Tenant - uses boiler to heat home. boiler breaks Landlord - is the tenant at fault for using the boiler?

Seriously? It’s your house mate, fix the bloody boiler and don’t evict someone over it.

These things can fail at any time, the fact that it was fine a few months ago is largely irrelevant to the situation, and a nearly 10yo boiler is not "brand new" it's actually very close to the end of it's supposed life. A boiler being on 24/7 isn't really any issue and isn't "misuse" of it, and is not any reason to try and end the tenancy.

If you're in England/Wales you are (currently) free to issue an S21 and go through the process of ending the tenancy, but if you're still within a fixed 12 month term you can't do it at the moment. Within the fixed term the only ground to start an eviction process is non payment.

Replace the boiler and move on, it's part of the costs involved in a letting business. Also, invest in some time to educate yourself on running a rental business.

It sounds like they have been using the central heating in a perfectly reasonable manner - thermostat set at a comfortable level to maintain an ambient heat to the property. Things break...no one is at fault, the cost is part and parcel of being a landlord.

[deleted]

Average life span of a boiler is 10-15 years. You’d be complaining far more if the boiler was never on. The tenant needing the boiler on constantly could also be because it’s been an inefficient boiler on the edge of needing replacement.

No, you do not have cause to evict over your own inability to afford maintenance on the property. Evicting likely would cost you more than getting a new boiler, because you would still need to get a new boiler but now you’ll need a court judgement and new tenants and even if you did successfully evict (unlikely until tenancy term is over), you’ll have a void period to contend with.

You can evict because you want to sell the property, but again you are subject to the terms of the tenancy. You can sell with the tenants in situ but you’ll have a much smaller market to sell to.

Unless you have a break clause for earlier you need to complete the 12 months. Shit breaks sometimes and as the landlord you’re responsible for this kind of stuff. I recommend having a sinking fund of some sort so that you can handle these types of repairs as they come up.

It sounds like they just used the boiler, if they want to run it 24/7 then it should absolutely handle this. My (well serviced, 15 year old) boiler basically comes on at the first suggestion of the weather turning in September and literally does not turn off again until the following March, and whilst it's had a few replacement parts over the years, I've never thought that it was because using it was wrong.

It's either coincidence, you've not serviced it properly, or you put a cheapo boiler in. I'm going with coincidence to be honest. Things do break.

Regardless, using a boiler is not abuse. Maybe it broke because they were using it - these things do happen - but it's not unfair or 'misuse' for them to have used it.

Time to stump up, unfortunately.

And yes, you do have to serve out the agreement's minimum term, even if you do want to give them notice.

So is the boiler 10 years old?

Has it had any observations by a service engineer previously?

What is the exact problem with it currently?

Service engineers always like to replace with new, preferably a while boiler rather than parts; your task is to understand if that is the most cost effective route for YOU, not THEM by understanding the actual problem and the potential solutions.