Should landlord give notice of when he will call to cut lawn

windmilllane · 12-09-2018 9:32pm #1

My brother owns a house and he rents it out. He looks after the lawn and depending on weather /his other commitments he calls at different times of day / Days of week. Needless to say he never goes into the house. Tenant says she would like prior notice of him calling. He is tempted to tell her to cut the lawn herself. Does anyome know is he obliged to inform tenant he will be calling to cut lawn. Thanks

Pelvis · 12-09-2018 9:33pm

Wtf is he cutting the grass for?

Yes he should give notice.

punisher5112 · 12-09-2018 9:35pm

If he has to enter any part of the property then yes he would need to arrange.

What lease has he in place?
If he decides now to let them look after it they probably won't and he may cause issues where they will then bring a case or just stop payment.

delly · 12-09-2018 9:37pm

I'd say it's absolutely fair to ask for notice. I know he's not going in the house, but he would be in very close quarters to the house and that can feel like an invasion of privacy if it can happen at any time.

Samuel T. Cogley · 12-09-2018 9:39pm

YEs he shoud give her notice and yes get her to cut her own bloody lawn.

colm_mcm · 12-09-2018 9:43pm

I assume a text in advance is all she wants, not too much to ask.

4ensic15 · 12-09-2018 9:50pm

windmilllane wrote: »

My brother owns a house and he rents it out. He looks after the lawn and depending on weather /his other commitments he calls at different times of day / Days of week. Needless to say he never goes into the house. Tenant says she would like prior notice of him calling. He is tempted to tell her to cut the lawn herself. Does anyome know is he obliged to inform tenant he will be calling to cut lawn. Thanks

He is not obliged to give the tenant notice. Under the RTA he is obliged to maintain the lawn unless the contract provides otherwise. She can undertake to cut it herself or pay to have it cut if she doesn't like him coming.

colm_mcm · 12-09-2018 9:52pm

This is more a common courtesy thing than anything IMO. Nobody wants to be in a situation where their landlord could be in the garden unannounced at any given time.

It’s great that he maintains the lawn, but it does eat into the tehants’ privacy in reality.

windmilllane · 12-09-2018 10:08pm

Thanks for all the replies

TheBoyConor · 12-09-2018 10:15pm

Is she not being a bit precious here?

He's trying to be a good landlord by maintaining the property by cutting the grass and actually making things easy for her so she don't have to do it or pay for someone to do it. In my opinion she should be thankful.

Lucky my landlord cuts our grass here where I rent my house. We didn't agree it, he just has always done it and that's the way it's always been. I literally couldn't give two sh!ts when he does it as long as it's not 3am or whatever. I wouldn't want to be bothered getting calls or texts saying he was coming to cut it because I simply don't give a monkeys about the grass.

ted1 · 13-09-2018 7:41am

The tenant should be cutting their own grass, it’s akin to hovering.

It’s a bit ridiculous to want the security of a home but not treating it as one.

PucaMama · 13-09-2018 7:45am

Yes out of manners give notice. Could be simple as sending a text?

Landlords are supposed to maintain the outside of the property.

ted1 · 13-09-2018 8:04am

PucaMama wrote: »

Yes out of manners give notice. Could be simple as sending a text?

Landlords are supposed to maintain the outside of the property.

I wouldn’t classify cutting the grass as maintenance just like I don’t classify hoovering

Most leases where there is a garden will state this tenant is responsible

Graces7 · 13-09-2018 8:33am

colm_mcm wrote: »

This is more a common courtesy thing than anything IMO. Nobody wants to be in a situation where their landlord could be in the garden unannounced at any given time.

It’s great that he maintains the lawn, but it does eat into the tehants’ privacy in reality.

Houses have windows.

4ensic15 · 13-09-2018 8:44am

Graces7 wrote: »

Houses have windows.

Windows have curtains.

Caliden · 13-09-2018 8:47am

My dad does this purely because he doesn't want the tenant suing him if he leaves them a lawnmower and something goes wrong.

seamus · 13-09-2018 8:50am

Caliden wrote: »

My dad does this purely because he doesn't want the tenant suing him if he leaves them a lawnmower and something goes wrong.

He could avoid this by not leaving them a lawnmower and letting the tenant buy their own...

Franz Von Peppercorn · 13-09-2018 8:50am

ted1 wrote: »

The tenant should be cutting their own grass, it’s akin to hovering.

It’s a bit ridiculous to want the security of a home but not treating it as one.

It’s the landlords duty to cut the lawn. That removes her right to privacy though. The lawn isn’t considered the internal part of the property.

ArthurG · 13-09-2018 8:56am

You have to despair of people sometimes. Unless your wan is dancing around in the nip in curtain-less rooms, whats the big deal. Then again out of courtesy it wouldn't kill the LL to send a text.

Why must we always have the drama lol.

omega666 · 13-09-2018 8:58am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

It’s the landlords duty to cut the lawn. That removes her right to privacy though. The lawn isn’t considered the internal part of the property.

