimate to ask the tenant to pay for this. My understanding is that it is not a fee as covered by the tenant fees act, but is compensation for a loss. Your alternative if they won’t pay is to claim it from their deposit at the end of the tenancy. Make sure you retain good evidence of the fault being caused by them.
For the future . When a tenant tells you the electric is tripping, go along youself , Unplug all the applances, turn elec on. If it trips its the property. …if it does not trip, put one appliance on at a time ,the faulty one will trip the elec ,problem solved. That is the first thing a good electrician would have done. Dont call out those electricians again .I am a joiner/landlord , and even I know the basics
Depends on your contract
If you have a clause to cover this you can but getting the money is another issue
If you don’t get the money now you can claim from your deposit if you have a clause in your deposit section that covers costs that arose during tenancy ( otherwise deposit adjudicators will not cover it)
yes i do that its not hard to switch all off then go thru a circuit at a time then home in on the appliances. BUY A SOCKET TESTER very cheap very useful they give lamp signals to show if there is a wiring issue. Maybe get them to pay half the fee, no point in upsetting a tenant on day 1
There is incompetent element in the electricians you hired too, or deliberation. Both are very often happening and neither is good.
I had the same issue, which resulted in one electrician issuing failed EICR, citing rewiring needed as bristle and tripping. While the reality was the tenant’s own appliance.
I am in a money claim case against this electrician now.
Obviously with the fridge it should show up quicker but we had the same thing and asked the tenant to take note when it tripped what was in use that wasnt on prior to it tripping. It turned out to be the hob.
The hob was new and professionally fitted so we got the supplier to change it assuming the fault was with the hob.
I would say yes, you do have the right to claim your money back from the tenant, they introduced the fault after all.
Worst case scenario, come to a compromise on sharing the expense with them.
Thanks everyone, I decided to pay the electrician’s bill this time, especially that I don’t want to sour this relationship, the lady always pays on time etc and in the current climate it seems to be a blessing., but I’m going to be much stricter in the future about how I deal with these sort of issues.