land lord house improvements

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
We have a house empty on a AHA, which did house a workman and i don't think im going to attract a working with the house the way it is. Land lord won't touch for repairs and also claimed we haven't looked after it. Needed about 50K spent on it in the beginning and wanting it back. Then when we said we wanted for a workman they claimed it was 25K to do up. In the end i've had to say i'd move into it and put them in my house. Which does seam to have got the ball rolling after over 2 years now. The agent is now claiming it only needs 5k spending on it and no mention of heating and we pay half the building bill. Do we have rights to insist on heating or not? It'll also need a new kitchen and bathroom which i'm not really going to complain at doing. But our accountant has told us the other day don't spend a penny on it. Too many tenants don't get a penny back and land lord keeps improvements for free.
Better to do the work yourself as landlord incompetence will double or treble the bill.
Get it registered as an improvement.
Your accountant wont appreciate the difficuilty of finding workers
 

ARW

Member
Location
Yorkshire
You would think some of the most needed improvements needed on houses will be old farmhouses on aha’s yet the system misses them out? Typical!
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
we need some new windows, asked agent where we stand, full repairing tenancy, asked re electric, same answer, bit of a bummer, but, that's land/lords.
 

ARW

Member
Location
Yorkshire
If your old farmhouse is still on quarry tiles and wooden floors and they need repairing it’s up to the tenant? If you don’t do it they try and do you on dilapidation, it’s a joke.
 

dairyrow

Member
Sorry for the late reply. Autumn calving cows are bulling like crazy. Which is really nice for a change. Our agent is costing a bomb tbh and they just keep coming back all the time with stupid questions. To the point i lost my temper with land lord and his agent, which isn't good i must admit. I've just asked them to put their cards on the table or it's all off. They've wanted the house back for years even sent their house keeper down to see if she could rent it. Knowing they'd send a letter saying we were breaking our agreement. It's come to the point i said i'd buy it just to save hassle and put money in their pocket for other projects. Because they just don't want to spend anything on tenant farms. Even accused us of not looking after it and threatening legal action. All the time for the last 2 years we are paying more council tax on it because it's empty and thought it would be a good time to do it up. We did put a tender in for another farm on the estate and explicitly put in the tender other parts were up for discussion. Which included the house, but the rent we tendered was low because we were willing to give up £250,000 worth of stuff over 15 years. Obviously they didn't go for it and agent wanting stuff given up for free. We've already given up 2 houses and buildings and ground for very little. Just to help them out. The only way I've got them to move is by saying the tenancy gets moved to my name, which does seam to have moved them. Builders quote isn't that big which has to be shared which is fine. But I've already spent £20K on the house i'm in and every job which was small turned into bigger jobs because it hadn't been touched in years. I've accepted a new bathroom and kitchen need to be done. Which will mean the electrics and somebody some where needs to install heating. My partner just got over cancer and chemo therapy. There does seam to be a thing with them that they are quite happy for people to put up and instal things then not pay anything for them. We've already spent quite significant amounts of money outside and it'll have to continue with the slurry regulations that WA want done. They can't have it both ways i'm afraid and where does it stop. We aren't the only ones on the estate with the same issues going forward.

