7 years into my life as a self-managing HMO landlord, I had a rude awakening. You see, my strength as a landlord was building rapport with the tenants, where there was generally always a mutual respect, open communication, trust and fairness. I had been relying on this rapport for all those years to ensure my rooms were handed back to me at the end of the tenancy in a decent condition. And in my opinion at the time, they usually were.
The event that changed it all actually brought tears to my eyes. My partner and I walked into a recently vacated room to find the entire carpeted area covered in stains (it looked like a combination of spilt alcohol, tea, make up, and God knows what else), the walls had scuffs and stains and tea spills, the bed was broken, the mattress was a wreck, and the lovely white gloss, 3-door wardrobe I had bought new for the tenant just two years earlier was completely broken and trashed. Not to mention the lack of cleaning and piles of rubbish left behind.
“Take it from his deposit!” I hear you all cry, and of course, that is what I intended to do, except I had made a fatal error. I had no check-in report so I had no proof of the condition of the room at the outset. Call it laziness if you will.
There are always so many horror stories about mean and awful landlords, but I knew with conviction that I was not one of them. So in defence of my lazy approach, I wholeheartedly believed the tenants didn’t need protecting from me – I knew I would always be more than fair with them. But I had never even considered that I might need protecting from them!
Over a drink at the local cafe, the tenant and I came to an agreement, and the repair costs outweighed the deposit deduction we’d negotiated. So I essentially paid a price for the lesson. The lesson being that the rules and procedures that are in place to protect tenants, actually protect landlords too. So make use of them.
Needless to say, I went off and designed a Check-In report pronto, and tweaked it many times over the following years until I’ve arrived at something pretty iron-clad!
And what I’ve learnt since, is that tenants seem to have even more respect for the rooms now. Whether that’s because they see a greater professionalism in our service, or because they have received a tangible reminder that their money is on the line, I don’t know. Either way, I’m happy at the result.
