Tenants smelly cooking

Tenants smelly cooking

14:47 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago 42

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My tenants of five months seem to live on curry. The flat smells of it every time I go around, despite my asking them to open windows and ensure the cooker hood is used. A tenant from an adjoining flat has already left because of the continuous smell.

Three questions:

(a) can I evict due to the offensive smell?

(b) can I make a claim off their deposit for deep cleaning and replacement of impregnated furnishings that won’t clean?

(c) in future, can I write something into the agreement (as I have with smoking) to prevent strong smelling spices being used in the property?

Many thanks  Smelly tenants

Stewart


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Comments

Mary Latham

20:06 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago

IO you wouldn't by any chance have the wording for a clause to help with this issue would you?

Philip Aston

20:45 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Yes, I agree with everyone else I am sure you can make a reasonable charge for cleaning. My opinion is that there are some tenant behaviour patterns that might cause inconvenience to some others - even to the point that they don't want to live there -but are not in any way actionable, either as a cause of eviction or as a term for future tenancies, and this is one of them. In these cases we just have to wait for the tenancy to end.

apogee

20:52 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Yes please Industry Observer! Sounds like valuable information.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

22:25 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago

@Industry Observer

By posting your suggested clause you could be helping thousands of landlords for many years to come as this particular thread already ranks very highly in Google search results on the subject of "smelly tenants".

Please post your clause here.

Thanks in advance 🙂
.

Industry Observer

22:35 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Will do been out and only just picked up on the interest.

Of course will post Thursday

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

22:37 PM, 8th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Industry Observer " at "08/01/2014 - 22:35":

Thank you again 🙂

Jeremy Smith

0:18 AM, 9th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Industry Observer " at "08/01/2014 - 22:35":

Oh IO,.... you are a tease !!

...It's Thursday now................................

...My tenants eventually got the neighbours both sides complaining about the smell, but it wasn't any cooking, it was just them !!

John Daley

11:18 AM, 9th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Whilst I am sure IO has a form of words to ban the use of various spices and a wide range of other behaviours he regards as reprehensible it isn't going to work. You can write anything you like into a tenancy agree ment but unless the terms are fair and reasonable you are wasting your time.

Trying to prevent a type of cooking in a rental by writing a term into the tenancy agreement is going to be unenforceable because the term is unfair under the definition in the CPR 2008. The local Trading Standards officer will just tell the resident to ignore it.

Of course you can terminate the letting but only a fool would do that if the tenants were OK otherwise. You could probably charge extra for cleaning on departure as it be reasonable to argue that the average tenant would be put off by a strong smell and therefore you stand to suffer a loss finacially arising from the letting.

Industry Observer

11:30 AM, 9th January 2014, About 10 years ago

@ John

You have no idea what I have, I understand your concerns and no the clause does not prohibit the use of curry powder and chilis!!

What I and my clients use has been thought about long and hard and developed and refined over quite some time and many years experience of not only mine but others.

It sits alongside the standard cleaning etc clauses. I have one for cockroach infestation etc if anyone is interested (you will be if like me you have ever experienced one!!)

I suggest you wait until you see it then of course if you maintain your view you don't of course have to use it.

Posting follows later as paid work comes first and pro bono second!!

Romain Garcin

12:23 PM, 9th January 2014, About 10 years ago

Any sort of clause can be added to the agreement, and often there can be used by just pointing them out to the tenant but have no legal effect or are in practice unenforceable.
So the question to IO is: Has his clause ever been put to the test before a deposit scheme's adjudicator or court?

If clauses preventing smoking are effective to recover cost incurred to make good damages, IMHO other clauses on other "smelly" activities should also be effective.

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