Landlord building work - Compensation?

teknokid · 17 Sep 2020 at 13:00

I'm just looking to gauge the general feel on this, as I'm sure there are a number of tenants/landlords on OCUK and someone may have gone through exactly this.

Essentially, I live in a basement flat with a split garden - we have the ~2m nearest the house, the remainder belongs to upstairs which is accesses via stairs which travel over my section of the garden.

The landlord owns the whole building, and wants to build an office in the section of garden that belongs to the upstairs part of the building (he currently uses upstairs as an office, leasing the basement only).

He's advised me that we will be disturbed via noise etc as they've got to do some heavy digging for ~3 weeks, plus they have to run waste pipes across my garden, so will have to dig up some of that etc.

All of this is directly behind the bedrooms in my flat, one of which is an office (currently getting a lot of use with WFH and the girlfriend is working from the flat too).

In total he's expecting the complete works to take 6 months - all of which will remove all my privacy at the back of the flat, cover it in dust and create a hell of a racket (the work is within ~5m of my rear wall/windows).

What would people expect to be fair compensation for this?

The landlords made an offer that equates to 4.5% over the 6 months, but to me that seems quite pitiful considering we won't be able to use our outside space due to dust/noise etc and WFH will become far less enjoyable.

What are the thoughts GD?

Thank you!

MadMan-JaMeS · 17 Sep 2020 at 13:18

4.5% of what ? Your monthly rent ?

dirtychinchilla · 17 Sep 2020 at 13:18

I'd be curious to know what made him choose 4.5%. At a guess, he wanted not to go all in with the offer and in his mind he's thinking 10% would probably be OK. As you say though, you're losing a chunk of space that you're paying for. That should be available to you, so it would make sense to be compensated.

teknokid · 17 Sep 2020 at 13:41

dirtychinchilla said:
I'd be curious to know what made him choose 4.5%. At a guess, he wanted not to go all in with the offer and in his mind he's thinking 10% would probably be OK. As you say though, you're losing a chunk of space that you're paying for. That should be available to you, so it would make sense to be compensated.

yes, 4.5% reduction of our monthly rent during the work. The 4.5% comes from him refusing compensation through the majority of the works, aside from when my garden is out of action. My argument is I’m disrupted throughout the full 6 months and I’m finding it easier to consider it as a monthly %. It’s a very tricky one to judge, I can’t see many discussions around this online but I feel 4.5% is a bit weak?

Dark Light · 17 Sep 2020 at 15:12

Give notice, no one will take it if there is building work going on, it then costs him 95.5% more.

Gav_r26 · 17 Sep 2020 at 15:31

On the flip side if you lived in a semi-detached and your neighbors were having building work done you'd be entitled to jack all, so from that point of view 4.5% is quite generous!

teknokid · 17 Sep 2020 at 17:43

gav_172 said:
On the flip side if you lived in a semi-detached and your neighbors were having building work done you'd be entitled to jack all, so from that point of view 4.5% is quite generous!

Whilst very true, you do at least have a fence and some distance between you and the work/workers. It’s the fact they’re right outside the window and we’re paying for the pleasure that grates!

Diddums · 17 Sep 2020 at 17:52

Our landlord wanted to build another floor on our building. We live in the penthouse and have a nice balcony and some skylights which we'd lose. We were offered a permanent reduction in rent to compensate for the loss of the skylights and a 50% reduction during the works.

Other neighbours objected and the idea was shelved.

If my home were to be turned in to a construction site, 4.5% wouldn't even come close to being an acceptable figure. I'd want 30% as a minimum.

Diagro · 17 Sep 2020 at 23:11

Tell him no, object to his plans.
Complain to council regarding intrusion and noise.

Tosno · 18 Sep 2020 at 00:57

4.5%? Surely he meant 45%... that or object to his evil landlord plans

adam cool dude · 18 Sep 2020 at 05:27

He owns the house and your renting it. Get on with life. I am actually surprised the landlord offered anything. I think 90% of renters would love it if their landlord even took care of the property they live in let alone give them a little discount.

We had British Gas installing new gas pipes down my street and needed to put a new meter in the garage. Should I have asked them for compensation for the noise and intrusion of my privacy? I am pretty sure I would get nothing.

200sols · 18 Sep 2020 at 06:45

Just move.

Diddums · 18 Sep 2020 at 06:52

adam cool dude said:
He owns the house and your renting it. Get on with life. I am actually surprised the landlord offered anything. I think 90% of renters would love it if their landlord even took care of the property they live in let alone give them a little discount.

We had British Gas installing new gas pipes down my street and needed to put a new meter in the garage. Should I have asked them for compensation for the noise and intrusion of my privacy? I am pretty sure I would get nothing.

Because someone replacing a gas meter in an day is the same as your back garden being turned in to a construction site for six months right?

