Electrocuted, by landlords washing machine

shaven-monkey

Well, i am no lawyer. I am a landlord.

I appreciate that the OP is about a matter of principle and the arguments that followed were more political than anything else.

Seems there's 3 seperate issues.

1. Liability or responsibility for a potentially lethal wiring fault. This probably lies with the previous owners of the property. Your landlord or letting agent responded to the fault very quickly and i assume remedied the fault as soon as possible. If you successfully sue the landlord or letting agent then they'll end up passing on the liability to the previous owners if they can and so lots of lawyers will make money and the insurance premiums we all pay will go up by a fraction of a penny.

2. The matter of principle. Annual certification of gas safety is a requirement for all rented properties but electrical safety checks are not. The duty of care implied by the legislation may or may not cover who is responsible for the safety of electrical installations but recent legislation does require that all new builds are tested for electrical safety by a qualified electrician and only a qualified electrician can carry out rewiring (since an MPs daughter was electrocuted to death due to bad electrical installation in her kitchen, the legislation got some media coverage). The fact that this level of protection wasn't extended to electrical testing of rental properties at least before the initial rental of a property is puzzling but likely due to the increase in costs that would be passed on to the penniless landlords and then passed on to the tennants.

3. The matter of damages. If you are motivated primarily to right the wrong of #2 then pursue the matter through your MP. If you are primarily interested in lining the pockets of lawyers perhaps without any damages being awarded to you then go for the court settlement.
Bear in mind that the landlord may not in fact be guilty of anything other than an optimistic faith in the previous owner's integrity.

I do agree that the landlord has a duty of care but i alse guess the landlord is just some person like the rest of us, they did not willfully and intentionally try to kill you and when the risk was exposed they tried to fix it. If you want an apology then ask for one.

Ultimately, you are alive. We're just people on the internet and can't really do anything to help other than throw cats among your pigeons or suggest which cats are more fun to throw.

Premier_2

bernadette2105 wrote: »

As stated earlier the appliance was not at fault it was the wiring that was not earthed so the machine was live at all times, all metal parts of machine was live! as on the the report
"On removing the machine and carrying out various tests on the machine and the kitchen wiring, it became clear that the fault was in the wiring. The precise nature of the fault is that the wiring of both the live and earth wires are both live, and the neutral wire is correctly neutral.
This of course means that all metal parts of the machine are live with full mains 240volts, a potentially lethal situation."

Maybe a different washing machine had been put in, who knows only the previous owners, however it is obvious that no checks had been carried out to check the working order of the machine else the person checking it would of recieved a shock. This is not taking reasonable steps to ensure all appliances are safe before commencement of tenancy

I know you mentioned previously that there was no earth wire, but then you confusingly said that the earth wire was contacting the live wire.

If there was no earth, then I accept that the product could have remained live.

...but unless you have proof otherwise, that would be a fault of the original builder and that of the inspecting electrician. I don;t see how you can expect a landlord to know otherwise, especially if he has a certificate from a qualified electrician passing the installation.

If there was an earth wire, and this contacted the live wire then something really should have tripped in the electrical installation long before you got anywhere near the appliance.

...again, unless you have evidence to the contrary, you will not pursuade a judge the landlord was at fault. This was a 3 year old installation, not a 50 year old one, and what's more the LL probably has the certificate passing it off as safe when it was built 3 years ago

tbs624

NickWarren wrote: »

Of course i would as that is MY Duty of care to myself and other road users, Hence the Law and 12 month M.O.T's not being applicable until the car is 3 years old, it is still deemed safe until the 3 year part of its life, just like the 5 year rule on the electrics The LL Has followed the laws and legislation as is HIS duty of care....

...in your opinion.

Interesting analogy there - however an MOT cert simply means that your car met the minimum legal requirements on the day of the test. You would still be expected to service/maintain the car in a roadworthy condition during the ensuing 12 months.

