Six Scenarios Concerning Environmental Health - Essay Example

Six Scenarios Word Count: 2,262 words total Provide answers for the following scenarios. You manage a 1930’s block of 30 flats. 20 are vacantand the remaining units have rent controlled tenants. To achieve vacant possession for your client you have to decant the tenants to another newer and better block 2 miles away. What are the stages that you will take to achieve this? (394-word essay answer) The stages that would have to be taken in order to achieve this goal would first be to notify the tenants that they were moving out followed by brisk actions to be taken later on. Basically, the tenants must be notified, by law, at least one month prior to moving to an alternative living location. The terms of the move must be explained in plain English writing on the notice. People in 1930s used to be subject to terrible housing conditions that were slum-like. When pressed, the government decided to act. “The Housing Act 1930 was the governments response” (Clay & Bassett, 2004, pp. 41). In addition to having to notify the tenants, you will have to somehow provide a way for the tenants to move. They are going to need vehicles in which to bring their belongings, and so forth. There should be a fund established for moving expenses, or at least remuneration for individuals who have incurred the costs of moving. Third, the individuals being moved should be able to file some sort of claim in order to get back money that they paid in the form of a deduction on their income taxes. Either that, or they should receive a credit of some type. Finally, once the property is rehabbed, you should make sure that all your tenants can be properly placed again within the housing, without any problems. Also, you should make sure that the property is insured for fire, flood, and other sorts of damages. You should make sure that the property has security cameras and/or entrances and exits which are secured with locks and/or doors with iron bars on them in order to filter who goes in and who goes out. Most importantly, as a landlord you should have a good relationship with the local police force in your area in order to ensure that crime stays low or nonexistent on your rental property. The worst thing that can happen is for your tenants to be robbed, and at that point if they had no tenants’ insurance, your tenants could most likely sue you in court for not having provided a secure place in which to live. You have a duty to your tenants as a landlord to provide for them as set forth in the terms of the lease that was signed by yourself and your tenant(s). Scenario 2; You are the managing agent for the whole property. (1)The bathroom is situated on the first floor. It overflows and causes extensive damage to the bathroom of the flat below. What can you do? (2) There is a tumble dryer in the bathroom, which shouldn’t be there. What is waiver? What is its relevance to property management? (416-word essay answer) A waiver in property management is in reference to when you don’t make tenants pay rent or a portion of their rent due to problems with the facility in which they are living. For example, if the tenant’s obligations for rent monthly are 650 Euros, then let’s say the bathroom caused a fire hazard. You might have to waive the tenants from paying rent until the bathroom is fixed. Consequently, a bathroom that would overflow could easily be seen as a health hazard for several reasons. The stench of human excrement and urine could become unbearable for people living there in the housing unit, as well as become very unhealthy in terms of spreading disease. Airborne pathogens could be released from blood or other bodily fluids in the excrement and urine. There could be a risk of transmitting a contagious disease or autoimmunodeficiency disease. These are valid and real concerns. In the case where one wants to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission, one should always use the protection of universal precaution or universal safety. This is a medical term. This means washing up before handling waste or other bodily fluids, putting on rubber gloves that are approved and used by medical staff, and always making sure to dispose of wastes (human and nonhuman) properly at all times. Improper disposal of waste can definitely cause or spread disease in a short period of time. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that both medical and non-medical staff know of the importance of such public health concerns. An overflowing water closet is definitely a problem that must be solved immediately. It may very well be that the toilet facilities must be replaced by a more appropriate unit which not only fits in the bathroom well, but is modern and utilitarian. Nothing is more disconcerting than the fact that you may be putting your tenants in harm’s way. If that doesn’t concern you, you may be headed for stiff penalties and/or a long jail sentence if these issues aren’t resolved in a proper manner. Caring for human life is what makes you want to help your tenants. You don’t want your tenants to live in squalor and disrepair. You should make every effort to improve their lives to the full extent that it is within your power, using your time and resources to give them an experience which is pleasant. After all, they are paying you rent to provide them a product, which is a fully-functioning housing unit—not a 1930s-style slum. Scenario 3 – A public Health act notice has been