UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have recently evicted a tenant who thought it was a good idea to convert my loft space into a cannabis grow room. He also thought it was wise to remove two roofing support beams to make life easier for him whilst tending to his plants. We discovered the evidence after he'd left (he was evicted for non related reasons) I've not got a leg to stand on it seems as the loft wasn't included in the inventory. How do we push for this to be a requirement apart from recommending the agency who happily took my cut of rent, as it seems to be a growing problem (pardon the pun)

I would suppose that doing deliberate potentially dangerous damage to the fabric of the building would be mentioned in some form in the lease? I assume that suing the tenant is waste of time, so where do you stand with your insurance? I can't imagine how any inventory would be expected to include such things as beams and joists.The only way you could maybe prevent this happening again would be to make the loft inaccesible to tenants by some means. Determined criminals will not be put off,but luckily it is still pretty rare for this to happen.

My loft is always part of the inventory not least because the boiler is there so it is simply a case of checking everywhere during regular inspections. In my experience agents do the minimum look around, if they even bother in the first place and since inspection reports are provided, they are so basic, to be hardly worth the effort. If you have Landlord insurance, you might be able to claim but of course it depends on what exactly is covered.

Quote from: Vicie on October 26, 2021, 08:31:14 PM...as it seems to be a growing problem

I doubt it is, not really. I think you got rather unlucky and you don't really need to prepare for it happening again. If you got burned by this twice you would be called James (the world's unluckiest boy).