Just had enough now

Kaleidoscope1972

I recently posted that we were renting a property from our landlord while he was abroad and he led us to beleive it would be a long term let of about 3 years..however after just a few months in the property..landlord has told us he is coming back at the end of our 12 month tenancy.

I have discovered I am expecting a baby and my due date is the exact date our tenancy ends!..therefore we wrote to landlord and asked if he would consider letting us out of the tenancy a little early otherwise I could be in labour in the middle of a house move!..sadly he said no..despite the fact that he is not renting the house out again and will be moving back in..he has insisted we complete our tenancy..despite me being a high risk pregnancy and needing to rest in the last few weeks.

.to make matters worse..the 20 year old boiler in the property has died and the plumber sent out by the management company has condemmed it...landlord says he will not pay for it to be replaced as he insists it was serviced before we moved in(it may well have been but that doesnt stop it popping its clogs)..and to date we are in a stale mate situation where by he is refusing to have it replaced.

.its an oil b oiler and the problem is that the red light keeps coming on and it dies..but it will work if you press the reset button..however the instructions clearly say that if you do this more than 3 times, you must do it again as it indicates a serious problem..the engineer agreed and said that it was uneconomical to repair and has told us under no circumstances not to switch it on..we dont know what to do..the mornings and evenings are chilly now and we have no other means of heating hot water..we are paying quite a lot for this property (£900 a month) and dont expect to have no heating or hot water( we have young children too)..weve had enough and just wish we had never taken on the property now...

tek-monkey

I'm sorry, nothing personal but I just can't read that! I'm not sure about others, but I switch off when there is no formatting to a post, its just a pain to read it. I suspect both yourself and others who do this would get a better response if it was easier to follow.

Engelbert

You need to go to Shelter about the boiler. No heating and hot water is not acceptable, especially in winter, and especially with children.

Is there a break clause in your tenancy at all? Or anything about ending it early. Read it carefully and if in doubt take it to Shelter

Even if not, you may find that if you kick up enough fuss about the boiler and the landlords duty to repair he might evict you. As you want to leave anyway you have nothing to lose!

Engelbert

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/repairs_and_bad_conditions/repairs_in_private_lets

clutton_2

a LL has a legal obligation to maintain a heating system and can be made to do so by the local authority.

contact your local council Private SEctor Housing Officer and tell her the situation. i would also talk to the Environmental Health Officer at yoru council as they have an interest in making landlords fulfil their legal obligations

mlz1413

Your LL is responsible for the boiler wheather he likes it or not, if he sent the plumber then the plumber should have reported back to him it was Beyond Economic Repair (BER) and so your LL should be putting into action a method for replacement.

WRITE to your LA (you must have a UK address as LL is abroad) recorded delivery saying the plumber has condemed the boiler and that as it is LL responsibility to supply heating in the house that you would like a time frame for replacement of the heat source.

Follow this letter up with a phone call 48 hrs after it has been delv and get the name of the person liasing with your LL.

Kaleidoscope1972

I apologies if anyone couldnt read my post..Im afraid I just typed as I was thinking it..so to speak

Thank you everyone..my husband said he has had enough and would gladly not pay rent so as to be evicted..but this is not the way Id like to proceed as it would mean we would struggle to rent again.

Re Break Clause..no we dont have one..we are locked in for 12 months

The UK address we have is care of the management company I assume thats ok

The management company sent the engineer and we had an unpleasent phone call from the LL asking why we had gone to the management company and not him.
He claims that the boiler has behaved like this for ages and is just temperamental

I will write to the LL care of the UK address tomorrow

clutton_2

do you have a landlords gas safety certificate ?

anselld

clutton wrote: »

do you have a landlords gas safety certificate ?

Is that relevant? OP said it was a oil fired boiler.

DVardysShadow

Kaleidoscope1972 wrote: »

The management company sent the engineer and we had an unpleasent phone call from the LL asking why we had gone to the management company and not him.

That is because he is a damn fool. He pays an agent so you don't bother him, or so the theory goes. Actually, it indicates that he is irritated at being asked to fork out for the plumber and possibly for a new boiler. It may be that the fear of this cost could work to your advantage - once he knows you are determined to have the heating fixed at his expense, it might be possible to negotiate an early exit to a more suitable property.

loobyloo0302

"its an oil b oiler and the problem is that the red light keeps coming on and it dies..but it will work if you press the reset button..however the instructions clearly say that if you do this more than 3 times, you must do it again as it indicates a serious problem..the engineer agreed and said that it was uneconomical to repair and has told us under no circumstances not to switch it on.."

I have this exact same problem at the moment! Thing is, my partner is reluctant to tell the landlord as he believes that he will make us pay for the repairs. We let privately and its a family business. We let a house from them for a year prior to where we are now. Everything was fine until winter came, and then mould began to grow on every single wall in the house. We coould not understand when we first moved there why it appeared that every single wall had been glossed over.. until winter came, and then we understood perfectly well. When we came to moving out, the whole of our deposit was kept and we were informed that this was for the purpose of repainting the walls. After this event, we thought nothing of it until another landlord began working nights for my partner. This bloke had been doing up one of the houses in a street that our landlords family did not own. He told us that he had people in for damp proofing as some walls had mould growing halfway up, and was basically told by the father of our landlord that he was wasting his time and money when all he needed to do was just paint over the mould!! I was shocked! He basically admitted to what they had done before we even moved in. How can they get away with this?? Anyway, this has led my partner to thinking that if he reports this problem, we'll recieve a hefty bill. I will be informing him when we pay our rent on friday..

Out of curiosity, how do you reset the oil boilers?? We get the red light come on when we put it on constant and turn it on, so there is definitely power going to it, but the boiler itself just makes a short noise and then dies.