served on a house that you manage due to Lack of space, heating, and hot water provision Lack of an internal bathroom Lack of an adequate food preparation area What actions will you take on behalf of your clients? (491-word essay answer) First, I would notify the people in the house that repairs are going to be made. Always make sure that your intent lines up with what you have said, done, and written. For example, if the authorities later investigate you and find out that you have been falsifying information given to tenants, you would be in a lot of legal trouble. So, it is first and foremost a priority to be honest with your tenants. You know the situation is bad, so the next thing you have to do is fix the problems. As mentioned, you must make a serious good-faith effort to add additions if there is a lack of space, or no heat or no space heaters. You must have an electrician come in and place wiring where appropriate in order to make a heating system possible and have someone install heating in the housing unit. You must therefore purchase a furnace to provide heat, which can cost a lot of money, depending on whether it is a green or eco-friendly or not. In addition, you will have to purchase a boiler to give your tenants hot water. That can also get rather pricey rather quickly. The key is to try to do this as cheaply as possible without putting your tenants in danger, because if someone gets hurt from the construction, you will be in twice as much trouble as if the repairs hadn’t been done in the first place and your tenants were already suffering by an ailment or ailments caused by lack of heating. Also, the lack of hot water could also be seen as a health hazard, which could land you in twice as much trouble while fixing the problem of having had no hot water in the building. No internal bathroom would require the tenants to defecate and urinate somewhere else not the house. This could mean that the tenants might use facilities outside either in public on the grounds where the house is located; the tenants might use the house as their personal W.C. (unfortunate, but this does happen in some communities, especially those where drugs are involved); and thirdly, the tenants might just resort to using or building an outhouse or other water closets which are not their own. A bathroom absolutely must be installed. A proper kitchen should also be installed. The bathroom can be done by an amateur (although plumbing might require professional assistance). Certain elements of the kitchen can be furnished oneself (like the tiles of the floor). However, electrical wiring and a stove would have to be inset by an electrician combined with someone from the gas company. All utilities must be regulated by an outside source. If the home is too shoddy to rehabilitate, it might be wise to file bankruptcy and declare the building unfit for usage. The government would then be required by law to provide the tenants with equitable housing for their rent money. Scenario 4--You manage a 1930’s house let on an AST from two months ago. The tenant has not paid rent since entering the property. The tenant has damaged the interior by removing the central heating system. What actions will you take on behalf of your clients? (375-word essay answer) An Assured Shorthold Tenancy (or AST) has certain stipulations. Namely, there are three. Basically, the landlord is private, as well as the tenant. If the tenant has not paid rent since entering the property, he is in danger of being evicted, basically. On one hand, you don’t want to make a person unnecessarily homeless. On the other hand, the tenant must pay rent. Also, the tenant damaged the property. So what should be done? Here are a few suggestions. Since the tenant owes you (the landlord) money, it behooves you to try to work out an amicable arrangement between the two of you. Either the tenant could pay you in monthly installments, weekly installments, or in one lump sum. However, assuming the tenant doesn’t have any income, let’s come up with a few extra ideas in order to salvage this person’s pride and dignity. Perhaps you could offer a work exchange, where the tenant does some type of work for you that you need to have done, in order to stay on your property. For example, the tenant could cut the grass every week or shovel snow, in addition to general upkeep. If the tenant agrees to maintain upkeep of the property, the tenant lives there. Other ideas follow. If the tenant makes products that the landlord can sell, that is a good idea for the tenant to be able to give his or her income to the landlord. Another idea includes having the tenant perform a service for the landlord which would normally cost a lot of money—and do it for free. For example, if the tenant was a web designer, perhaps the tenant could design a website free of charge for the landlord which would be relating to his or her property rental business. The website could be done on the condition that the tenant must agree to be webmaster of the site for life or offer another lifetime-long service. For example, if the tenant were an information technology (IT) or computer expert, the tenant could offer free tech support on the website for life (provided there was not a lot of traffic on the site, or an amount of traffic that would be able to be tracked by a single person). Scenario 5 – Detail the steps you would take for the letting of a good one bedroom flat on AST terms until the tenant takes occupation. (497-word essay answer) It