A Very Expensive Lesson for one Landlord

We manage a very nice apartment for one of our landlords with whom we have a great working relationship. We provide him with our fully managed service that’s designed to take away all the headaches that come with being a residential landlord and everything was going swimmingly until the current tenants became late with their rent and then stopped paying completely.

Not to worry, as we had taken out rent protection cover for our landlord client and immediately put in a claim on his behalf which should have covered him for the lost rent up until the time the tenancy would have ended, or the tenants leave the property if sooner (and the associated costs of eviction if that became necessary)

Unfortunately, the claim was rejected which we immediately took up with Rent4sure on the landlord’s behalf. And then we found out why the claim was disallowed.

For some reason known only to himself (was it just to save the £20 + VAT admin fee?), the landlord wanted to deal with the deposit registration personally – and he did, however he registered it outside the statutory 30-day period allowed by law and thus his rent guarantee cover was invalidated.

Savings achieved by not asking Lifestyle to register the deposit = £24

Unrecoverable loss of rent = £4,500

Net loss from failing to let Lifestyle handle the deposit registration £4,476

A VERY EXPENSIVE LESSON INDEED