Should landlords put broadband in for tenants?

[mlfc 10]

I went to a presentation by James Davies of Upad a couple of weeks ago and one of his strong suggestions was that landlords should provide broadband for their tenants and up the rent to cover the cost.

 

Reasons are

1) BB from day one is more attractive to potential tenants rather than waiting a month or so to put a phone line in and add broadband

2) the min contract period generally for a phone line and broadband is a year whilst most tenancy agreements are for 6 months which could leave the tenant in a difficult position if they have to leave before the year is up

 

I hadn't thought about it before but will probably do this when my BTL property is next empty

 

Interested to hear what renters think to this - would it make a property more attractive even though the rent would be higher?

 

Also, landlords - have you considered this? would you in future?

[anywebsite 10]

It sounds like a good idea to me, it'd make it more attractive provided it doesn't put the bills up too much. Probably will have to organise it so they're paying their own phone bill so they can't run up unexpected charges.

[FORE 12]

Virgin if you can get on cable is useful - broadband ONLY.

 

Trouble is with providing it is they are always blaming the LL when service is poor, or they can't get a signal in their bedroom every hour of the day.

[andyofborg 11]

Interested to hear what renters think to this - would it make a property more attractive even though the rent would be higher?

 

 

if you only put up the rent enough to cover the broadband then i dont think it will make any difference really, i guess most renters will be budgeting for rent and broadband charges so they wont actually be paying any extra.

 

i suppose you might have a bit of a problem if you have a tenant who doesn't want the interweb.

 

this does seem to identify a bit of a gap in the market, short term contracts for tenants and/or contracts for landlords with possibly discounts for multiple properties.

[big_g 10]

It may put some off. I need a stable broadband connection for my job. I used a certain company for my BB who were OK to start with but then, after dropping my connection multiple times over multiple working from home days - I went elsewhere for my BB. If I had a choice between a house using that company and one where I could make my own choice - I'd go with the latter.

[JohnKH 10]

I would absolutely endorse this as the way forward.

 

I was living in rented accommodation recently and was going from a shared house to a studio flat. We had broadband in the shared house but none of the flats I viewed had broadband and, I will be honest, had there been ONE - just one - with broadband already installed and included, I would have jumped at it. I needed broadband at home; the time to get it up and running and the length of the contract was a real pain in the ****.

 

I'll say it again for emphasis: I would have taken a less suitable property if broadband was included.

[spider1 11]

No dont bother just some thing else for you to take care of. It will up the rent and tenants wont like that. Let them sort it out them self thats what i do not a big job these days . Always keep things as simple as possible . If they are not capable of sorting it out themselves probably rubbish tenants anyway / What you going to do if the next tenants want a different broad band provider.

Edited June 8, 2014 by spider1

[jtaylor 10]

In our block, I've had a few (very temporary) neighbours come round and beg for broadband. Generally they were in some dodgy deal on short-term lets or just too lazy to sort it out for themselves...

I know another neighbour is paying their neighbour for broadband - less than ideal!

 

It's usually short-term/fly-by-night tenants this is going to be a big issue for - the kind you probably don't want because your transaction costs (your time included) for getting new tenants in just increase and you don't want to go all black-market, I'm sure...

 

I would just explain to potential tenants that they would be best off sorting out BB as soon as the ink is dry on the contract so that it's set up as soon as they move in. You could help let in any engineer etc. as necessary (brownie points before your tenant has even moved in!). Would that work?

 

Don't forget that tenants (anyone in fact) can normally move a contract with them from wherever they're coming from - often the most economical way of doing it. Really worth reminding potential tenants of this.

[TimmyR 10]

I used to do this and found it a total pain as whenever the tenants had broadband issues it was me who had to ring up and sort it out. Most BB contracts can be transferred from one address to another.

 

Also your rent being higher means that your property looks less attractive at first glance.

 

Oh and also it was a pain because I had to charge them separately for the phone calls they kept making.

Edited June 8, 2014 by TimmyR

[Hippogriff 10]

Peripatetic Tenants could easily use 3G / 4G and a MiFi. As a Landlord I do 12 month ASTs. I stay as uninvolved as I can, without being incommunicado and unhelpful, with regards to the lives of Tenants... their utilities are their business. As a Tenant, I'd want freedom to choose - I'd not want my Landlord choosing for me, even if the Landlord had the best of intentions.

[geared 317]

Who's responsible if the tenants start downloading illegal pirate copies of films, music and stuff??

or even worse they start distributing the stuff online using the landlords connection.

 

What if they are involved in other cybercrime, the landlord could get mixed up in a police investigation because it's his name on all the bills, not the tenants.

[Danny_Boy 10]

Who's responsible if the tenants start downloading illegal pirate copies of films, music and stuff??

or even worse they start distributing the stuff online using the landlords connection.

 

What if they are involved in other cybercrime, the landlord could get mixed up in a police investigation because it's his name on all the bills, not the tenants.

 

That was my concern, I am about to let a property of mine and I thought about including broadband but then I thought about the above and also most contracts seem to have a "fair usage" policy. What would happen if a tenant abused this?

 

How many times does Broadband fail or go down? Last thing I would want is Mr Smith ringing me at 3am because he can't get on Redtube