As a landlord, getting a call from your tenant about a problem is the stuff of nightmares. From leaks, to pest infestations all the way through to fires, they can all cause frustration on both the tenant and landlord.
New data has been released from Direct Line for Business about landlords having to call for emergency contractors. In the last five years, the company almost hit nine million instances where emergency contractors had to be called out.
In these five years, 53% of landlord had to contact an emergency contractor to go visit a property in the last year. Direct Line also averaged the data to see how many calls there had been per year. On average, one private rental property in the UK has a contractor visiting once every three months. Overall, this amounts to around 4.7 million calls per year, which calculated, means 13,000 calls every day.
Tenants that were unfortunately forced to move out of their rented property due to an issue, on average, were unable to access their home for eight and a half days whilst repairs were made.
According to the data, the most common issues for evacuating homes were plumbing related. 365,000 rental homes were recorded each year having to evacuate their tenants due to a type of plumbing problem. The second common issue that forced tenants to leave their rental properties were electrical or gas related. The third being due to water problems and the fourth being pest infestations.
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What are the average costs for a call out?
After analysing the data, it conveyed that landlords in total pay around £4.5 billion in emergency contractors last year. Per call out, this is an average of £764 per call out which amounts to all UK landlords paying £2,141 per year. The average claim for a fire last year cost landlords around £17,000.
Even though emergency costs can be as expensive as two and a half times the monthly UK average rent, 56% of landlords admitted to not having suitable insurance to cover lost rental income.
When it physically comes down to fixing a repair, a fix is just the start. Structural damage (for obvious reasons) causes any landlord the largest bill, especially when the average call out is £2,325. However, this accounts for nearly 42% of the overall costs for a landlord. 31% of a final cost usually is responsible for rehoming tenants and this can create a loss of 28% on any rent accounts.
Direct Line for Business and their new policy
Landlord insurance will cover the majority of problems such as fires and flooding. However, other circumstances and incidents aren’t always covered by normal landlord insurance policies. Direct Line for Business has developed and created a new Landlord Emergency policy that will give both tenants and landlords peace of mid.
The new offer includes access to their special twenty-four-hour claim line that sends out certified contractors to you.
The policy will cover any call-out charges that a landlord makes. Also, the costs for materials and labours up to £1,500 a claim. It also means, if the worse does happen, tenants can make claims also on behalf of landlords. This therefore can save time and potential further damage to a property.
I started writing for PPO back in August 2019. I particularly enjoy writing about new housing developments and upcoming property events.
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