Tenant issues - landlord needs advice

hawkelady

Hi all, Really hope someone can offer me advice here as Im at a loss:(
So my tenant has left the emersion on for an age which in turn caused a leak in the cylinder in the hotpress which caused water damage to an attached property!! question one is, will my house insurance,not contents insurance, cover this? I know it wont cover the cost of repair to hotpress but will it cover the cost of damage of attached property ??
Secondly,the reason the emersion was left on for so long was the gas was cut off due to non payment of bills! Its part of our contract that all utility bills have to be paid on time, this is the 1st time i was aware that the place was cut off. Maybe I should mention that my tenant is via the council,ie they pay the rent. Do they have a responcibility here and how to resolve the gas bill,will i have to pay it eventually if he,my tenant,refuses to pay??
hope someone can help,thanks in advance>>

odds_on

question one is, will my house insurance,not contents insurance, cover this?

Check with your insurance policy or your insurance company. Hoping that you have rented property insurance.

Maybe I should mention that my tenant is via the council,ie they pay the rent. Do they have a responcibility here and how to resolve the gas bill,will i have to pay it eventually if he,my tenant,refuses to pay??

Sounds like the RAS - no, they won't pay for any damages - it is you who receives the rent. I imagine that you will have to pay but you could try and check if the tenancy is registered with the PRTB - if not, you are on your own.

Secondly,the reason the emersion was left on for so long

I think an immersion heater can be left on (if it is not set to too high a temperature) all the time - but it will be very expensive.

This type of situation is fairly common with RAS tenants.

hawkelady

Thanks odds on, i hope my chances of recouping some of the money is as good as your username!!! I have my place registered with the PRTB, what can they do about this situation???? Are you saying that I will have to pay the gas bill myself ? Im fairly sure the tenant is gone after this.He is on his final warning. If he refused to pay the gas bill ,how on earth will he pay the electric bill when it arrives,the emersion costs a bomb..
as always,any advice is appreciated.

antiskeptic

hawkelady wrote: »

Thanks odds on, i hope my chances of recouping some of the money is as good as your username!!! I have my place registered with the PRTB, what can they do about this situation???? Are you saying that I will have to pay the gas bill myself ? Im fairly sure the tenant is gone after this.He is on his final warning. If he refused to pay the gas bill ,how on earth will he pay the electric bill when it arrives,the emersion costs a bomb..
as always,any advice is appreciated.

Are we to assume the gas and electric accounts are in your name. If so, surely you have access to the account to see what's happening to it. If the account isn't in your name then you've no problem there. It strikes me as extremely risky letting out a house to a stranger with utility accounts in your name.

I'd check out your liability for damage to other property. It need not automatically be the case that you have to pay. I'm thinking of the situation where house A goes on fire (but has no fire insurance) and damages house B (which has fire insurance). House B will claim for fire damage off it's own insurance policy.

The immersion should be able to be left on all the time. There is a temperature controller that stops the water getting too hot. If this fails then the cylinder might end up overheating and leaking (probably at a point where pipes connect to it, or else the cylinder or one of it's connections failed by virtue of being faulty in the first place.


What kind of damage occurred next door? It should be only paintwork. Anything more serious than that would probably mean next door wasn't paying attention to their own property for a long period of time - which could be a bargaining chip. There should be no large scale water moving across the partywall. Not unless the party wall has a hole in it.

Joey the lips

Just a word of wisdom. Leaving an immersion on for good will not cause a cylinder leak. 2 reasons. It comes with a thermostat and it comes with an expansion pipe if this fails. If there is an immersion leak it is a plumbing fault.

Has no bearing on your clients status. ie. if gas was cut off and s/he is on social welfare.

If the bills are in your name then again its your fault. If the bills are in your tenents name then the bond will become payable and the social welfare will refuse to give them a future bond.

All you need to worry about is getting the leak done. If the house is rented out leagally you should have declared this to your insurence. In which case you will be covered under landlord insurence if you did not do this then i imagine you will have at least 3rd party.

just to sum up. If you carried out the rental agreement propperly you will be covered. The client status does not matter.

D3PO

OP your insurance wont cover damage next door. They have to claim on their insurance. Personally I think its a joke but thats how it works

as for the leak being caused by the immersion being left on as mentioned previous that isnt the root cause. The termostat on the immersion would stop any damage being caused. Sounds very much like a plumbing issue.

As for the utility bills. If they are in your name your repsonsible,. if they are in the tennants they are responsible. Fairly straight forward. If they left owing a huge utilities bill thats no skin off your nose if its in their name, your next tennant can still setup an account that is in no way compramised by the fact ther eis a bill outstanding at that address.

hawkelady

cheers for all the replies. ive more info now, the tenant utility bills are in his name,so when he leaves the council has a bond with him so I wont be out of pocket there,thank god. The insurance issue is that im covered by block insurance with the mgmt company so they will look after it . the neighbouring property was only water damage,nothing major.
as for the emersion ,im just relaying what the plumber attached to the facility told me.he is the registered plumber with the mgmt company.
cheers again, im a bit happier now tbh in relation to the insurance