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Advice - compensation for no heating/hot water

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kitkat240
kitkat240 Posts: 15 Forumite
in House buying, renting & selling
Just wondering how much compensation (i.e. return of rent money) I should expect when my rented house was without heating and hot water for 3 weeks during January. It was practically unliveable - well certainly very unpleasant and not what you want from your home which you pay good money for. All of us who had the option to, actually moved home for most of the time as it was horrible.

The rent is £200 a month each and the landlady so far has offered us £50 each and then £75. I'm thinking £100 would be much more fair due to the fact that we found it too difficult to live there and incurred loads of extra expense through things like travel costs from our parents houses to work etc.

If it had been a family renting the house with a young child they certainly would not have been able to take 3 weeks to sort it out.

Do we have good grounds for negotiation on this? How much is acceptable to request?

Thanks!
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Comments

  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 33,813 Forumite
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    You don't have good grounds for negotiation. She only needs to fix it in a timely manner, doesn't need to pay you compensation at all - I hate to say it, but plumbers aren't always the easiest people to get hold of :o She's offered you half price rent for that time which seems pretty fair. Personally, I'd take it.
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • subjecttocontract
    subjecttocontract Posts: 1,901 Forumite
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    Agreed.

    Its important to remember that tenants are not entitled to any better service than an owner occupier would be in the same situation.

    I would have provided you with some freestanding portable heaters but there was nothing to stop you from buying/ hiring or aking your landlord for something temporary.

    I think the offer of half rent is appropriate.
  • clutton_2
    clutton_2 Posts: 11,149 Forumite
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    i think Dozer is absolutely right -

    in an ideal world things get fixed very quickly - but then in the real world - the plumber lets you down, the wrong part arrives, the tenant wont let them in, or goes out, the problem was not only due to one parts failure and another one has to be ordered - and so on and so on.

    i know it must have been difficult, but, you have been give 50% off - sounds reasonable to me.
  • Generali
    Generali Posts: 36,411 Forumite
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    It's better than I got a few years back - I got nothing and evicted when I complained!
  • dad-of-4
    dad-of-4 Posts: 390 Forumite
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    I would speak to a solicitor about your rights on this, not take advice from people who seem to be on the landlords side.
  • clutton_2
    clutton_2 Posts: 11,149 Forumite
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    the responses so far have come from both tenant and landlord MSEers - and i think the responses have been full of common sense. You cannot expect a full rent rebate when only one part (and i know heating is an important part) of the property which is rented has a problem.

    Had negotiation gone on contemporaneously am sure the landlord would have provided some fires at the time.
  • chappers
    chappers Posts: 2,988 Forumite
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    I think she has offered you a fair price, but three weeks is a bit excessive in anyones books.
    I have had a heating problem in my rental house this week and it has taken 4 days to find the intermittant fault , provided my tennats with some heaters and the use of my own shower at home, they were over the moon with a nice bottle of wine each.
  • kitkat240
    kitkat240 Posts: 15 Forumite
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    Thanks everyone for the feedback - I really had no idea where we stood on this. I guessed since the landlady had offered up to £75 she knew she was in the wrong - she is actually very nice. We recieved small fan heaters after about a week and a half for each bedroom (they made little difference) but at that point I was living at home as it was far too cold to even sit about the house. I just wanted to make sure we weren't getting ripped off.

    I now have other issues with the house which i'm going to post in a new thread!
  • subjecttocontract
    subjecttocontract Posts: 1,901 Forumite
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    I guessed since the landlady had offered up to £75 she knew she was in the wrong - she is actually very nice.

    Wether the landlord was in the wrong or not would depend on the effort she put in to get the heating fixed. As someone has already said:
    1. Plumbers can be difficult to arrange and so I for one would give her the benenefit of the doubt.
    2. She was not required to pay you anything.

    So, far from assuming she was in the wrong you should gracefully accept her offer which I should think was made out of generousity & kindness.
  • Gorgeous_George
    Gorgeous_George Posts: 7,964 Forumite
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    dad-of-4 wrote: »
    I would speak to a solicitor about your rights on this, not take advice from people who seem to be on the landlords side.

    But the OP should take your advice :confused:

    And spend more money on a solicitor than they are likely to win if it went to court.

    Sometimes, adults need to negotiate what they think is fair.

    GG
    There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those that don't.
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