UK Landlord Forum / Life

hi im new to this site and wondered if anyone could give some advice. i have a three bed property and have had tenants in there for four years now. just recently they rang me to say there was a problem with my boiler that i had serviced a few weeks before they rang. so we called the gas service people out who looked at the boiler and said there was nothing wrong with it so checked there carbon monoxide alarm that the tenants got from E D F it turned out it was there alarm that was faulty. i sent a letter to my tenants saying they would have to pay the invoice they then rang me to to say they had seeked legal advice and by law i have to supply a carbon monoxide alarm is this true?

I believe it is true in properties where there is a gas supply. 

You should install a carbon monoxide detector, and you should also install smoke detectors.  So do this now if you haven't already done it.

With regard to whether or not you can charge them for the invoice, I don't think you should.  You ought to have supplied the detector in the first place but did not so the tenant got his/her own.  Added to that, fault detection and servicing of a boiler is part of the maintenance of the property, and down to the landlord, not the tenant.  That is why I think you are onto a sticky wicket there and should pay your own invoice.

If I were your tenant I would not pay it.

Hello jeanp.

It's difficult to find a law which sayd "thou must provide a carbon monoxide detector", e.g. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2451/regulation/36/made

The law is more around what easonable steps did the landlord take to ensure the right of CO poisoning was adequately managed.  Which is more open to interpretation.  So in short, I think you'd be a fool not to provide at least one CO alarm.

I think Topseyt is right.  You're being foolish if you try to pass this invoice on.  Not just from the point of view of legality, but from what it does to the relationship with your tenants.  They've given you four year's rent money; you can't be bothered to provide a CO alarm; so they get one; it was not their fault it was not calibrated correctly, but their money grabbing git of a landlord is charging them for being genuinely worried about their own safety.

Let this one drop so that you keep your good long term tenants.