AST clauses

[Infrasonic]

I've recently spent a fair bit of time and £ doing up my mums house to re-let after the last tenants were less than ideal, allowing a fairly serious case of mold and damp to accrue in the bathroom (which has now been completely refurbed, it was dated TBH) due to lack of care/ventilation, and some minor mold issues elsewhere in the house due to clothes drying and lack of ventilation. There's currently a DPS claim ongoing.

I'm going through an agent and their otherwise pretty good and detailed AST agreement has the following clause.

2.54 To take reasonable and prudent steps to adequately heat and ventilate the premises in order to help prevent condensation. Where such condensation may occur, to take care to promptly wipe down and clean surfaces as required from time to time to stop the build up of mould growth or damage to the premises, its fixtures and fittings.

I have requested something more specific which also covers turning radiators off in the winter (which the tenants had done) and keeping internal doors open in rooms drying clothes, but have been told the following by the agents senior property manager.

In relation to ventilation, I would not be able to ask the tenants not to switch off radiators as this would be classed as an unfair term in the Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
By asking them not to switch the radiators off, you are dictating to them how they must live in the property and the tenant has the right to choose.
Also by asking them to keep the radiators on, would incur tenants higher costs for their heating which again we cannot expect them to have to pay if they do not want the radiators on.
The terms relating to where the tenants dry their clothes and having to leave the internal doors open also cannot be included in the tenancy as they will be deemed as unfair and would not stand up in court.

We can provide tenants with a leaflet on how to prevent mould and damp which I have attached for reference.

So can ClitheroeKid or experienced landlord (IoWP) suggest some wording that would be acceptable and any case law I could quote to support something more strongly worded and specific than the current clause. Or not, as the case may be.

TIA

I

[Lootman]

When I was doing a fair bit of landlording, the way i always handled this kind of thing was not via the AST itself, for which I used a standard version, not wishing to risk invalidating the whole by adding suspect, specific language.

Rather I appended a "rules and information" page, which listed the behaviours that were expected. This would include specifics about how to put the rubbish out, how to recycle, maintenance procedures, emergency numbers, location of cutoff valves and switches, garden care and so on. These would be signed in the same way, and at the same time.

I never had cause to try and enforce these provisions. But it achieved the aim of outlining the expectations of what someone living there would have to abide by, and the act of them signing it would hopefully focus their minds.

Maybe I was lucky but most of the tenants I had, out of over 100, took very good care of their homes, and some stayed as long as five years.

[Infrasonic]

The first tenants were fine, probably left it cleaner than when they took it on.

The warning signs were there early on with the last lot, once bitten twice shy.

I've now taken around a hundred high quality photographs of the house post redecorating and refurb, and uploaded them to a OneDrive cloud account that the agent has access to. I've asked them to shot match on mid term inspections for all the previous mildew areas, with decent quality photo's so it would stand up in court if needs be.

As ever with agents they give the impression of being professional but if you don't constantly stay on top of them their standards slip and ultimately it is the landlord who takes the financial hit, not the agent, who will do the bare legal minimum to garner their fees.

[Lootman]

As ever with agents they give the impression of being professional but if you don't constantly stay on top of them their standards slip and ultimately it is the landlord who takes the financial hit, not the agent, who will do the bare legal minimum to garner their fees.

No doubt, I never used agents. I don't trust them to have the kind of intuition about people that I like to think I have. Put some effort into getting the right tenants, and you can pretty much put your feet up and count the rent.