Burglary in rented accomodation - rights if Landlord is at fault

lynzpower

Nadeshka wrote: »

It's not Foxton's but tbh these agencies are all the same, I doubt there's much between them. He might look into the civil issue, but the main hope is that someone else moves in so he doesn't have to pay more rent - which seems terrible!
Just when I thought all those jokes about Estate Agents were unjustified!

You are wrong there, if they are a member of ARLA at least you have SOME follow up.

lizzielondon

Nadeshka wrote: »

Well the Estate Agents weren't very helpful, shockingly. They will let them out of the contract if they can fill the flat by then, otherwise he has to pay.
They had never changed the locks and tbh didn't actually give a damn that they'd been burgled. :mad: Who knows how many copies of keys are out there and the front door still hasn't been changed. They charged a £200 check-in fee and will probably charge something equally high on check-out, and they won't change the locks?

To clarify about the doors - the door frame overlaps on the outside of the door, it's hard to describe without an image so

if the "@" is the yale lock on the inside, the # are the door and |||||| is the frame (ignore the ----, they're to make it line up)

---

@@@||
######## |||||||

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||||||||

Then door sits in the frame so the frame covers any gap to the lock. It's looking more and more like they had keys, so any insurance they might have had wouldn't have paid out.

get him to check his contract i don't think they can charge a check out fee if it's not in the contract- also it's recommended this cost should be split between ll and tenant*- normaly ll pays the check in and tenants check out

i know i've read thisbut can't remember who recommends it

Nadeshka

I've been reading through the contract and it mentions check-out but not explicitly a fee so we'll see what they try.
They've replaced the lock on the front door of the building, but only the Yale! :mad:
The mortis is still taped up and we know other residents have now expressed a concern about this, as well as the police.
I noticed in the contract there's a clause saying the tenant must secure the flat with all locks available, and doing otherwise may invalidate either the tenant's or the Landlord's insurance. Well they're preventing the tenants from doing just that!
If the estate agents still refuse to give keys to the mortis is it worth taking it directly to the Landlord?
Their attitude it just getting worse. In an email they sent they seem to have just forgotten that they want to move out next month, and booked the checkout two months away!

GDB2222

I can tell you my experience as a landlord. We have a 3 storey building with 2 flats and an office. It had a yale latch and a chubb mortice lock on the main front door. We reviewed this many years ago and had to disable the mortice lock. Otherwise, if there were a fire, somebody could come running down the stairs and then be trapped by the mortice lock. At the same time, we replaced the latch with a more secure CESA lock. That's electrically operated, but there's a key in a glass box in case the electricity fails.

I don't think that relying on a yale latch is adequate security, but that's how the flat was when the OP took it, so they can't complain. Rather, they can complain away like crazy because in this country it's now par for the course to blame somebody else for any misfortunes, but they won't get anywhere.