David Salusbury from the National Landlords Association told me today that his organisation received a record number of calls from landlords seeking advice last year. These are almost exclusively about short-let, AST (Assured Shorthold)-type tenancies and not the long-leasehold problems more commonly dealt with by News on the Block. However, what tickled me was some of the weird and wonderful calls his advisors had to face, such as:
- A landlord, inspecting his property after leaving it two years, found the kitchen had been removed and installed in another room. In addition, he found a brick out-building had been demolished and a large conservatory built in its place.
- While a landlord was awaiting a court order to remove an anti-social tenant, a neighbour called her to say the tenants had left the property during the night. The landlord arrived to find the whole central heating system had been stolen. This didn’t matter greatly as they had taken all the double glazing too.
- Visiting a property of a long-term tenant, a landlord found that the tenant had removed the garage door and replaced it with a brick wall and a window. The tenant then knocked through from the hallway to the garage and sub-let this ‘extra room’.
You couldn’t make it up.
Leasehold & Freehold Legislation | Property Management Law Blog