How often in the small print do you find a landlord has to give a tenant a birthday cake as part of the terms and conditions of the lease? As dull as it seems, reading any agreement in full before signing is a must for any tenant or landlord to avoid unpleasant or costly surprises down the line.
A landlord who signed a lease with tenants not knowing that it had been altered to include a rather cheeky request, has learnt the heard way….
To say ‘Happy Birthday’…
When the landlord sent a tenancy agreement as an editable Word document as opposed to a locked PDF, the tenants saw the opportunity to sneakily amend it. They inserted an extra clause stipulating a free birthday cake for both of them ‘on the weekend closest to their birthday’, clearly specifying that vanilla cake was not acceptable. The unsuspicious landlord then signed the lease document not realising their new obligation to the mischievous tenants.
Other unusual tenants’ requests
Landlords and letting agents come across various requests in their daily dealings with tenants, from basic and reasonable ones such as fixing a broken washing machine, to those more sophisticated and less sensible.
One tenant from Leeds insisted his agent carried his belongings to the property. If that wasn’t too much to ask, he took it a step further and wanted the agent to help him unpack!
Another tenant requested a refund of the difference between the halogen light bulbs required for her new property and the standard light bulbs she’d had in her previous property…
One French tenant asked for a dog’s mini wardrobe for his pet’s couture.
A couple from Leeds requested their agent fixed the freezer box door in their fridge as it didn’t close. A normal request one might think… but when the handymen arrived in the property, he discovered a year’s worth of ice and frozen peas. To his surprise, the tenants thought lots of ice was what kept the peas frozen…
