Flipping Landlords

[baldelectrician]

Had a call at 11.40 am Sunday.

Lady calls me and says she needs me to reconnect power to her house as Scottish Power would not connect existing supply, they required an electrician to reconnect.

Confirm that as it's holiday time the charge should be £70.00 for call out and £70.00 for first hour, but as it was a civilised hour £70.00 total would do for upto an hour. This was agreed
I told her that as I don't know her I would require payment via card before call out (landlord could call and I would take payment over phone).
She could not get hold of LL but promised payment on site

Took them at word and arrived onsite to find SP finishing off.

Arrive to find a lady tending horses in stable of adjoining property; who is also a letting agent and owes me £40 from a job she didn't pay (got me to do work- third job for some landlord and then tells me to invoice landlord direct who does not pay)

Said hello and asked her and asked if the landlord of the property Scottish Power was working on was there, she directed me to a door and said the tenant was in.

Spoke to tenant and looked onsite to find 3 phase 200A supply where 3 10mm equiv VIR's had been supplying the whole place. There was only one house (with attached flat), and 2 stables off this supply. All the farm machinery was long one.

There was an open busbar chamber with a date stamp of 1958 on it, with some very dodgy looking VIR's and fused neutrals.

I am glad I gave the stipulation that I would charge for a call out and connect it it was safe, as it wasn't I had to make arrangements to call the wholesaler tomorrow (closed till Thursday for New Year) and get them to open up specially.

At this point I asked the householder to get the landlord over (who was nearby) to allow her to stay in the loop. At this point the same letting agent I spoke to earlier comes over :6:

Asked for the £70 (as already agreed) and the landlord said 'How about £50 for cash'. To which I said I had discounted from £140 to £70 and also left a family day out (wifes birthday) to come and attend this.

Told her it would be £200-£250 for materials and around the same for labour and I could arrange it for tomorrow. LL then said she wanted copies of all the wholesaler receipts

Spoke to the wife when I got home and told her of the history with the letting agent / landlord (same woman)

Original story from this agent / LL
Called me to do work
Arrived, did work, got paid (so far so good)
Added more work- EICR for new house (3 years old), 14 items coded, did basic remedials, got paid
More work added, did other clients first and then called to arrange works- told to 'not to bother and would not be using me again' and was hung up on
Added this letting agent to black list on my mobile; no more calls from her
2 weeks later agent called (from different number) to same property to change 2 ELV lights (t/f failed) all apologetic. When arrived at property tenant told me they insisted I came as she had been let down twice in the past week.
Did job invoiced- agent now tells me to seek payment from landlord in England direct as she has fell out with him

So roll on 3 months and this happens, once I found out it was her I had a gut instinct to walk away, still got £70 so previous invoice paid and a bit in the hip.

The missus and I agreed- so I called the tenant and decided to walk cancel- but gave her a full explination.

Felt really guilty for letting the tenant down but I am running a business, not a charity.

 

[diditrain]

By the sounds of it you are not the only one who has been taken by this woman, just hope the poor soul who finally gets her re-connected does not get stiffed by her, she should be blacklisted,

 

[timbobelfast]

Once bitten twice shy. Sounds like you made the right decision. I can't stand arrogant customers!

 

[oldtimer]

Yep I do work for letting agents and private landlords but must admit I rarely get a problem as I filter them out on the phone plus when I get a call I always ask are you the tenant or the owner When I get the reply of I am the tenant I say are you paying for this and then get told send to landlord thats when I say well get them to send me an email instructing me to look at it and most of the time this happens but the odd one don't get back to me.
this year I have had 2 jobs where the landlord dragged their feet for payments of £75 and £105 first one paid when I called the tenant to organise a time and date for me to attend to remove the shower pullcord switch I fitted she said she would chase the landlord I said fine but I would still attend on a time and date to remove my property and make the circuit safe then I got paid.

Thing is I do not understand this called out change pullcord £75 if they had called some franchised crowd out it would have been £90 for the first 30 minutes and then £45 an hour so no doubt the cost would have been about £200.

So you were right to quiz them before you went out yet it still niggles me that the landlord will pay £25k for a car with £800 a year service cost not including the £30 per month valet fee . The only good thing is that they are rare but you just need to be on your toes.

 

[thekingiam]

i hate posts like this, it makes my blood boil! trying to knock you down as well !
if i got called out to one of these properties again i would try to check when last pir was done and if they didn't pay on time i would report to labc if it was overdue.

 

[thekingiam]

or write a letter to landlord pretending to be labc and warn of prosecution for something, maybe ask him to turn up at labc with all gas and electric certs on all his properties.That should keep him busy and waste his time as he has wasted yours.

 

[Des 56]

I am glad that I don't get involved with this type of work
It would not be a good feeling doing the work and crossing your fingers hoping they are honest

Personally,I would do the same as yourself and give this one a miss
By the way,it was commendable of you to go out of your way to inform the tenant of your reasons

 

[thekingiam]

asking for receipts! already thinking your ripping him off, i would imagine it a nightmare to get paid off him.
i would write a letter explaining why you refused to work for him otherwise he probably thinks he has caught you out as you could not provide receipts ( i am still angry ).

 

[oldtimer]

I think if you are upfront when they call then that's your job done and yes you do get the odd one that tries to pull a fast one ie Landlord sorry I am not paying as I did not sanction this Tenant well I am not paying and I am sick of him/her not fixing things. Luckily that type of thing goes no further than the phone call and I used to feel bad when I they never got back to me but have realised thats the way it is as it is down to human nature where I have had to "prod" a couple of customers to pay up not because they are messing me about nope its down to the fact that they cannot organize their life hence the prod.