We do a bit of sales in our office, not too many but enough to give ourselves extra headaches. We had a sale going through nicely last week and on the day of completion we had a call from the purchaser’s solicitors stating their client was concerned that on their last visit to the property the back door handle was a bit dodgy. Therefore a condition of completion would be that this is fixed. “No problem!” I said confidently, dialling up the vendor to have this piece of maintenance waived through.
Of course he said, “No”, and was willing for the entire deal to fall through on the back of this job which I had priced up at less than fifty quid. Guess who footed the bill?
We had to take a tenant to court because he had omitted to pay rent for two months. Turns out the tenants wife’s penchant for a new Brighthouse sofa every year finally caught up on him and the cupboard was finally bare. All our efforts to contact the tenant prior to the case went un-answered and he did not attend the courts. I did, however, receive a nice phone call from him shortly after, enquiring as to how he had got on. “Poorly” was the only answer I could muster.
Moving to maintenance issues…..
Call from tenant with an ant infestation requesting I send one of our maintenance men to manufacture a wooden structure to cover the holes where the ants were finding their way in.
“Have you tried ant powder?” I asked hopefully. They hadn’t. “Try ant powder”.
Also visited a property at the request of a neighbour to investigate a garage under construction in one of our rentals. Good heavens it was big – two stories, timber framed and only slightly encroaching onto the neighbouring properties. the tenants advised that, while they didn’t have the paperwork, they had obtained full planning permission from the council. I advised that planning permission could only be granted to the property owner. Oh dear. Structure dismantled.
“To live without hope is to cease to live.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Middle Man 