Arather extraordinary call took place the other day, when, following the breakdown of a boiler in one of my properties, a tenant who was full of praise for my swift response and immediate action, asked for a rental discount for the ”inconvenience”! 

A broken boiler for a landlord is, perhaps one of the most irritating of management problems. It’s the combination of an appliance which for most of us is a mystery, combined with a limited availability of tradesmen and the apparent rarity of parts which can make a boiler breakdown so utterly miserable and unpredictable. Having dealt with one or two in the past, I have learnt that the only way to fix a boiler problem is to throw money at it, and so sucked up the near £1000 bill to get it repaired.

In response to the email claim for compensation I did something which I am usually so very careful not to do and picked up the phone whilst still angry and listened whilst grinding my teeth as they explained how “reasonable” they were being, as in their words they pay a “premium to rent” and as such some sort of compensation was due! Indeed, they went on to explain that the £1000 bill for the boiler repair was nothing in comparison to the years of rent that I had received from them. The mental strength required to hold back from providing a “parental style education” in response to these comments was nothing short of herculean. My inner-city fox was ready to burst into the proverbial hen house and do what foxes do (metaphorically speaking). How could a seeming well educated individual genuinely believe that such a thing as a “rental premium” exists? Particularly when interest rates have been in the news and the math’s skill required to calculate a monthly mortgage payment on the value of the flat is hardly a mystery. For the record if they were paying a mortgage on the basis of first-time buyers (as they would be) then their repayments would be over £1000 per month more than their current rent.

They would then pay their service charges as well as be responsible for fixing their own boiler! Having listened to the “woe is me” justifications of a member of Generation Z, I calmly and gently ended the call, and headed to the dentist to replace my crown (another unfulfilling grand down the drain). I then decided that I should probably call some actual experts. With the constantly evolving and irksome changes to tenant and landlord law being announced and/or discussed ad nauseum in the press, it is difficult as a landlord (with a life) to stay on top of the ever-changing rules and regulations. Perhaps the government had decreed that landlords had to compensate tenants for a broken boiler, perhaps the Department for Leveling Up had decided that in such an event the tenant has automatic right to take possession of the property without compensation, and I was just out of touch. 

Luckily however no such legislation had been announced. The cool heads at Draker as ever put my mind at rest, they explained in a calm and sympathetic manner that no compensation was required, but similarly explained that maintaining cordial tenant relations was in the long term a better result. As is so often the case, removing emotion from a situation reveals the optimal outcome. For the management team at Draker handling such matters is part of the day job, whereas for a landlord such as myself with only a small portfolio such occurrences are rare, and when they occur, they can feel like a personal attack. In the end I settled the matter by contributing towards a portable radiator, in case any such occurrence might happen again, and fortunately my relationship with my tenants remains cordial. It is perhaps an important lesson for any landlord to understand how valuable professional advice can be at a time of high stress.

Many property owners have found themselves becoming accidental landlords over the last few years, and as such are renting out the properties that they themselves have lived in and which carry at least in part some emotional connection. This emotion can on occasion mask the reality that renting ones property is ultimately about business, which requires the same unemotional and logical thought that almost all of us apply to our daily work. Luckily for me the management team at Draker were on hand to remind me of this and guide me to the appropriate conclusion. But… given I selected this tale for the article, you can probably tell I’m still not quite over it. Perhaps it’s my age, perhaps it’s the seemingly never ending sense of entitlement that seems to flow from younger generations, but whatever “it” is, no doubt the apparent disquiet and frustration which seems to linger in the very air today, would be far easier to dislodge if on select occasions the adults in the room were themselves entitled to dispense a dose of reality to those who it would seem are almost totally divorced from it. On occasion it is important that we utilise that most powerful of words. No.