rented property not being maintained as being sold - help?

dollyrocks

Hi

We've been renting a property while selling our house in our old town and finding one to buy. We have now sorted all that out and will be moving into our new house at the start of April. The property we're renting is nice, but pretty shoddily fitted out in places (like pretty much every other rental property I've ever been in!). We're renting via an estate agency, and at first when things went wrong they were really great about contacting the owner and getting repairs sorted quickly.

However the property is being sold - in fact, has been sold, and is kind of between owners at the moment; I don't think they are actually exchanging until shortly before we will be moving out. There have been a few things going wrong, nothing too major - the cooker hood has broken, though is still useable if you are careful, an impossible to reach light has blown (you would need serious ladders to get to the lightbulb, it's very high above the stairs - strange place to have it, I think.) The security lights at the back have never worked, though we tried to fix them. The estate agent has told us these things won't be fixed now until the exchange is complete - not much good to us.

But we can live with those things, if we have to. The problem is that two more serious things have happened. The front door lock has totally busted. We have managed to fix a bolt in place for the moment but you obviously can't get in from outside. We have a back door that we can use for the moment, but to get to it you have to come down a very dark alley, totally unlit - and as I said, the security light at the back of our house has never worked so there isn't even any light when you get to the house. I find this particularly unnerving as we were broken into before Christmas by someone coming down this alley and I ended up in tears last night just getting to the house. Which I know is ridiculous, but if you've ever been burgled you'll know how disturbing it is.

The other thing is that the water pressure to the cold tap in the bathroom has totally gone, so we just have the tiniest dribble and can't brush our teeth or wash our faces. Annoying.

To be fair, we only emailed the estate agency about the lock yesterday and haven't let them know about the water yet (it has been happening for a while but only last night and today has it totally disappeared). So it's possible they may get them fixed right away...but I'm not sure. What are our rights if they say no?

My thought is that the estate agency should pay for repairs now and bill the new owner - after all, they'll have to get these repairs done anyway when the new tenants move in. But I'm not sure if that's how it works.

Any advice very, very welcome!

Jowo_2

A landlord is obligated to maintain appliances and carry out repairs, whatever their future plans are for the property. The estate agent is merely an intermediary to the landlord -they represent them and deal with matters on their behalf.

Look at the Shelter website - this contains a section on how to ensure landlords undertake repairs, including a process (which must be strictly followed) for tenants to undertake the repairs and deduct them from the rent if they've notified the landlord of their intention, given them a deadline which they've ignored and obtained quotes.

poppysarah

Put all complaints in writing and get it send so they have to sihgn for it.

princeofpounds

Landlords cannot escape their obligations under section 11 of the landlord and tenant act to keep properties in good repair.

To solve your problems look here:

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

and google or search these forums for Lee Parker vs Izzet 1971.