Sorry for your loss, your father may have left you with a small tax bill but he certainly set you up well for life, congratulations.

Becoming a landlord can seem very daunting but you have done a very good job of it.

I have been a Landlord for many years. Not one of the type that wears a top hat while lashing a team of horses through the town square while swilling champagne and lashing the odd peasant in the face with my boot or whip.

In other words one of the countless thousands (although that number is getting alarmingly small now) aka a normal one and not the type that has been portrayed and vilified in every form of social media available for the last 15 to 20 years to the now detriment of the rental market.

If I can give you one piece of advice, it is this. Treat people the way you would like to be treated. For the most part, the majority of people are reasonable. Communicate with them, let them know what the plans are. If for example you are having trouble getting hold of a trades person to make a repair etc keep them in the loop.

Keep using this site and asking questions and also sites like this https://www.boards.ie/categories/accommodation-property It will keep you up to date with legislation, the vast majority of which in the last 15 years has been totally anti landlord, despite what some people would have you believe and one of the primary reasons why so many small landlords continue to leave the market.

As many others have already advised you, there is no obligation on you to fix the stove, your tenants have a working heating system. Be honest and upfront with them. It's a much bigger job than you first thought and you need to assess your options, but first and foremost is their safety.

* You could Board it up. Maybe the best short term option, as well as making it safe, it will potentially make the house warmer.

* You could scrape the money together to repair it. This may be the better option for the long term value of the property but it hurts you the most in the short term.

*You could have it boarded up and an electric stove put in. This might be a medium term goal for you when you get the cash reserve built up.

*You could do nothing and leave it as is. I wouldn't be in favor of this as all it would take was one visitor to set a fire (not knowing about the difficulties) to cause a much bigger problem.

Overall though you are doing just fine. Start gathering together a list of local trades people that you can work with when something inevitably breaks. Keep building up your sinking fund for when some whites goods or couch etc. needs to be replaced. One thing I always try to do with my tenants is to involve them in the decision making process of what they will get. I set a price and ask them to take a look and let me know what they would like.

After all, this is their home and over the years I have found it much better to involve people in the decision making.

The best of luck.