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Do you cover malicious damage?

In running a buy to let business, any landlord relies on a fundamental sense of responsibility from tenants who will take care of the let property. From time to time, that trust is misplaced or abused and a tenant – or friends and visitors of the tenant – might inflict malicious damage to the property or the landlord’s contents.

For that reason, many of our customers ask whether we cover malicious damage. We are pleased to say that here at Cover4LetProperty, we do indeed include malicious damage (up to set limits as defined in your policy document) as part of our landlord insurance.

What is malicious damage?

The difference between accidental damage and malicious damage is that, with the latter, it is damage caused on purpose – a form of vandalism –examples of which might be smashed windows, broken furniture, holes kicked in walls or doors, graffiti, or even arson.

Protecting your property against malicious damage

It might often be difficult to disentangle instances of malicious damage from the more common accidental damage – since the former involves some element of intent. You will want to avoid disputes with your tenants about whether any damage has been accidental or was done maliciously, on purpose.

So, we offer the following brief tips and suggestions about reducing the scope for disputes and misunderstandings relating to breakages of a type that might sometimes be incorrectly assumed to be due to malicious damage:

  • make sure you take a full inventory of the contents of your property and describe the condition of each item listed;
  • where realistically possible, support your inventory with photographs – this should be relatively simple these days with digital photography;
  • make sure that you or your property agent take an accompanied inventory with the tenants prior to them moving in. Ensure that the tenant signs off against the inventory and your description of the condition of the items. Once again where possible, try to get the inventory and the tenant’s signature witnessed by a third party;
  • accept the reality of life that inevitably there will be some minor damage, wear and tear, losses, and breakages associated with a typical tenancy. When they arise, try to avoid treating every instance as cause for reimbursement and threats to apply for deductions from the deposit. These sorts of minor issues might be better written off as a legitimate business cost and business risk;
  • where more severe damage or accidents arise, make sure that you take a photograph of the problem and make your request for reimbursement to the tenant in writing, providing both before and after photos, and a copy of the original inventory;
  • stay polite at all times and avoid using inflammatory terms such as careless, malicious, wilful, or deliberate – and the like – in your communications.

Some of these basic common sense steps may help avoid conflict and recriminations.

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