Call of the Month: Garden services

The weather is getting warmer, and for many of us, our attention turns to the garden.

A landlord gave our advice team a call recently because they are in the process of setting up a new tenancy.

Our landlord is new to the industry, and wanted to employ a gardener to visit the property once a month to carry out general garden maintenance such as mowing the lawn and trimming hedges.

They wanted to understand whether they could charge their tenants a very small fee to cover some of the cost of this.

They wanted to understand what the rules are, so called our landlord support team for some guidance.

The advice

Our adviser explained to our member that the Tenant Fees Act was introduced in England in 2019, and it banned all types of payments in connection with a tenancy, aside from allowing for certain ‘permitted payments’ to be made legally, the obvious example being allowing for rent to be paid.

This means that our landlord is not permitted to charge their tenants a small fee for gardening services.

However, our adviser explained there is a way that the cost of the gardener could be covered, and that is by including the ‘fee’ as part of the rent, and the landlord paying the gardener out of their own pocket. In the end, this still achieves the same aim of a gardener being provided as a part of the tenancy and does not contravene the legislation.

Garden Equipment

Another common question our landlord support team receive is around whether landlords need to provide tenants with gardening equipment.

In this case, if the tenancy agreement stipulates that the gardening will be performed by the tenant, although there is NO obligation for the landlord to provide gardening equipment, the advice from us was that providing some accessories could be beneficial for both parties.

Our adviser also added that employing a gardener would ensure the property was kept in the manner the landlord has received it.