UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello, looking for a little advice. One of my properties had a window broken during an attempted burglary. The tenant contacted a 24 hour security service to board up the window.
The first I knew of this was a bill from the security company dropping through my letterbox.
They are being very persistent.
Am I responsible for this bill even though I didn't authorise the repair and have had no contact with the security company.
Other than this the work was very poor but that is by the by
Thank you

I think something like this comes under the heading of things tenants should deal with,as if it was their own place.Even if you are prepared to pay up,it needs to be made clear that they can't arrange any expenses without attempting to contact you first.Would your insurance cover this,if they got a crime number from the police? I am assuming there ever was an attempted burglary of course.

This is tough.

Purely from a contractual point of view with regards the security company, that bit is easier, the landlord didn't contract for the service, and there's no reason for the security company to think that the tenant is agent of the landlord in such a way that the tenant can form a contact binding the landlord.

Could the tenant pay for it out of pocket and demand the money for it from the landlord? Now external windows is part of landlord's repairing obligations, so if the tenant had contacted the landlord when the damage was discovered, there's no question that the landlord would have had to fixed it at landlord's expense, in a reasonable timeframe which given security and health and safety is pretty much an immediate callout here. However, the landlord's obligations also only really kicks in when they have or should have knowledge of the disrepair. If the tenant never attempted to contact the landlord, I would suggest that the landlord have no liabilities. If the tenant had tried, but failed, given the emergency nature of it, the landlord may well be advised to just pay up, if the amount is reasonable for the work.

Quote from: Bynnsi on July 23, 2020, 06:47:15 PMThe tenant contacted a 24 hour security service to board up the window.

This is the problem. Did the Tenant contact you, or your Agent, or try to contact you, or your Agent? Did they have a means of doing so? If they could not contact you or your Agent then I think you should shoulder the cost to be responsible and moral. If they could contact you or your Agent and didn't try then I think the responsibility - again, morally - lies with them because they didn't have to take that path and there's an assumption being made that you'd want to nip in the bud.

You could compare this to any other kind of immediate imperative... if there was an uncontrollable water leak (or the roof developed a hole in a storm) and the Tenant had no means of contacting you, or your Agent, you would not be happy with them if they just left it. You'd call them irresponsible... as their lack of action would have undoubtedly made the situation worse.

A broken window from an attempted burglary has that kind of immediacy... because Burglars can, and will, come back... part of their work is done. But, in this case, if they were in the property and would remain in the property until the following day you can easily imagine that it would be better to avoid the call-out for boarding-up completely and get a window fitter out the following day. Maybe they panicked.

I would probably pay up... this time. But clearly set the ground rules so there are no incorrect assumptions made further down the line. You are correct that the quality of the work is by-the-by, it really is. I'd take the view that this kind of thing doesn't happen all the time... so when it does happen, be pragmatic... swallow your feeling of injustice and [try to] take the opportunity to train your Tenants.