The myth surrounding what the landlord can, should, or is obliged to do in the event of a property emergency is often preyed upon by letting agents to frighten the landlord into employing an agent to manage their property.
For many landlords, the idea of managing their own rental properties is often quickly dismissed for one reason alone … the dreaded emergency! It brings them out in a cold sweat!
The myth surrounding what the landlord can, should, or is obliged to do in the event of a property emergency is often preyed upon by letting agents to frighten the landlord into employing an agent to manage their property.
“What would you do if you receive a telephone call in the middle of the night about a leaking pipe?”
“How would you like to have your Sunday dinner interrupted by a telephone call about a broken-down boiler?”
Let’s face it, if property emergencies WERE such a problem, none of us would choose to own our OWN properties, let alone have rental properties!
So let’s dispel some of the myths surrounding dealing with property ‘crises’ and look at ways of mitigating your exposure to bona fide emergency repair situations.
Dealing with ‘real’ property emergencies
O.K. Let’s look at some ways of managing genuine property emergencies when they arise.
1. Communicate with your tenants
Firstly, make it clear to your tenants that an emergency is only something that puts their safety, or the safety of the property at risk.
If it is anything to do with fire, gas escape, electrical systems failure, flood, burglary, etc they must first call the appropriate emergency service, i.e.
- dial 999 for Police, Fire, or Ambulance
- dial 0800 111 999 for the National Gas Emergency Service.
This is obvious, I know, but many tenants, especially young tenants, still misunderstand the landlord’s responsibility to attend to emergencies!
2. Explain to your tenants what their responsibilities are
Secondly, make it clear to your tenants that they have a duty of care to you to mitigate the extent of any damage caused by an emergency, but only where it is safe to do so.
For example, turn off the water stop cock in the event of a burst water pipe. It is not acceptable to just leave a leaking pipe until it causes a ceiling to cave in – the tenant will become responsible for the cost of the avoidable damage resulting from not intervening.
3. Come up with a plan!
Thirdly, work out a system for dealing with property emergencies.
The basic methods to do this are as follows.
a) Do it yourself
Do you want to take the call from your tenants yourself? You might prefer to be the first point of contact, so that you can make the decision as to whether it’s a genuine emergency, or something that can be dealt with the next day.
However, if you don’t fancy being confronted with late night phone calls from young female tenants that have lost their keys – and who does – then you’ll probably like the idea of paying someone else to respond to calls. I don’t mean late night, drunken phone calls – I just mean that you make your tenants aware that they should call someone else to get a maintenance problem solved, not you. You could always tell your tenants that you live miles away from the rental property, so there’s no point in even thinking for a second that you’re the right person to call!
b) Pay someone else to do it
If you have a small portfolio of properties and have a trusted local builder, or tradesman, you could ask him to take initial calls from tenants, vet the situation and then report back to you, or attend to the problem. It’s up to you to decide the ‘hows, whys and wherefores’, but if you make the proposition attractive to your trusted tradesman, he’ll probably jump at the chance … after all, it’s what he does for a living!
Alternatively, you could use the services of a virtual assistant to take initial calls. There are many of these businesses that you can find online, but I recommend www.alldaypa.com, because they offer modestly priced, flexible and tailor made solutions. Put simply, their basic service is a pay-by-the-minute call answering service, where a human being delivers the information you have asked them to provide.
So, for example, you could arrange for the assistant to answer the call in your business name, find out why the tenant is calling and then give the tenant contact details for the appropriate tradesman, or forward the call onto you in the event of a genuine emergency. Believe it or not, their service starts at a per-minute-rate of just 78 pence!
c) Insure against it
If I told you that there was a way you could ensure that you never have to take an ‘emergency’ call from your tenants, what would you say?
Well, if you want to manage your own rental properties and ensure that you’re covered for emergency repairs, you should seriously consider Landlords Emergency Insurance.
This will usually cover you for emergency repairs to your electrical system, heating & hot water supply, plumbing & drainage, gutters & down pipes, security & glazing, emergency locksmith, roofing, pest contamination, etc – up to a set amount, normally around £300 – £500 per claim.
And the best part is … most providers offer a 24 / 7 / 365 emergency hotline that the tenant can call to report the problem, meaning you don’t have to get involved at all. You’ll simply receive notification of the works that have been carried out to fix the problem.
Considering that most lettings agents charge management fees of 10-15% of the rent to deal with such problems – and then you still have to pay for the work – you might expect such a policy to be quite expensive, however, certain insurance providers, such as HomeServe, Keysafe and HomeLet can provide Landlords Emergency Cover for around £10 per month per property. Not bad, eh?
O.K. So, let’s look back at those ‘scare stories’ touted by letting agents about receiving calls from a tenant reporting an emergency. Do they still seem like such a problem to deal with?
This article has been provided by Alex Caravello. Alex is a professional property investor with over 15 years experience. He has also set up the hugely successful Landlords Rent service. Which allows any Landlord (even with just one property)to set up direct debits to collect their rent. Click here for more information.
Watch out for our new Landlords Clinic. Alex will be available to answer all your questions.
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