When is it reasonable to withold rent?

tbs624

sp1987 wrote: »

....
If the house is uninhabitable (our university house looked fine but one tenant had a problem with the condition of a bathroom, council inspection demanded £30,000 worth of alterations to ensure the house was fit for rental by 6 people) they will take action. Our agents would not sort one or two small issues so after an inspection had to replaster every ceiling, change every door, put partitions between the kitchen and bathroom, enclose the staircase, install fire alarm system etc etc. Carpets had to be changed and the whole house needed repainting (due to the replastering I assume). Madness as we were happy with the house barring one or two tiny issues (ie bathroom condition and the removal of an old gas fire) which could have been rectified in minutes. There were things demanded by the council that were never even carried out either, like the inclusion of an external staircase fire escape from an upstairs bedroom and increase in workspace in the kitchen.

(My emphasis.) This property will have been classified as an HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) and there are strict rules on HMOs: not "madness" becuase they are there to protect tenants. As fairly inexperienced young adults you may well have been "happy with the house" but when a fire sweeps through a shared occupancy property that doesn't comply with the regs you probably wouldn't have the time or the opportunity to regret that the necessary regs hadn't been complied with by your errant LL.

If you are moving in to a larger shared property always check first whether it is, or should be, listed as an HMO: all it takes is a quick call to the Council. Alternatively, only rent properties that are on an accredited list held by the Uni or the council's private sector rentals office.

Good to hear that the LL was compelled to get on with the work. Had he failed to get it done, & been convicted of failing to meet his legal obligations you could have applied for a Rent Repayment Order.

tbs624

princeofpounds wrote: »

....does he have an HMO license (if required)

It is important to check but it is unlikely to be a licensable HMO in the OP's case as s/he said "they are paying £250 per week between them (3 people)"

m_13

However, some places are all licensed for HMOs above a certain number of residents. Scotland for example:

In Scotland the Licensing Order makes it mandatory from October 2000 for all HMOs to be licensed. To be classified as a licensable HMO the accommodation must be the only or principle residence of a specified number of people who are not members either of the same family or one or other of two families. The specified number started on 1st October 2000 at six or more and is reducing annually until it reaches its minimum level , ie three or more. Students in accommodation that is an HMO in term time are treated as being solely or principally resident there in order to calculate the number of occupiers of an HMO.

adg1

Don't withhold rent as you are then in breach fo the tenancy agreement and can have notice and a court order served to be evicted.

Write to the landlord, agent and anyone else who you think may be important recorded delivery stating the issues and a time frame for getting them sorted out.

Warn them you will approach the bodies others have mentioned at the end fo this time frame and see what happens.

poet123

To answer some of the queries, the house is a shared 3 bed house, so not covered by the HMO scheme I don't think. Deposit is in the protected scheme, and we have not had sight of the Gas Safety Cert (I did mention it to the lads when they moved in, but as far as I am aware they have not seen it). The letting agent was no the Uni approved list, my son is calling into the office of the Uni housing assoc today and asking for their advice.

sp1987

tbs624 wrote: »

(My emphasis.) This property will have been classified as an HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) and there are strict rules on HMOs: not "madness" becuase they are there to protect tenants. As fairly inexperienced young adults you may well have been "happy with the house" but when a fire sweeps through a shared occupancy property that doesn't comply with the regs you probably wouldn't have the time or the opportunity to regret that the necessary regs hadn't been complied with by your errant LL.

If you are moving in to a larger shared property always check first whether it is, or should be, listed as an HMO: all it takes is a quick call to the Council. Alternatively, only rent properties that are on an accredited list held by the Uni or the council's private sector rentals office.

Good to hear that the LL was compelled to get on with the work. Had he failed to get it done, & been convicted of failing to meet his legal obligations you could have applied for a Rent Repayment Order.

My use of 'madness' was rather from the point of view that the landlord had to pay £30,000 to get his house up to current standards as opposed to paying £500 to fix a couple of odds and ends. I knew really that a few things would not survive an inspection from logic alone, the doors were old interior doors, very pretty and added to the age of the house, though not fire doors. The bannisters were antique and gorgeous but needed to be boxed in to prevent somebody tumbling over them. Most works took away the character of the house, which was a shame! We had fire alarms but not what was required, etc etc. I entirely agree with your points though. :T

There were reasons why he managed to avoid meeting all his obligations, namely one tenant from the group was ''bought out'' (he had become a problem with the group aside from being a problem to the landlord) so the landlord was able to only complete those measures needed for a 5 person house (small measures such as increasing workspace in the kitchen but would have required knocking out walls/extending to obtain such space), which saved him more money than it cost and stopped us all walking (which we could have due to his lack of completion by the date he stated, though not the date we ''needed'' to move in by, hence some leeway). We got a variety of ''freebies'' and upgrades in addition to reduced rental so although we were messed about a bit, we did much better in that property than we would have in another nearby.