Rent Reduction???

BitterAndTwisted

bluenoseneil wrote: »

Firefox,
I don't have an address for the landlord but I can e-mail him ALL of the e-mails I have sent to the agency with Read Receipts on them, so he is fully aware of the trail.

It is a legal requirement for all tenants to have an address for their landlord in order to serve notices. This address should be on your rental agreement. Do you have one? Failing that you can find the name and address of your landlord on the Land Registry website which will cost you about four quid.

Please do not rely on Read Receipts to emails! If you have to go to court how will you prove having received a Read Receipt?

From now on: everything in writing to BOTH the LL and LA and always y recored Delivery. You don't know now how vital having a paper-trail might become.

Fire_Fox

bluenoseneil wrote: »

There must be more I can do, because politely asking is getting us nowhere. There must be some kind of legal recourse, as we think £310 pcm EACH for 4 people for a house that's falling apart around us is unacceptable, and so is being woken up every morning by roofing contractors at 7.30am to do repairs that SHOULD have been sorted fully during Summer 2009, as agreed by the Landlord and the agency.

bluenoseneil wrote: »

Firefox,

I don't have an address for the landlord but I can e-mail him ALL of the e-mails I have sent to the agency with Read Receipts on them, so he is fully aware of the trail.

I am not sure what this will achieve, though.

The Landlord is under obligation to keep the property in a habitable state of repair....which technically it is. We in turn are the tidiest house you could wish for (considering I live with 3 lads who are students!!)

It's hard to see what else can be done, although ideally we want to recoup some of the cost of heating the house over November/December as a result of the roof having a hole in it (NOT our fault) and a modest gesture in the reduction of the rent to show that the Landlord is accepting of the fact we have had issues, none of which were of our own doing.

I think this is fair!!

I've told you what else can and should be done - start a paper trail. :rolleyes: I am well aware of what the landlord's obligations are, the correct procedure to enforce that begins with tenants reporting problems to the landlord in writing by recorded delivery, not to the letting agency via e-mail.

You have the legal right to obtain an address for your landlord at which notices can be served - IIRC under the Landlord-Tenant Act 1987 - formally request this from the letting agency (in writing by recorded delivery).

StiflersMom

Isn't the easiest answer to move to somewhere nicer?

BitterAndTwisted

StiflersMom wrote: »

Isn't the easiest answer to move to somewhere nicer?

Yes, it definitely would be IF the tenants aren't tied into an AST and if they really can find somewhere nicer at a rent they could afford. Sometimes that is easier said than done. I suspect that if the OP and his or her housemates could have done so by now they would have but stranger things have happened......

bluenoseneil

We are tied into our rental agreement until July 2010.

So NO, we cannot move!!

Bummer, eh?!!

BitterAndTwisted

So, bluenoseneil you really should take the advice given you on here and follow the procedures recommended by the letter. This may pay you back in spades at a later date should your landlord fail to keep up with repairs now or in the future.

Have look at the Shelter website about what you could do to compel your landlord to carry out repairs and if you want to read some hair-raising stories log onto LandlordZone and have a read of some of the tenants' experiences on there. Very sobering but fore-warned is fore-armed as they say.

Your landlord is not under any legal obligation that I know of to reduce your rent because of the problems you have been suffering but if you don't ask you certainly won't get any

StiflersMom

bluenoseneil wrote: »

We are tied into our rental agreement until July 2010.

So NO, we cannot move!!

Bummer, eh?!!

Have you raised the issue of asking for an early release from your agreement with your LL? He may prefer that to offering you a rent reduction

BitterAndTwisted

Any landlord who agrees to an early release by their tenants from a rental agreement while their property is in such terrible disrepair must be madder than a march hair! He's got them tied in, then would he risk a possibly long-term void?

Still, it never hurts to ask

clutton_2

""The OP's rat-infestation problem may not be entirely the fault of the landlord. It's the devil of a job to prevent ingress as there are rodents everywhere outside, especially if there are"" no rubbish collections for weeks and weeks....

Last summer it took me nearly 4 months to get a proper roofer to do a proper job which was at a fair price...... and it was not for the want of trying... quotes ranged from £900 to £4,800 - fortunately I know a bit about property and finally settled on one for £1700...

""and so is being woken up every morning by roofing contractors at 7.30am to do repairs "" - THE ROOF IS BEING FIXED - what more do you want ?


give me patience...


whenever it was fixed - last year - this year - next year - you would be woken up at 7.30am by the roofers - deal with it.....

most of the working population is up and about by that time anyway.....

i just have to say this "stop acting like a stereotypical student" moaning about early mornings... go to bed earlier then....

Nixer

Yes - the answer with a landlord who isn't getting repairs done is almost always to move elsewhere. But then nothing is done about the problem landlord and it becomes some other tenant's problem (much as a problem tenant becomes another landlord's problem lest I be accused of bias). That's not meant to be a criticism of the outgoing tenant passing the problem on but if the whole thing were regulated a bit better perhaps it would be easier to weed out both problem tenants and problem landlords.

Also in my experience landlords rarely flat out refuse to do repairs if they aren't going to do them. My last landlord used to give a non committal answer, or not bother giving an answer at all or occasionally led us to believe that they might do something in the future - had he refused outright we would have left much sooner, and I'm sure he knew this.

There is also the hassle of moving and the risk of moving to a place with a landlord who won't be any better about repairs. Sometimes its easier to stay put and try and put up with it a bit at least while you have the false hope that the landlord will change.