Tuesday, Jan 13, 2009
Reluctant landlords are in for a shock
Evening Standard: It costs a packet to be a good landlord
"The front door's the worst bit," I explain as I open it to my prospective tenant. "And the hallway. Looks like a crack house, ha ha!" My prospective tenant surveys the op-art smears of rubber from bicycle tyres on the wall, the lifting carpet, the dangling spiderweb mausoleums. "Deters burglars, you see."
I spent the morning in the estate agent's office with a chequebook. "We'll just need a cheque for the Energy Performance Certificate." I wrote a cheque. "Oh yes, and one for the gas certification."
The real gobsmacking came, though, when the prospective tenant said: "I'll take it." Then: "Can you be out by February 1st?" Now I'm really sunk.
[QUESTION: Are landlords blatantly flouting the law on EPCs? Most advertised properties don't seem to have one.]
9 Comments
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1. little professor said...
The author was the Daily Telegraph's chief literary critic for over ten years, until he was made redundant last month.
2. Cheekie Charlie said...
When your asset is loosing on average £100 a day it really is costing a packet! Never mind when the market improves they'll be able to get shut. Half the price if they're lucky.
3. drewster said...
Well spotted, LP.
I wonder why he's moving house so soon?
According to the Grauniad he has picked up some work at Reader's Digest, and evidently he has written at least one article for the Evening Standard this year. None of it sounds like it's full-time though. That's another definition of deflation: losing your full-time income and scrambling around for little titbits of work here and there, never managing to earn quite as much as you used to.
4. flintster1994 said...
drewster, little p,
You guys are a prime reason why "key information" is becoming more mainstream. Drip drip.
5. drewster said...
I'll take that as a compliment, flintster :)
Actually it's bloggers like us who are partly responsible for putting newspaper reporters out of work.
6. paul said...
"Actually it's bloggers like us who are partly responsible for putting newspaper reporters out of work."
Really? Can someone have a word with the Sunday Times about David Smith and Anatole Kaletsky?
7. drewster said...
Paul - we're working on them, and Anne Ashworth too!
(Sadly I don't have that kind of power. I simply meant that new media, including blogs, is rapidly putting traditional print media out of business.)
8. flintster1994 said...
drewster,
For which I am eternally grateful.
9. drewster said...
flintster,
I'm not so sure. Yes it's nice to have the likes of David Smith toppled from their ivory towers, but a healthy society needs a diverse media. Very few bloggers are out there doing the grunt-work, gathering statistics or interviewing key figures. Most blogs are just opinion pieces based on generic news feeds like Reuters or Bloomberg (danger of concentrating power in few hands). Unique ones like the Guardian's Baghdad Blogger are the exception, not the rule.