Condition of Rental House

MissSunshine

I'm after some advice regarding the rental house I moved into today after reading Eager Learner's nightmare thread.

The property is being managed by a letting agent and I was given the inventory list to check off and sign over this weekend. Before we put anything in the house I did a reccy round. There's a lot of grubby marks on walls in the hallway/stairs, the staircase itself has small chipped paint and small dirty marks on radiators, they're magnolia and white so hard to take pictures and aren't mentioned on the inventory. Also should I have expected the house to be clean? Kitchen def needs a good scrub, there's small cobwebs in some rooms and dead insects, so needs hoovering and cleaning.

Obviously I need to make letting agent aware, but should I get them to see for themselves as our deposit's £925 and I really don't want any hassles getting it back when we vacate the property.

nickj_2

i would just let them know about the situation asap in writing and ask them what they intend doing about it , if they say nothing at all at least the ball will be in your court

pigeonpie

Make a note of all the defects and issues, take photos where possible and get the rental agent round and go through your letter together with him/her and if possible get them to sign an acknowledgement that this is indeed the condition of the house.
You could try politely insisting that professional cleaners be brought in, although this should have been done before you moved in. Was it tenanted before as I'll bet the outgoing tenants paid for cleaning, which obviously wasn't done. Anything in your lease about cleaning when you move out? The terms would be the same for any tenant- standard agreement by that agency.
It is bloody cold in Blighty so check the heating works before getting them round too!

MissSunshine

Thanks for both your replies. Have done the detailed list of defects and I'll speak to the letting agent tuesday morning about these, the 'cleanliness' and what they propose to do. From what I can gather the LL has just bought the property as buy to let, so it just hasn't been given the once over since previous owners left. Be pointless insisting on professional cleaners on tuesday as that's 3 days away and I need to get the house in order now, but was thinking of getting a few quotes and billing the landlord for my time :rotfl:

We've already had an issue with the heating, only got told yday that gas fire in lounge wasn't to be used as LL didn't want to pay for Corgi cert and the 2 radiators would be suffient. Central heating is oil and I'm cold now, def don't want to have all the heating on just to heat lounge area at night :eek: , so I asked for reduction on rent and they managed to budge on paying for corgi certificate :rolleyes:

MissSunshine

That's what I thought, but LL thought they could get away with it not being functional by disconnecting the gas, but they've left the bottles in the garden :rolleyes:

clutton_2

any decent AST will have a clause saying that if a tenant gets a portable gas applicance that it is the tenants responsibility to get a CORGI safety cert. this landlord has not provided fuel for this fire, if you bring the bottles inside and use the fire, you are risking your own safety. how can this be the landlords fault ? i grant you that he should have taken the bottles out of the premises altogether tho. if he is grumbling about a £60 safety cert, i don't expect he will be a fabulous landlord, so, take videos of the scuffs and damages, just in case he gets iffy with your deposit when you leave.

Gorgeous_George

Oh dear. Sounds like the first of many problems.

Get yourself a document holder and file all correspondence. make a note of dates/times of any telephone calls. Could be invaluable when you decide to leave.



GG

MarkyMarkD

I can't believe a landlord being so petty - it cost us £60 for servicing and safety certificates on gas CH boiler and gas fire in our rental property. The MARGINAL cost of getting one for the gas fire should be buttons.

More likely it's not safe and that's why he doesn't have a certificate for it, IMHO.

MissSunshine

ts_aly2000 wrote:

Oh well hang on, I think the corgi cert only applies to appliances hooked up to the mains gas supply. I'm not entirely sure but I don't think these burner things that run off of bottles fall into the same category.

I mean, I could buy one tomorrow morning and there's no requirement for me to get it serviced or checked whatsoever. I'm thinking of the sort that they have in caravans and alike, those sort?

clutton wrote:

any decent AST will have a clause saying that if a tenant gets a portable gas applicance that it is the tenants responsibility to get a CORGI safety cert. this landlord has not provided fuel for this fire, if you bring the bottles inside and use the fire, you are risking your own safety. how can this be the landlords fault ? i grant you that he should have taken the bottles out of the premises altogether tho. if he is grumbling about a £60 safety cert, i don't expect he will be a fabulous landlord, so, take videos of the scuffs and damages, just in case he gets iffy with your deposit when you leave.

The gas fire isn't portable and the gas bottles aren't in the house, it's a proper gas fire unit fixed onto the chimney breast with a hole drilled through the wall to outside (looks to be safely done) and connected up to 2 gas bottles in the garden, therefore the LL's responsibility to prove it's safe to use?

MarkyMarkD wrote:

More likely it's not safe and that's why he doesn't have a certificate for it, IMHO.

That's what I'm starting to think, will see what Corgi person says

GorgeousGeorge wrote:

Oh dear. Sounds like the first of many problems.

Get yourself a document holder and file all correspondence. make a note of dates/times of any telephone calls. Could be invaluable when you decide to leave.

Don't worry I will!!!!! After spending an hour today cleaning the kitchen including splashmarks behind the hob and grubby marks on switches/in drawers and them not coming completely clean I'm going to request the agent comes to the property asap as the inventory says everythings in good clean condition, and contract says they'll charge me for professional cleaning if it's not upto scratch

One thing in my favour, i'm not staying at the property yet, still staying with parents as have such a lot of stuff to move as been living overseas for 5 years Emptyed self store yday (1100 cubic feet, export wrapped), dad's garage today and tomorrow getting electrical things from my nan's and most of it's in the double garage at the rented house as it's gonna take time to sort it all out :eek:

Think it's going to be a long 6 months..................................just hope we find a property to buy by then :rolleyes:

BobProperty

clutton wrote:

any decent AST will have a clause saying that if a tenant gets a portable gas applicance that it is the tenants responsibility to get a CORGI safety cert. ....

Any decent AST will say you can't have a portable gas appliance and your insurer won't like it either.
As the fire appears to be "fixed" then I don't see why a Gas Safety Certificate isn't required. However, this is bottled LPG so finding a CORGI registered engineer with the right qualification might be more difficult. IMHO it's a separate category.