There is an increase of tenants feeling they have the right to wreck their rented property and it is only natural to believe it could not happen to you. However this is what has happened to a retired captain in the Royal Navy and his wife, Richard and Rosalind Meryon.

The couple rented out their Devon home to tenants only to experience their worst nightmare, when the tenants wrecked the house and contents causing £56,000 of damage.

Having at long last successfully evicted the couple who rented the home, the landlords were distraught when they found out that Insurer would not pay for the damage.

An Insurance company that is trusted by people who are over 50, would not cover the costs as it sold the Meryons a standard home insurance, and not a specific landlord policy that would have certainly covered tenants damaging properties.

The Meryons own their house, which is valued at £300,000 and in 2009 they decided to go to Jerusalem, as volunteers, to help a British Christian charity. They rented out the fully furnished property to a couple that lived locally.

Within two months they had reinsured the house with the Insurance company that rebrands other companies' policies and sells them as their own. Mr Meryon phoned the Insurance Company that had for the last 10 years provide them with home insurance. He advised them that tenants were now in residence at the property  and the Insurance company sold him a home and contents package that was underwritten by another company.

For two years everything ran smoothly for both the landlords and tenants, until the couple's husband lost his job and consequently stopped paying the rent.Despite  the tenants receiving housing benefit from the local council, they stopped paying the rent in November 2011.

The Meryons were justifiably concerned at the turn of events and flew back to the UK to inspect the house and to speak to the tenants. When arriving at the house they were not allowed access to the property as the tenants had barricaded themselves. The landlords were horrified to see that the garden was a dumping ground for their furniture, rubbish and other items.

The landlords had no other recourse than to evict the tenants and eventually after five months this was achieved at a cost of £2,500. In May 2012 the Meryons were able to retrieve their property.

The Meryons duly informed their Insurance company and sub contractor that they would be submitting a claim for the damage. An assessor was appointed to view the state of the home the same day that the couple managed to gain access to the property.

To the Meryon's horror they found that all of the furniture, fixture and fittings had been stripped bare by the tenants. The property suffered from extreme amounts of water damage to ceilings, floors and floors caused excessive heating and humidity levels.

Mr Meryon said: “Our precious home had been completely trashed,

“We discovered that the tenants had likely been growing cannabis in the house, which caused the severe condensation and damp problems. We contacted the local police who told us it was an issue for our insurers.”

The Insurance Company would not cover the costs and gave the reason that it refused to do so because of the fine print contained in the policy. The damning clauses stated that if the property suffered and damage or loss caused by people lawfully in the home, or by tenants that is deemed malicious then this would not be covered.

Mr Meryon said: “I have paid home insurance on that house for 36 years, never had a claim, and now when I have one it has been denied,”

He also said that the company who sold him the policy, "........was aware that this property was being rented out and yet the policy it sold me was completely unsuitable for insuring a tenanted property.”

He tried to rectify the situation and asked for help from the financial ombudsman. An adjucator's decision was finally reached when in August 2013 told the couple that the policy had clearly stated it did not cover malicious damage by tenants.

“I find it extraordinary that I am found to be negligent because I did not read the small print, which was mailed to me after I had moved abroad,”

 

Meryon once again stated that the company who sold him the policy, had been told by himself that the house was tenanted: "I expressly stated that the property would be tenanted while I was working overseas, either knowingly sold me an inappropriate policy or itself did not read the fine print in the cover but has no blame attributed to it.”

Mr Meryon has now contacted the ombudsman.

He said: “I feel utterly let down at every stage of having had my home desecrated. The £56,000 it has cost to restore our property is more than I earned during the tenancy, not to mention 18 months worth of lost rent. We now wish we had bolted the house shut for two and a half years and never allowed anyone in.”

The Insurance company denies any policy of misselling  and a spokesman pointed out that it did cover the couple home for tenancy, but not for theft or malicious damage. He put the blame squarely back on the Meryons for not reading the policy carefully, and that they should have notified them about the exclusions.

The spokesman said: “We completely understand the frustration that Mr Meryon felt coming back from Israel to find his tenants had vandalised his home,

“But his policy simply didn’t cover him for this, as set out in the policy documents. The policy provided cover for one-off incidences such as fire, escape of water, subsidence, storm damage, flood, theft and damage following a break in.

“"The lesson to be learned is that as a landlord you should visit your property at least a couple of times a year to check that your tenants and property are OK, which may nip events like this in the bud as the deterioration had been over some considerable period.”

Martin Bridges, technical services manager at an Insurance Brokers' Association, said: “If someone lets their property to tenants it is more appropriate to have specialist landlord cover, which is designed for this scenario,

 

“Some specialist policies will cover owners for malicious damage to property or theft of furniture, fittings and fixtures.”