No it's not the landlord duty.
It depends on the individual tenancy and should be covered in the lease agreement.Some leases would specify that the tenants are responsible for
maintaining the garden.

ted1 · 13-09-2018 9:01am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

It’s the landlords duty to cut the lawn. That removes her right to privacy though. The lawn isn’t considered the internal part of the property.

Not if it’s in the lease.

_Brian · 13-09-2018 9:02am

Cutting the lawns and general tidying is in the lease with my tenant and I’ve supplied a lawnmower to complete the task.

ted1 · 13-09-2018 9:02am

Caliden wrote: »

My dad does this purely because he doesn't want the tenant suing him if he leaves them a lawnmower and something goes wrong.

Your father should have landlord insurance which would protect him from this. Thus making his life easier

winksblinks · 13-09-2018 9:04am

I had this in a previous place I rented - landlord preferred to do the lawn himself which was fine. He arrived early one Saturday morning, I came down to see the garage door open at c. 8am and assumed it had been broken into.

After that he agreed to pop a text through when he was coming over to cut the grass! Its not so much a privacy issue, more a security issue IMO and having knowledge that someone is around the property.

TheShow · 13-09-2018 9:08am

a quick text or arrange a time that he will normally be there could solve all of this.

TheBoyConor · 13-09-2018 9:46am

Caliden wrote: »

My dad does this purely because he doesn't want the tenant suing him if he leaves them a lawnmower and something goes wrong.

seamus wrote: »

He could avoid this by not leaving them a lawnmower and letting the tenant buy their own...

The problem with either of these approaches is that in many cases they simply won't cut it and will leave it go wild. If you give them the use of your mower they will probably wreck it or leave it full of wet grass and leave it rot or run it out of oil.

If you ask them to get their own mower they simply might not do it.

It's all well and good writing the tenancy contract so that the tenant cuts the grass but it's quite another thing to be able to enforce it. As we all know at this stage, tenancy contracts are hardly worth the paper they are written on because they are effectively totally meaningless after 6 months when Part IV kicks in because they tenant basically has free reign with little on no consequences in reality.

You just have to cross your fingers and toes that your tenant doesn't have a 180* personality flip after 6 months.

ted1 · 13-09-2018 9:49am

TheBoyConor wrote: »

The problem with either of these approaches is that in many cases they simply won't cut it and will leave it go wild. If you give them the use of your mower they will probably wreck it or leave it full of wet grass and leave it rot or run it out of oil.

If you ask them to get their own mower they simply might not do it.

It's all well and good writing the tenancy contract so that the tenant cuts the grass but it's quite another thing to be able to enforce it. As we all know at this stage, tenancy contracts are hardly worth the paper they are written on because they are effectively totally meaningless after 6 months when Part IV kicks in because they tenant basically has free reign with little on no consequences in reality.

You just have to cross your fingers and toes that your tenant doesn't have a 180* personality flip after 6 months.

And if they don’t then a bill from a professional gardener would be a legitimate deduction from the deposit

13-09-2018 9:57am

Of course notify. Tennant doesn't need the owner to find out she has 20 other people living there

TheBoyConor · 13-09-2018 10:03am

They'll just tell you that in their opinion it didn't need to be cut/the mower was broken/they were on holidays/the weather was too wet/ etc etc and possibly withold rent.

If I was renting out the home house (which I never will) I'd be insistent from day 0 that I would take responsibility for the upkeep of the garden and general exterior. If they don't like that they can just go rent elsewhere.

It also allows you to keep an eye on any dodgy or damaging activities that might be going on. For example, when my sister rented out her house the tenants decided to turn the back garden into a small scale scrapyard - at the back of the house there was a big engineless transit type van with all the front taken off of it, another partially dismantled car with all the axle off or something, buckets of dirty oil overflowing from rainwater, broken oily engine parts lying around.

You can't have that kind of thing going on. If my brother in law hadn't been going around cutting the grass from time to time this would never have been noticed and the first we'd have heard about it is probably the prick of a neighbour complaining about oil film running into his garden in the rain. And the coward probably wouldn't tell us either, he'd just complain to the council and we wouldn't know until we get letters in the post about a council inspector coming.

And these were actually Swedish professionals and the last type of person you'd think would go at this craic. The wife was lovely as was the husband but him and either a friend or a brother just couldn't tell the difference between what was reasonable and what was taking the piss as regards their hobby.

The amount of piss takers out there is unreal.

jobeenfitz · 13-09-2018 10:04am

Course she should be notified. She could reading the paper in de nip when landlord calls. Nice to have some privacy in your home. This is usually not a big deal if discussed by two rational people, in my experience.

Claw Hammer · 13-09-2018 12:12pm

The most he should do is just knock on the door before he starts work. That way there is no surprise. No way should he actually have to make appointments or send texts in advance.

Should landlord give notice of when he will call to cut lawn

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