Because I clearly did something very wrong in a previous life, in this one I have been reincarnated as a buy-to-let landlord. In addition to most of the world (especially Mumsnet and The Guardian) automatically assuming I’m a wealthy slumlord, personally preventing the youth of today from getting on the property ladder, I also have the many joys of dealing with tenants, contractors, and the fucking H-fucking-M-fucking-R-fucking-C who make it their mission to a) make it as difficult as humanly possible to work out how much tax I owe them b) make it nigh-on impossible to actually pay that tax and then c) try to fine me for not being able to read their mind about how much tax I owe them, because they refused to tell me that, because it’s sensitive information. Actually, the HMRC might be a blog for another time.
I should start by saying that (touch wood) all of our tenants at the moment seem lovely, capable people. In the past we have often rented to very young tenants and/or students, and when I am running short of other blogs to bring you, I have decided to describe a Ridiculous Tenant for your delectation.
My favourite property (we only have four, so that perhaps sounds grander than it is) is a one-bedroom flat in Bethnal Green, East London. It’s a spacious-enough flat for the area, but very much designed for one person, or a couple. I love it because it was the first property I ever bought, and lived in it myself for five years, so I know it inside out. Here is a genuine conversation I had with a tenant of said flat a few years back:
Tenant: I think there is a problem with the boiler.
Me: *alarm bells ringing – boilers are expensive* Oh no, what’s the problem?
Tenant: There is never enough hot water.
Me: Hmm, that’s an odd one – so it heats up the water every day, but not enough water? (I check at this point that the hot water timer was set to continuous – which it was.)
Tenant: That’s right. Me and my girlfriend both like to have a 30-minute shower each in the morning, and it usually runs out halfway through the second shower.
Me: So you’re running the hot water continuously for 45 minutes before it runs out?
Tenant: Yes.
Me: That’s the problem – this water tank here is not really designed for that amount of water.
Tenant: Yes, but this water tank here *indicates boiler* isn’t filling up properly, I don’t think.
Me: That’s the boiler.
Tenant: No, it’s a water tank. *Begins to mansplain boilers to me – this from the guy who needed help changing a lightbulb two weeks earlier*
Me: No. It’s a boiler. See? Here is the “on” button. The problem is that the water tank isn’t really big enough for a whole hour of a power shower being operated.
Tenant: Will you please replace the water tank then, with a bigger one?
Me: That would involve replacing the entire system – it would cost about £3000, and to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with it.
Tenant: But we can’t take a 30 minute shower each in the morning… and we would like to. Are you sure that’s a boiler? It looks like a water tank to me.
It was a fucking boiler. I did not replace the water tank. The same tenant asked me to call out a plumber because he “couldn’t find the ‘sweet spot’ between warm and cold on the mixer tap”. On Easter Sunday. And locked himself into the bathroom. The bathroom, I should say, didn’t have a fucking lock.
There are lots of fuckings in this post. Sorry. Not sorry.
Are investment property owners hated on over there? Here it’s a sign of having your shiz together in a proper, adult way and is met with admiration and respect!
Having your own property is fine. But if you rent a property out to someone else, you are clearly an evil slumlord. The housing market has gone mental over here and many, many young people will likely be unable to buy even one property in their lifetime. So there is a certain amount of understandable envy, if not a lot of thought behind the vitriol. There’s a simplistic idea that if buy-to-let landlords were forced to sell up, the glut of property on the market would drive prices down. But unfortunately the housing market doesn’t exist in a bubble, and chances are the properties would just be bought up by landlords willing to accept smaller profits… who would then put the rent up.
L x