No – the decision to allow the tenant to carry out repairs on the property or not will be dependent on a number of factors including the size and complexity of the job. Before making a decision, a landlord should consider the following:
- if a landlord instructs a tenant to do repairs on their property on their behalf and someone gets injured during, or as a result of, the work, the landlord could be held liable.
- landlords have statutory repairing obligations – instructing a tenant to carry out what is the landlord’s lawful duty could cause problems particularly if the landlord-tenant relationship were to sour at a later date.
- what guarantee will the tenant offer for their work? Will that guarantee extend beyond the current tenancy? Who and how will the landlord check the work has been carried out to a professional standard?
- how will the landlord assess the tenant is competent to carry out the work?
- allowing the tenant to carry out their own repairs could open the door for an amateur DIY’er who does lots of fixes around the property leaving the landlord with the cost of rectifying poor workmanship at a later date.
- expecting a tenant to carry out their own repairs is not the behaviour of a landlord who is managing their business in a professional manner and will send out the wrong message to the tenant.
- allowing the tenant to conduct their own repairs may be used as a bargaining chip against the landlord in the future e.g. The next time the landlord wants to increase the rent the tenant will almost certainly mention this as a factor why the rent should not be increased.
Still not answered your question? We love questions so fire it at us using the contact details here
Please rate this article so we know how well it answered your question…
