Everything that you supplied originally for the tenants when they moved in should be replaced by you when it breaks, no questions asked.
No questions asked?! You're an exceptionally generous landlord/lady
.
So if tenants break something in a house not only have they no obligation to replace/fix it, it is their landlord's
duty to replace it?
It's certainly not the advice I've been given by the agent who found my tenants - an agent with a a couple of decades' experience in this business. If something is faulty or stops working through wear and tear then it is
certainly my duty to replace it, I accept that completely, but if something is broken through the tenants' carelessness, etc, then it is not.
If, say, something gets smashed in a rented house during a drunken party should the landlord just replace the item without asking questions?
Or if someone in the house kicks in a previously undamaged door should the landlord just replace it without asking questions?
I'm new to all of this, but seriously, is this how it works? Tenants can cause any amount of damage and break any number of items but they have no responsibility? At all?
If you read back you'll see that
I described the iron business as 'petty', I simply asked for opinions, in light of the tenants' general behaviour, on whether giving in such on a petty issue would lead to ever-increasing petty demands from them - again, bear in mind the context, that's what's relevant here. If there had been no funny business before this I would have delivered a brand new iron within hours of them contacting me.
When something breaks in my rented flat, I ask my tennants to buy a new item themselves and deduct it from the rent.
By saying "when something breaks" you make it sound like it happened by magic. Not too many things break all by themselves - why shouldn't the person who breaks something be responsible for replacing it?
but maybe they will respect you a bit more if you are not as petty with them as they are with you !
What has
respect got to with it? And why on earth should I respect people who asked me to help them defraud the state?! They're not worthy of any respect, in my very humble opinion they are spongers. And quite clearly if they get even a hint that I'm a soft touch this will escalate - I have no doubts about that. I was as generous and friendly as possible at the start - they took that as their cue to ask me to sign a fake contract so they could defraud the rest of us.
PS They're late with their rent this month, so it looks like this will be a brief relationship.