DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad Landlord Planning

We’ve already  highlighted  Landlord Licensing Schemes on several occasions. Our aim in those articles was to highlight other contractors unsafe or poor working practices. An interesting pattern has emerged as we undertake more of these checks on our landlord’s behalf. The pattern is that we are always the last people called in. The assumption by the property owner seems to be that because everything appears to work there should be no issue. That is the wrong assumption and it could end up costing you cold hard cash!

In many cases such as the one highlighted in the photos above we are being called in after the property has been painted, decorated and carpeted. In the case of this property a quick visual inspection provided the information we needed to declare that nothing would pass! The electrics were so poor that not only would the consumer units require replacing but almost every switch and socket were  damaged in various ways. It got a lot worse once we got the meter out. It turned out that the circuit labeled ring main wasn’t, the kitchen sockets ere all was being run from only the cooker circuit and some other electrical work that was completed by the decorator was also incorrect due to bad workmanship and assumptions on his part.

The only solution was to install two new consumer units. One for the overnight storage heaters on an Economy 7 tariff and another consumer unit for everything else. We also had to run a new ring to the kitchen as the exiting sockets were all connected to the cooker spur which was not safe in SO many ways. Unfortunately the decorator had also just fit new work surfaces and tiled the walls before we were called in. He had also added an electric space heater which was not safe for use in the kitchen but was also wired into the kitchen wiring which we found to be incorrectly wired. There were some other smaller issues which also required cutting channels into the wallpaper, tile and plaster. The decorator had to come back after we finished our work and fix up the damage…again.

The moral of the story is to call in the builders, electrical, plumbing and heating engineers before anybody else! In most cases the mechanical issues involve at the very least pulling up a few floor boards and many times the addition or removal of cables embedded in the walls.

Please remember that a PIR is just that. It’s an inspection. It highlights issues with the electrical systems in the property and that’s all.  It is not an automatic pass for the property. In the case of Salford Council it won’t go away nor should it. If the inspection highlights safety issues that require sorting out then those issues will need to be sorted out. You wouldn’t want to injure a tenant would you?

Related Posts

1. Salford Landlord Licence Scheme Works
2. Salford Landlord Licence Scheme Works – Part 2