Landlords are spending billions on emergency callouts to assist with property issues every year, research from Direct Line – Business has found.
Between 2019 and 2020 they spent an average cost of £765 per callout, or £2,141 for every landlord in the UK.
Jamie Chaplin, landlord product owner at Direct Line – Business, said: “Emergencies are unfortunately a part of life and often unforeseen. As our research shows, it can be costly and time consuming to get an emergency contractor out to a property.
“If tenants need to get in touch with the landlord or letting agency before a contractor can even be called, this only adds to the timescale.
“No landlord wants their tenant to feel unsafe or unreasonable discomfort in their property.
“We hope that our Landlord Emergency cover will allow for a harmonious relationship between landlords and tenants while giving peace of mind to both parties.”
In 2019, more than half (53%) of private landlords needed to call in an emergency contractor to one of their properties – this equates to 13,000 contractors being called out to a rental property every day.
When it comes to tenants, 3.87 million private renters (51%) have experienced a home emergency which required an emergency contractor to be called out.
The most common time sensitive issue in a rental property is plumbing (48%), followed by gas or heating (45%), electrics (35%) and locks (27%).
Plumbers have the best arrival time as they get to an issue within just over 13 and a half hours of being alerted.
Electricians come second with an average appearance time of 17 hours and 48 minutes, while gas and heating engineers take 20 hours and 42 minutes to turn up.
As well as being the most frequently needed, plumbers are also the cheapest emergency contractors, costing landlords an average of £523 per year.