Come on, you can't possibly be that stupid.

OP ignore people like this, tell him you want a reduced rent and if he fails to comply, find somewhere else to live. Good luck to him finding tenants with a backhoe in his garden.

NoobCannon · 18 Sep 2020 at 07:02

Arent basement flats a bit chavvy?

mattyg · 18 Sep 2020 at 07:26

Move... Life's too short. Get looking asap

teknokid · 18 Sep 2020 at 08:28

Thank you everyone for your replies - I’m glad it’s not just me that thinks such a small % reduction is a joke! I’ll go back to him and see what happens, may well be moving soon!

Gav_r26 · 18 Sep 2020 at 08:38

teknokid said:
Whilst very true, you do at least have a fence and some distance between you and the work/workers. It’s the fact they’re right outside the window and we’re paying for the pleasure that grates!

Ohhhh so you don't have to pay for houses if you aren't renting....

Having renovated a house last year I sympathies with your landlord. All he is trying to do is improve his own property, like most home owners would want to do. AS a homeowner doing works like that all you can really do is keep the neighbors informed as much as possible, try to impact them as little as possible, which is tricky when bricks are being cut with a 12" petrol disc cutter or party walls are being chased out for electrics. A fence is going stop stop none of that dust or noise, trust me! We just kept the neighbours informed at every stage and also tried to do some other little bits to lessen the impact like replacing their knackered front fence with a brick wall for them and rendering bits of wall to ensure they are watertight. I'm sure none of them would have wanted us to renovate the house next to them but unfortunately it is also life. We get on well with all of them and they appreciated we tried to keep disruption to a minimum.

All your landlord can really do is keep the disruption as minimal as possible and keep you informed as well as anything he can to try to compensate you a little. He sounds like he's trying to do that. I love this assumption from tennants that 100% of the rent they pay is profit for the landlord. He has costs as well, probably a mortgage, tax as well as maintenance. He would probably love to give you 50% off for the duration but I doubt its financially viable for him to do so!#

As said if you really don't like it your other option is to clear off and rent somewhere else.

FMF · 18 Sep 2020 at 08:58

The landlord has an agreement with the tenant to provide the property in a set condition including the lack of noise/ dust pollution. Absolutely ask for a discount 10-20% seems reasonable.

mattyy · 18 Sep 2020 at 08:58

gav_172 said:
...

What you’ve written is true but it very biased to the landlord. You can’t have it both ways.
You keep a rental property for some kind of benefit, as in if it was costing money no sensible person would keep it.

Sure the landlord has an entitlement to improve the property but they should also have the consideration to the tenants that provide them with the benefit they are receiving from the rental property.
Unfortunately, if it is not financially viable to offer a reasonable compensation amount for the works then the works need to be reconsidered. It is really a cost that should be included in the construction costs.
If you were that landlord that could not offer a reasonable compensation amount due to it not being financially viable then would you still be able to go ahead with the build with out a tenant for some months? If the answer is yes then the cost has already been accounted for and you’re just a d***

Diddums · 18 Sep 2020 at 09:13

gav_172 said:
Ohhhh so you don't have to pay for houses if you aren't renting....

Having renovated a house last year I sympathies with your landlord. All he is trying to do is improve his own property, like most home owners would want to do. AS a homeowner doing works like that all you can really do is keep the neighbors informed as much as possible, try to impact them as little as possible, which is tricky when bricks are being cut with a 12" petrol disc cutter or party walls are being chased out for electrics. A fence is going stop stop none of that dust or noise, trust me! We just kept the neighbours informed at every stage and also tried to do some other little bits to lessen the impact like replacing their knackered front fence with a brick wall for them and rendering bits of wall to ensure they are watertight. I'm sure none of them would have wanted us to renovate the house next to them but unfortunately it is also life. We get on well with all of them and they appreciated we tried to keep disruption to a minimum.

All your landlord can really do is keep the disruption as minimal as possible and keep you informed as well as anything he can to try to compensate you a little. He sounds like he's trying to do that. I love this assumption from tennants that 100% of the rent they pay is profit for the landlord. He has costs as well, probably a mortgage, tax as well as maintenance. He would probably love to give you 50% off for the duration but I doubt its financially viable for him to do so!#

As said if you really don't like it your other option is to clear off and rent somewhere else.

Sorry, but that's not how it works. There's no "oh poor landlord, we'll suffer for 6 months, he's trying to improve his property" going on here, it's a business, plain and simple. If the landlord wants to improve his/her property, then the cost of compensating the tenants needs to be factored in to the final bill. Likewise a landlord is entitled to evict their tenants for the duration provided they stick to the legal framework agreed upon by both parties however this will then lose them 100% of that income, so it's in their best interest to come up with a solution that suits all.