Singing Pig

Hi,

I have been told by my letting agent that if certain work is not carried out by myself to a flat of mine the Enviromental Health will do so at my expense. The quote they give is around £6000 + VAT to attend to some damp and then paint plas flooring etc.

This is impossible to amount to such a figure as I know i can add 3k more and redo the entire house. It is a 50k 2 bed terrace in Hull. Does anyone know what the best thing to do is in such a situation? How can i keep the Enviromental Health off my case while I try and sell which is what i am trying to do?

Regards,

if it is tenanted and the AST is near its end, then get rid of the tenants - you can sell an empty house in any condition you like and it is none of the Environmental health departments business.

 

if it is tenanted, get it fixed, it will add value to the property.  I bought a house off a guy for £51,500, when he could have got £75,000 if he had spent about £8k on it.  

 

if you don't mind me asking, why are you letting tenants live in such squalor anyway ? 

Hi Clottie,

Its the same tenant in the property from when I bought it and he is on a month to month contract now.  If I hand notice and he does not want to move out, can i use this to hold the enviromental health off by stating that I am trying to get him out in order to sell or what ever my reason is?

Reason they living like this is because I bought like an idiot from a sourcer who i thought i could trust after many meetings and viewins.  Little did i know he sold me a dump without revealing all the work that was needed to it. 

Unlucky about the sourcer Robby...

State to enviromental health, you are asking the tenant to leave so you can renovate the property - which may remedy the situation. Even better if you state it is difficult to renovate with tenant in situe due to health risks... do it in writing to both env. health & the tenant.

One of my tenants would not leave once & I didn't know how to evict - so I decided to renovate the house... rewire, central heating etc... he got so p*ssed off he got enviromental health on to me & I stated to them I must refurbish to recover lost rent - the guy is leaving anyway so...

* Env. health were fine with this as long as I didn't take the mick. I told them I needed to get everything up to standard, after all shouldn't they encourage landlords to do repairs/ upgrades?!?

I told the tenant where to go & said things will get worse - more dust everywhere from the carpets being up etc... so he better leave. Rather distressing as it was the house next door to where I lived.

To be honest - the dust wasn't that bad, the cheeky tenant was wanting 5* service but hadn't paid me for 3 months & his best mate had just ripped me off/ done a runner, using the monies due for rent to pay for a flight back to South Africa.

**** I'm more clued up on the paperwork side of evictions now! ****

Quicker you serve notice the better (sectoin 21) - shows you are paying attention & not got your head in the sand. Even if you plan to let the tenant stay, that way you have more options. Notice is best served @ beginning of the tenancy as a general rule.

========

My general thoughts are:

You make money in property - not the tenant!

* Tenants generally don't double in value... You get the odd one though... but it's still not for your gain. Hence I always keep my houses in spotless nick.

Paul@EyeBuyHouses.co.uk:

My general thoughts are:

You make money in property - not the tenant!

* Tenants generally don't double in value... You get the odd one though... but it's still not for your gain. Hence I always keep my houses in spotless nick.

 

Absolute classic advice Paul 

cheers

Eric 

Sorry I can't offer much advice but that does sound like a lot of money! How bad is it? We've got a similar problem in our house, although we thought the damp course would get around it.

hi johnny5.  it is actually quite bad and after asking the letting agent why it was so expensive, she pointed out she got her figures mixed up.  It was actually 4000 for decor, flooring in kitchen and roof in kitchen + 1000 for damp.  I can email you pics if you want to see.