What Are Your Plumbing Responsibilities As A Landlord

What Are Your Plumbing Responsibilities As A Landlord

Legally, you are obligated to perform certain maintenance duties for your tenants. Make sure you know your responsibilities when it comes to plumbing and heating repairs.

Emergency Repairs

Landlord responsibilities differ depending on whether a repair is an emergency. Emergency repairs are deemed to be situations that affect the health and safety of the property. Major leaks and heating problems and no hot water would be classed as emergency repairs. Provided the damage hasn’t been caused by tenants (or their guests or pets), you are responsible for organizing the repairs. When your tenants first move in, you must provide them, in writing, with a number they can reach you on should an emergency arise. When an emergency does arise, a tenant must contact you. If they haven’t been able to reach you after two attempts over a fair amount of time, your tenant can arrange for the repairs to be completed at a reasonable cost. If repairs have been scheduled by the time you get in touch with your tenant you can either reimburse them up to that point and make your own arrangements for completion or allow the scheduled work to be finished and reimburse the tenant the full cost. Before you reimburse your tenant, they are to provide you with receipts and a written summary of the problem.

Non-Emergency Repairs

A tenant cannot go ahead with booking repairs when a situation is not an emergency, unless they have the landlord’s permission. If the landlord refuses to complete the non-emergency repairs, the tenant can apply for dispute resolution to request the repairs to be made or/and to be reimbursed for the inconvenience. Again, if the tenant caused the problem, it is not your responsibility to repair or reimburse it. If however, the repair is due to wear and tear from normal usage over time, it is your responsibility.

A landlord must ensure their property meets the standards set out in the contract, for example working electricity, heating and hot water tanks. They must also meet health and safety standards that are required by law. When these standards aren’t being met, a tenant can dispute it.

Our Recommendation To Landlords

We know that being a landlord can be stressful at times and it is one of the reasons we launched our plumbing protection membership. You pay a monthly fee starting at $20 a month to ensure peace of mind for the year. Included in the price is an annual home inspection which will check all of your plumbing to make sure it is in working order and to catch any problems that could escalate. You will also be entitled to free drain cleaning, 20% off additional services and when repairing an appliance that is under warranty, our labour will be free. We always provide a detailed report of our repairs including photos so if you aren’t able to be at the property yourself, we will make sure you are kept in the loop.

Did you know, you can schedule a call-out online 24 hours a day? Don’t get caught out by unexpected emergency plumbing repairs, become a member now.