Same thing in the 3 years, prior to the first MOT - try telling Plod otherwise when he stops you for a faulty brake light or gives your tyres the once over during a random roadside check.

If you were, say, a taxi driver and there was an injury to one of your paying passengers as a result of something that you could have picked up on had you carried out appropriate checks & maintenance of the vehicle, you’d have some serious explaining to do.

Ditto for a LL and a rental property - as a LL you, or your LA, should check everything out with a tick list whenever your property changes hands but especially when it has been standing empty. As for comments made by another poster about what people do and don’t do see as acceptable within their own homes - that it absolutely irrelevant to a LL & T relationship.

It will become part of LL registration requirements that appropriate electrical checks are made and properly logged, and that will help everyone as some posters have already said. In the meantime we can all discuss our individual views on the matter, but none of it stands as the definitive answer.

Bernadette - let us know what the local private sector rentals team think as they are the ones whose decisions matter rather than any vox populi on here. You have to make your own choice (after qualified legal advice) on pursuing any civil claim but the TROs should, in any case, look into whether or not this LA has properly met their obligations, and they can liaise with the Trading Standards dept too, if necessary.

It’s always possible that the reason you got non-committal treatment from the LA was that they had spoken to their insurers, who had told them not to admit any form of liability without further recourse to them, to get it fixed straight away and to let them know how things progressed.;)

Gorgeous_George

Appliances in a private home are different to those provided to a tenant.

It is the LL's responsibility to ensure all appliances provided as part of a tenancy agreement are safe.

Am I the only LL to provide an electrical safety certificate to my tenant (every 5 years) and PAT tests on tenant changes?

GG

Premier_2

Gorgeous_George wrote:

...Am I the only LL to provide an electrical safety certificate to my tenant (every 5 years) and PAT tests on tenant changes?

GG

But that's not good enough for the OP

There probably is an electrical certificate issued 3 years ago, but she want's one issued the day she took the tenancy, or near as dammit.

PAT tests are not applicable here - the item was not a portable appliance; it was a hard wired integral appliance.

fatpig_2

bernadette2105 wrote: »

Dear All,
I wonder if you can help. I privately rent through an agent named IMS lettings. I moved into a 3 bed property on 27/08/2008 on the 29th put some washing in the intergrated washing machine and recieved 240volts into my body. The agent sent a washing machine man out who tested the appliance and said that the machine was not earthed what so ever and i recieved the full 240 main volts as a shock. I recieved a report from him and the last paragraph states that theres a fault with the wiring meaning both the live and earth wires are both live all metal parts of the machine are live with full mains 240 volts a potentially lethal situation.
IMS have now fixed the wiring, but offered no apology, am i entitled to sue the for negligence, if so how do i go about it?

Thanks
Bernadette

A shocking tale without doubt.

tbs624

fatpig wrote: »

A shocking tale without doubt.

I'm surprised the thread got all the way to 6 pages without that predictable post. You missed one of these off too:eek:

stevetodd

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Appliances in a private home are different to those provided to a tenant.

It is the LL's responsibility to ensure all appliances provided as part of a tenancy agreement are safe.

Am I the only LL to provide an electrical safety certificate to my tenant (every 5 years) and PAT tests on tenant changes?

GG

What portable electrical equipment do you provide? ie that you PAT test on tenant changes

Gorgeous_George

Premier wrote: »

But that's not good enough for the OP

There probably is an electrical certificate issued 3 years ago, but she want's one issued the day she took the tenancy, or near as dammit.

PAT tests are not applicable here - the item was not a portable appliance; it was a hard wired integral appliance.

It is recommended that the safety certificate should be renewed every 5 years or when a tenant changes. I choose every 5 years.

GG

silvercar

Phone up the local council private rental team / trading standards and ask them whether as a landlord it is necessary to do a full electrical check on a 3 year old property with a full electric certificate when new.

Then phone them up again and ask if a landlord would be negligent for failing to do another full electric check before the tenancy started.