Business help with tennant problem?

wippers

wippers

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Gareth
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Hi All,

We own our premises and next door premises at work and rent the neighbouring unit out. We have a electricity meter fitted with a branch off to the unit so that we can monitor usage and bill accordingly.
Recently, we have had to update the electricity meter at the request of our supplier and I booked their services specially for 8am to avoid disruption to the business day.
The power was shut down to fit the meter and this action according to our tenant, has caused nearly £300 worth of server damage (lost data etc) for which they wish to bill us.
I unfortunately had not advised them of the power disruption as it was to occur out of their business hours and didn't feel the need to, as the job would have been completed and electricity restored before they started work. In hind sight I wish I had let them know! :bonk: My error of judgement.

So the question is - do we have to pay this or should he have had a suitable back-up system in place? If there was a power cut, would he not be in the same predicament, in which case would he bill the power company? :shrug:

Any input is greatly appreciated. :thumbs:

Gareth
 
Ok, you should have told them.

But if there was just a regular power cut, would they get anywhere trying to charge the electricity company?

I'm no lawyer, but if I was, that's the line I would use. :D
 
wippers said:
Hi All,

We own our premises and next door premises at work and rent the neighbouring unit out. We have a electricity meter fitted with a branch off to the unit so that we can monitor usage and bill accordingly.
Recently, we have had to update the electricity meter at the request of our supplier and I booked their services specially for 8am to avoid disruption to the business day.
The power was shut down to fit the meter and this action according to our tenant, has caused nearly £300 worth of server damage (lost data etc) for which they wish to bill us.
I unfortunately had not advised them of the power disruption as it was to occur out of their business hours and didn't feel the need to, as the job would have been completed and electricity restored before they started work. In hind sight I wish I had let them know! :bonk: My error of judgement.

So the question is - do we have to pay this or should he have had a suitable back-up system in place? If there was a power cut, would he not be in the same predicament, in which case would he bill the power company? :shrug:

Any input is greatly appreciated. :thumbs:

Gareth
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If your neighbour did indeed suffer data loss, they must be operating their server without an adequate UPS and associated shutdown software. If indeed so, and it's difficult to conclude otherwise, they are themselves negligent.

Power interruptions occur all the time for all sort of reasons and of various duration. They have to be catered for. Your neighbour has been living dangerously and has no-one else to blame but themselves.
 
Yep should have told them, many firms have equipment running out of hours ... could have caused all sorts of damage/losses.
 
Any firms who have equipment running out of hours should also take the relevant precautions to ensure the equipment is protected in the event of a power outage.

This firm clearly did not.

Nor did they have a suitable backup solution if they are claiming data loss.

Feels like they are trying it on to me, power outages happen all the time and business need to take the relevant measures to protect themselves.

If you have a contract with them that outlines specifically the continuity of the power supply then maybe you would need to pay up, if not well...

* All advice comes from the school of common sense specifically the intolerance of idiots module.
 
:shake: Should have told them ... it was in their control as landlord and they should have advised their tenant in case of possible issues. This wasn't a random power cut it was a planned action.
 
gramps said:
:shake: Should have told them ... it was in their control as landlord and they should have advised their tenant in case of possible issues. This wasn't a random power cut it was a planned action.
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And that could be your problem legally.
I agree that they are negligent in not having sufficient back-ups in place, but the planned nature of this power loss was down to you. I'd suggest possibly sharing thier costs 50/50.
 
We got several thousand pounds from one of our landlords who cut off water to one of our plants without telling us.
 
neil_g said:
Irrespective of whether or not they had ups (which even that has a finite battery) or backups you as the landlord should have notified them.
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I could not agree more. Dependant on the size of the business, I doubt a lot of people know what a UPS is, let alone have one. As Neil says, even with one in, they have varying degrees of uptime.

This really was your responsibility to let them know - worst case scenario if you'd let them know they could have powered everything down Friday eve and booted everything back up after you had completed the work.

I'm not sure if you are legally liable, but if I was the tenant I'd me mighty peed off, so I'd do something as a gesture of goodwill (without accepting liability), perhaps money off the next rent due.
 
munch said:
We got several thousand pounds from one of our landlords who cut off water to one of our plants without telling us.
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How big was the plant :thinking:
 
A trifford the size you wouldn't believe. :)

Actually it was a concrete plant
 
What does the lease say?


. Ups aren't always perfect. Shutdowns don't occur cleanly. If there was a chance they could have turned everything off safely and you denied them that opportunity I'd be grateful it was only 300 quid!

If they have no sensible systems and procedures then at least have a good dig at them about it :)

Also many forget about all manner of bits and bobs hidden in cupboards then forget to ups a critical switch or their adsl modem so it's all for nought anyway.
 
