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Question Title: Garden maintenance
| Question: 292 |
| Is there any requirement on the tenant to prune the trees and bushes in a garden? We have let a property where the tenant has allowed the trees and hedges to become completely overgrown. The tenant says that it is not his responsibility although it says in the tenancy agreement that the tenant is responsible for maintaining the garden.
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| Answer: |
| Provided that the tenancy agreement makes the maintenance of the garden clearly the responsibility of the tenant, then you are correct to assume that the tenant is obliged to carry out his/her obligations under the agreement. However, care should be taken with situations (as in the example below) where lack of maintenance or pruning might pose a danger or nuisance to the occupiers or neighbours. Where there is a question of safety, the landlord would be well advised to carry out the work himself and ask questions later. A similar case was recently brought in front of the Independent Housing Ombudsman for adjudication. The tenant had complained that the landlord had refused to prune trees in her garden; one overhung the public highway and the other was near a boundary with a privately owned property. The landlord argued that the responsibility for gardens rested with the tenants. At adjudication, it transpired that the tenancy agreement did not clearly express the full extent of the tenant's and landlord's obligations about garden maintenance. However, in the case in point, one tree partly obstructed the highway and was a potential hazard; another was a potential hazard to the neighbours, part having already fallen across the boundary on a previous occasion. The Housing Ombudsman upheld the tenant's complaint in part. It was arguable that the landlord retained liability for hazardous trees and the landlord was asked to deal with the tree that obstructed the highway.
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References:
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Pages:
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Hyperlinks:
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Letting Update Journal |
Oct 2001 page 19 |
letting-update-journal.html
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Letting Handbook |
Chapter 11 |
letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html
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For more information, discuss on the Forum
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