Are we being unreasonable or not. Really don't know any more and lifes too short for this nonsense
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
agents are like sponges, they soak everything tenants do, and then want you to do more, unfortuantly, modern land agents, are firmly down the road of maxing income, minimising costs, that way they get all the praise. It also shows in short tenancies, get someone in, they get everything going right, and, tenancy ends, so you retender, but others are tendering on your improvements, and usually bid higher. The land agent, has done a perfect job, improved the farm, increased the rent. It is noticeable, that as the 'older' generation of l/agents, and some owners, increases, the older type of tenancies, which were more mutual agreements, and longer, where you could talk over issues, and come to an agreement, are gone. Estates are now more likely, to be left for a firm of l/agents to run, for max profit. All that really does, is let a succession of farmers knacker the place, because there is no incentive to do otherwise, you are likely to be gone in, 2,3,4,5 years time. To me, sheer stupidity, but nowt we can do !
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
agents are like sponges, they soak everything tenants do, and then want you to do more, unfortuantly, modern land agents, are firmly down the road of maxing income, minimising costs, that way they get all the praise. It also shows in short tenancies, get someone in, they get everything going right, and, tenancy ends, so you retender, but others are tendering on your improvements, and usually bid higher. The land agent, has done a perfect job, improved the farm, increased the rent. It is noticeable, that as the 'older' generation of l/agents, and some owners, increases, the older type of tenancies, which were more mutual agreements, and longer, where you could talk over issues, and come to an agreement, are gone. Estates are now more likely, to be left for a firm of l/agents to run, for max profit. All that really does, is let a succession of farmers knacker the place, because there is no incentive to do otherwise, you are likely to be gone in, 2,3,4,5 years time. To me, sheer stupidity, but nowt we can do !
There is domething you can do, ...
Vote labour!!
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Sorry for the late reply. Autumn calving cows are bulling like crazy. Which is really nice for a change. Our agent is costing a bomb tbh and they just keep coming back all the time with stupid questions. To the point i lost my temper with land lord and his agent, which isn't good i must admit. I've just asked them to put their cards on the table or it's all off. They've wanted the house back for years even sent their house keeper down to see if she could rent it. Knowing they'd send a letter saying we were breaking our agreement. It's come to the point i said i'd buy it just to save hassle and put money in their pocket for other projects. Because they just don't want to spend anything on tenant farms. Even accused us of not looking after it and threatening legal action. All the time for the last 2 years we are paying more council tax on it because it's empty and thought it would be a good time to do it up. We did put a tender in for another farm on the estate and explicitly put in the tender other parts were up for discussion. Which included the house, but the rent we tendered was low because we were willing to give up £250,000 worth of stuff over 15 years. Obviously they didn't go for it and agent wanting stuff given up for free. We've already given up 2 houses and buildings and ground for very little. Just to help them out. The only way I've got them to move is by saying the tenancy gets moved to my name, which does seam to have moved them. Builders quote isn't that big which has to be shared which is fine. But I've already spent £20K on the house i'm in and every job which was small turned into bigger jobs because it hadn't been touched in years. I've accepted a new bathroom and kitchen need to be done. Which will mean the electrics and somebody some where needs to install heating. My partner just got over cancer and chemo therapy. There does seam to be a thing with them that they are quite happy for people to put up and instal things then not pay anything for them. We've already spent quite significant amounts of money outside and it'll have to continue with the slurry regulations that WA want done. They can't have it both ways i'm afraid and where does it stop. We aren't the only ones on the estate with the same issues going forward.

Are we being unreasonable or not. Really don't know any more and lifes too short for this nonsense
Just fo the work yourself and get a worker in.
Talking to agents is a waste of breath.
They are trained to get under your skin and cause maximum grief when you are already under pressure, because one tenant in every hundred will crack and hand over the farm.
I know one tenant who needed a repair on a roof which was holding up another urgent job. It dragged on and on.
The weather turned bad, then they hit him with a big rent demand.
The agent left the house after a terse
Meeting and tenant collapsed with a stroke.
Misssion accomplished.
 

Surgery

Member
Location
Oxford
Had this same issue along money needed to be spent around the yard they sold it to us , something to think of.

you need to seriously look at the written tenancy for a start as there will be sections on what work is done by LL and tenant , in our case a lot of outside work was LL , internals more ourselves bar electrical and heating thou we had to service the heating system.

I would get a good aha agent on the case for the sake of 1k , have him write down your obligations and theirs , look around and get quotes for said work and then determine if it’s in your best interest to push the LL for replacements-repairs as I dare say your contribution on your behalf will add up , it’s a simple case of looking at the detail in the tenancy , they can fob you off only till the point you prove them different.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top