is always a good idea to have a lease, no matter how long the tenant is going to stay at the privately-owned and privately-rented property. Everything that is agreed to in an oral deal should be placed in writing with the signatures of both the tenant and the landlord. Ideally there should be a third witness if this is possible. No matter what kind of transaction in business that you will make, you will always want to have some type of written record of the deal. This is why it is of utmost importance, as a private landlord, to maintain good records. If one of your tenants sues you for whatever reason, there you have it in writing that you performed whatever deeds that were necessary for you to perform as a landlord. Tenants have rights, and you cannot violate those rights or you stand to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Tenants have the right to live in housing units that are adequately equipped to serve all their needs in order to live. Additionally, housing units rented by yourself, the landlord, must be liveable. You cannot rent out a shoddy place and then expected to be remunerated well or necessarily at all, depending on the poor condition or state of the property. It makes a lot of sense—both from a business standpoint and a human relations standpoint—to keep up and maintain your property accordingly, therefore. It is in your best interest to fix all the small repairs that a housing unit or units require, because then you will avoid having larger problems in the future. For example, let’s say your tenant pays you 700 Euros per month to rent your property, however, the heat doesn’t work. All utilities except electricity are included, and you fail to not only submit to your tenant the electricity bill, but you also neglect to fix the heat. There are a number of things that could happen in this situation. The tenant could refuse to pay your rent entirely, or partially, depending upon the damages. Not only this, but the tenant could possibly sue you for not sending them the electricity bills on time, since it was probably written up in the lease that electricity was not included. If you are in breach of contract, the client will not only not have to pay the electricity bill, but you could get sued for breaching the contract too. Additionally, if the tenant uses up a lot of gas on a gas stove in order to keep warm in the winter because the heat is broken, you could spend hundreds of Euros for your tenants having utilized the gas to stay warm, when it would have cost you much less in the long run to fix the heat once and not have to worry about it anymore. Thus, your laziness could cost you a fortune. It’s a good idea to make repairs on your rental properties immediately. Scenario 6--" You manage a shop with a self contained residential flat on the upper 2 floors, sold off on a 99 year lease about 10 years ago. The long leasee of the upper part has complained of noise and fumes emanating from the shop at all times of the day and night, and is about to issue a writ on the freeholder. You have ben aware of this problem for 18 months but have done nothing about it as there had been no complaints to date. What can you do?" (389-word essay answer) There are a couple possible viable options. One would be to completely leave the UK forever and escape to a foreign country that couldn’t extradite you for your misdeeds to be tried in the UK. Such a place would be the Cayman Islands. There is no extradition in the Cayman Islands. Basically, having been aware of a problem but not having done anything about it demonstrates “negligence” in tort law, which is precluded by having to perform something called duty of care. If this duty of care is left undone, you will have to be presumed guilty for having done nothing about the pain and suffering of your leasees due to the noise and fumes emanating from the shop. If you do absolutely nothing to fix the problem, you have one option: hire a good barrister and consider trying to forego any charges. The other option is, at this late stage of the game, is to make amends for your misdeeds in not having repaired the property by trying to rehabilitate, or rehab, the property. This way, when you go to court, you can show the Lords that you made a good faith effort in order to restore the property to some level of decency. Otherwise, you may be facing a downhill battle. If you make no efforts to restore the property at all, you will most likely face a prison sentence. It will not be a long prison sentence, but it would be shortened by the fact that you made an effort to improve the property of the leasees for which you were responsible. The Lords may even decide in ruling that you may substitute prison time for community service if there was no bodily or psychological harm done to victims which required both a civil and criminal trial. In a criminal trial, the victims would seek remuneration for punitive damages. Most likely there will be no criminal trial. In such cases, what usually happens is that people who break laws of this sort are guilty of so-called “victimless crimes.” Usually there is no bodily harm done, but there can be damage to property and so forth, which can cause leasees great angst and undue suffering, which can they can use in court as evidence to sometimes extract rather large punitive damages from the person leasing the property. BIBLIOGRAPHY Clay, H.H., & Bassett, W.H. 2004. Clay’s handbook of environmental health. U.S.: Taylor and Francis. Read More