UK Landlord Forum / Life

We have a flat in a Grade 2 listed property that we have been renting out to various tenants for more than 20 yrs. The upstairs flat owner keeps sending threatening emails saying that the fumes from the kitchen are so overpowering that they have to 'rush in most nights' and remove their young child. This has never been a problem before. We have installed a new extractor fan but it does not extract the fumes outside as I believe we would need planning permission for that. Our tenants now always cook with the window open.

Is there anything else we can do or are legally obliged to do?

Many thanks

Sally

First point - as Landlord you don't get involved in what is effectively a neighbour dispute.

You are not the mum of the Tenant, or the neighbour, and certainly not their Carer. If the neighbour wishes to take it further, advise them to follow the correct channels - you'd imagine that those would involve the Council, somehow. Be firm on this. You are not responsible for how a Tenant lives their life (or cooks). It might turn out that you are responsible for making some alterations to the property... but it's not in the upstairs neighbour's gift to inform you of that.

Who would the upstairs neighbour "tell on" if your Tenant owned that property? That's the principle.