Seen on Facebook and re-posted by a landlord on a landlord forum (the agent is un-named):
“Waking up to make yourself a soothing drink for tonsilitis and realising the kettle isn’t working is one thing [writes the tenant].
“Realising the electric went in the middle of the night and you cannot do anything is another.
“Oh but then being told by your letting agency who manage the property that there is no weekend assistance and I am not allowed the landlord’s number is another!
“Suggestion is to sort out an electrician, pay for it and if the landlord says it is not your fault, then they will pay.
“Oh and also telling them that you cannot cook, have hot water, use a landline or charge your phone which is now on 17% battery means they won’t advise who to call. Southern Electric gave me some electrician numbers instead!!”
Eye would be interested in your comments.
What would you have done?
Comments (9)
Refreshing thread!
We have a voice mail facility that allows us to listen to them on our emails which get pushed to our smart phones. If there is genuinely an emergency then we will inform our tradesman and have them attend ASAP however in 10 years we've never had this happen and never needed emergency contacts outside of our office hours.
The simple question is, "What would you do if it was your own house?"
Any landlord that argues the cost for example of a genuine emergency resulting in a plumber attending to prevent damage isn't really the sort of landlord that we would want to have.
Shocked at this story! All of our managed tenants are given a list of emergency telephone numbers that can be called 24 hours a day (with an explanatory note that non-genuine emergencies may end up being charged directly to them). Even in the absence of this arrangement, no way we wouldn't have done everything possible to resolve the problem promptly.
Good management requires us to realise we are providing a service. Frankly I am amazed that people are still telling tenants 'to wait until Monday'.
Tenants benchmark of an emergency can be set somewhat low from my experience; and in providing emergency numbers can lead to non emergency calls,a bit like A&E, resulting in higher landlord maintenance costs. We therefore do not provide emergency cover, relying on tenants to actually consider the issue and have found where issues did occur over a weekend, it could wait until Monday.
In such cases where the agent isn't available 24/7 then tenants should be provided with a list of approved contractors who in turn have a limit up to which they can go to carry out emergency repairs out of hours such as the above without getting prior approval from the agent or landlord. Having a good relationship with trusted contractors is essential for this to work, which has done for me for over 18 years without problems.
We also provide an out of hours phone number for tenants but I am afraid some tenants do not understand the definition of the word 'emergency'. An emergency in our view is an event that offers a potential threat to life or property – this does not include locking yourself out after a drinking bout on a Saturday night, nor does it include a washing machine which stops working on a Sunday morning. We do find that the vast majority of our tenants have the common sense to realise that they do not live in a hotel with room service but we also provide written guidance which they can follow before calling for emergency assistance. If there is a total loss electricity, for example, they first need to check their own circuit breakers, then check with neighbours etc etc. If there is an electrical fault in the house which is not due to a fault in the tenants' own appliances, I would define that as a potential threat to the property and would be happy to call out an electrician out of hours.
We always make it clear to new tenants at the outset that we are not an emergency service and only operate 6 days a week. There are the very occasional calls from tenants who are in dire need and we always man the emergency number for these occasions. My personal mobile is on our out of hours ansaphone but with over 800 tenants I haven't had a call for over 6 months.
All our tenants have my oersonal mob number for emergency calls and assistance after hours. I always have a plumber and electrician on call. Landlords are aware if this and therefore both tenants and landlords can have peace of mind. This is what I class as managed service.