I would ask them how they arrived at the figure of £300 and take it from their ;)
 
id say £300 is peanuts really when you consider the cost of hard drives/power supplies/raid controllers and £/hr labour.

for example the "landlord" company that runs one of the industrial parks one of our units is on shut the power off for work without telling us, while we have UPS the big IBM box we have doesn't auto shutdown from UPS (even if it did it's a 30-40 mins shutdown procedure). the guys that support the IBM box charge £1000/day (exc parts).

we recovered costs from the "landlord".
 
Wether or not they have back up systems is not the issue. The only issue is they lost data because you didn't tell them about the shut down. I doubt that the lease specifies that the landlord is not responsible for any damage caused by power outage either directly or indirectly as a result of the landlords actions. I would however want documented proof of the said data loss ( after all they could just be lying) and to find out how they came to the figure of £300.
 
neil_g said:
how do you document proof of data loss? :D

seriously though, IT labour rates for a couple of staff to recover a system and/or its data would easily cover that £300.
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Exactly. I would say prove it or I'm not paying :D
 
Firstly, Server hard drives don't just pack up because the power goes off!!!
Secondly, nobody has said that hardware has failed.
Thirdly, unless the server was actively updating data at the time of the power outage, I see no reason for data loss.

Tell them you want to see their out of hours schedule and server logs, ie what the server does in the out of hours and at what times it does them. (Usually backups or updates)
 
neil_g said:
okay, im not paying the full amount of next rent then :D

also server hard drives aint cheap. a single 2.5" 500gb SAS drive would wipe out a significant portion of that £300.
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:thinking:

:clap:

I agree about the cost of the drive but its only the data that is lost well not lost just shunted so should be recoverable depending on what the data was.

If it was tax records as long as I was on the database I would pay the £300 and shake his hand :D
 
Would they be using 2.1/2" drives in a server?
 
Pay the £300 and hope that is the end of it! If you supply them with with electricity and hadn't told them you were shutting it down, 100% placing blame on you imo.Yes in an ideal world they would have suitable backups etc but this isn't an ideal world. Even work that should not be 'service affecting' should be mentioned to they are aware of it.
 
I would say reparation is due but costs should be quantified more accurately.

If there's hardware damage then surely that should be pretty easy to prove? If there's data loss then surely they can identify what loss has occured and therefore calculate reinstatement times otherwise how would they know that there's been data loss? lol
 
Many thanks to everyone for taking the time out to offer an opinion. I'm actually really annoyed at myself for not telling them, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

It looks like we will have to pay out unfortunately, but you live and learn. I shall be asking for a copy of the invoice for work done, along with the logs to show times etc to confirm the system was backing up as stated.

Again, many thanks for the input from everyone. Much appreciated. :thumbs:

Gareth
 
wippers said:
Many thanks to everyone for taking the time out to offer an opinion. I'm actually really annoyed at myself for not telling them, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

It looks like we will have to pay out unfortunately, but you live and learn. I shall be asking for a copy of the invoice for work done, along with the logs to show times etc to confirm the system was backing up as stated.

Again, many thanks for the input from everyone. Much appreciated. :thumbs:

Gareth
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When / if you pay, i would suggest getting the tenant to sign a letter stating that the payment of £300 is in full and final payment (or other words to that effect, a solicitor would be able to draft the letter better than i can).
 
Rapscallion said:
When / if you pay, i would suggest getting the tenant to sign a letter stating that the payment of £300 is in full and final payment (or other words to that effect, a solicitor would be able to draft the letter better than i can).
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Agreed.
 
gman said:
If there's data loss then surely they can identify what loss has occured and therefore calculate reinstatement times otherwise how would they know that there's been data loss? lol
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it would be a complete arse ache to be honest.

for example it wouldnt be uncommon for one of our users to restore a deleted folder and when asked exactly where it was or exactly what it was called they havent got a clue. its like looking for a needle in a haystack..

:bonk:
 
Rapscallion said:
When / if you pay, i would suggest getting the tenant to sign a letter stating that the payment of £300 is in full and final payment (or other words to that effect, a solicitor would be able to draft the letter better than i can).
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Address a document to them stating that you agree to pay in the amount of £XXX for Blah Blah....but begin the letter Without Predjudice....
 
viv1969 said:
Absolutely. Address a document to them stating that you agree to pay in the amount of £XXX for Blah Blah....but begin the letter Without Predjudice....
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They don't want £xxx they want real money :lol:
 
neil_g said:
it would be a complete arse ache to be honest.

for example it wouldnt be uncommon for one of our users to restore a deleted folder and when asked exactly where it was or exactly what it was called they havent got a clue. its like looking for a needle in a haystack..

:bonk:
Click to expand...


But how can you repair something (and have a specific value for this repair) if you can't say what was damaged in the first place? I'm not meaning quoting every corrupted file but surely a fairly accurate report could be given covering various areas of data type?

Wouldn't the backup procedure would have kept a log of some sort?

Also, isn't it a little odd that they would be backing up just before they start work, surely it would be done overnight instead? (unless it just takes a long time?)
 
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