Broken boiler

tylerboyo

Hi people,
our boiler has broken in our student house. Weve contacted the landlord as they run the property not the letting agents. She said shell sort it out shortly. But every other problem in the house has taken weeks to sort out.
Lukcily we have an electric shower so we have hot water there, but we cant do the washing up and the heating in the house doesnt work.
What can i do about this?
Can anyone offer any help?

Lavendyr

Do you have a valid gas safety certificate from the landlord/letting agent?

tylerboyo

I dont know what that is.
But we never got given any sort of paper work for anything when we moved in.

PasturesNew

For washing up, boil a kettle. I do. I've got an immersion heater for hot water and have never used it because it's huge so I just boil a kettle to wash up.

BitterAndTwisted

Don't be silly, of course you can do the washing-up. Just boil a kettle.

In law, your landlord has to get repairs done within a "reasonable time" but I'm not sure if this has ever been legally defined. In your position, I'd start with notifying the landlord in writing.

If the boiler is a gas one, then it's a legal requirement to have an annual gas-safety check so you should ask your landlord for sight of the certificate. Put this request in the same letter. The absence of this check and the certificate is punishable by law because not having it done can risk carbon monoxide emissions from the system.

Fire_Fox

All complaints/ problems should be notified to the landlord in writing by recorded delivery, are you doing this? Did you really not get any paperwork, no copy of the tenancy agreement, no notification of where your damage deposit is lodged?

olly300

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

In law, your landlord has to get repairs done within a "reasonable time" but I'm not sure if this has ever been legally defined. In your position, I'd start with notifying the landlord in writing.

The reason why a time can't be given for repairs is the difficulty you have in calling the repairman out and them getting the parts.

Therefore as long as the landlord gets the repairmen out to do an assessment as soon as they can who then orders the part, if the repair takes 3 weeks because the part has to be shipped to the UK, the landlord is acting reasonably.

This is an extreme example as having 2 boilers with problems while I was in rental properties it took the landlord less than 24 hours to get someone to assess the boiler but about a week to get the boilers repaired properly due to the parts not being available. This is because on both occasions the landlord had good relationships with plumbers so they would come out at short notice.

Oh and another landlord told me how angry he got because previous tenants waited 3 days before telling him the boiler wasn't working.

poppysarah

Put it in writing to the LL.

You could contact the council's private rental section for more advice on dealing with a landlord. I'd give them a ring now to start the ball rolling.

C_Mababejive

Are any of you on any kind of benefit? If so,you could get a new boiler under the corrupt Warmfront scheme in which taxpayers pay for new heating systems for privately rented houses so long as the tenant fits the profile.

tbs624

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Are any of you on any kind of benefit? If so,you could get a new boiler under the corrupt Warmfront scheme in which taxpayers pay for new heating systems for privately rented houses so long as the tenant fits the profile.

Students are unlikely to be in receipt of the relevant benefits.

Most LLs are tax payers too, and the scheme also applies to home owners in receipt of certain benefits: the idea behind it was to address fuel poverty across the board.

The reality is that most installations under this scheme will incur charges to a homeowner or a LL, as few (if any) systems cost less than the available grant.

tbs624

OP - your Uni will have an accomodations officer - make use of them to help you get this sorted out.

A LL has what are called S11 repairing obligations and they have to maintain the equipment for space/water heating in good working order, seeing to repairs within a reasonable time.

What may be "reasonable" during the summer month can be different from what is "reasonable" now.

You have to have put notification in writing to the LL - if you haven't do it now - refer to your previous verbal notification if that's what you originally did.

Your LL should supply temporary heaters and water boilers which can be hired by the day - she should foot the bills for them. The costs are tax deductible for her.

This "spare parts" malarkey that some LLs try to hide behind is tosh : most parts are available to order online for pretty prompt delivery. A LL has to budget for getting a plumber/HE in promptly - what you have to provide for a T is different from what you'd put up with in your home.

Don't be fobbed off - and if you weren't given a gas safety certicifate at the start of this tenancy then your LL is likely to be committing a number of criminal offences - she has to have all gas appliances/flues checked annually, get a gas safety cert, give you the tenants copy (title is a bit of clue for her) and retain her own copies for 2 years. The Heating Hngineer must be registered with Gas Safe (google it) also google HSE landlord obligations gas safety.

As Poppysarah says, there is also the Tenancy Relations Officer at the local council (private sector rentals team). Most areas have a code of conduct for student LLs , jointly drawn up by the local LL association, the Uni and the TRO - check whether your LL has signed up.