No heating or hot water !

BimboDonnax

Good Morning All,

I am a little lost as to where to post this, so thought I would start here,
The long and short of it, is, I have a friend, whos sister has a 2 year old son, she is renting a house from a letting agency and the boiler in the house is broken.

She has been left with no hot water or heating for just over a week now and the agency are dragging their feet.

They "say" that they have two quotes for the work to be carried out but do not know which one they are to take.

Whilst she is still waiting her poor boy is having to suffer !

What rights does she have ?

I was thinking of calling the emergency council seeing as it is Bank Holiday weekend so means another 3 days of no action.

As she is on benefits, could we call the council for her and have this done asap ?

Or is their a different route that we have to take ?

Thanks in advance .

C_Mababejive

Why would the council get involved in the machinations of a private landlord/letting agency?

The issue is between her and the landlord/letting agency and she needs to enforce that.

There is probably no shortage of engineers who would come round today and fix the problem if only they be paid by the stingy landlord.

BimboDonnax

Thanks, I just thought the council for if she received benefits and they might be associated with the council, (something that I heard - must be wrong) also knowing that they run a service too over the holiday period.

If she got an engineer round, would she be able to have the engineer invoice the agency rather than her having to pay ?

Premier_2

BimboDonnax wrote: »

...What rights does she have ? ...

She has the right to hot water and an adequate form of heating.

This weather, I doubt she needs any heating so that shouldn't be an immediate issue. (If she has any medical reasons why she needs heating, this should be reported to the landlord/agent asap who will probably arrange some form of electric heater as a temporary measure)

Regarding hot water, does she not have a kettle??? If not, she could probably get one for about 4 quid from a supermarket.

Of course, neither of these are satisfactory long term solutions to this situation, but she needs to be reasonable.

Two quotes appear to have been requested and now received. You say she was informed they don't know which quote to take?
I would suggest the cheapest unless they have reason to question the competence of that supplier.

Either way, it the quotes are more than about £50 or £100, (which they probably are) I suspect the agent needs the permisision of the landlord to go ahead, hence the slight further delay.

macman

2 weeks to fix a boiler seems unreasonable if it is the sole means of producing hot water. If the landlord is not easily available then the agency should have the power to act. Is there not a back up immersion heater in the property perhaps?
I would give them in writing 7 days to make the repair and threaten to employ my own RGI to fix it, with the cost being deducted from the next rent payment.

davidgmmafan

From my (very limited) knowledge I would make the following observations

I know with regards to a power supplier the fact their is a vulnerable person, ie the child, would mean that if they had caused the loss of supply they would need to sort it out pronto. However I am not sure if it is the same for a landlord/letting agent.

It depends on the nature of the problem, if the boiler isn't working and it wouldn't be safe to turn it on then there's not much you can do to force them to put it on. Trouble is we don't know this yet as nobody has even been out to have a look.

I understand they may need permission from the landlord but it is somewhat of a poor show that they don't have an arragement for such things for example an agreement with a reputable local tradesman or company.

I vaguley recall hearing something about a council being able to get involved, get the work done and bill the landlord, but this would only be in an extreme case. Even if this were an option and your friends sister decided to pursue it it might ruin relations with the landlord. Its a judgement call, are they otherwise good?

What do they propose to do once this is sorted to prevent it happening again?

davidgmmafan

One more question you mentioned quotes so has somebody been out to have a look? Do we know what the problem is?

Premier_2

BimboDonnax wrote: »

...
If she got an engineer round, would she be able to have the engineer invoice the agency rather than her having to pay ?

You could ask them to, but OI very much doubt them will want to get involved in any dispute between your friend's sister and her landlord/agent. The gas engineer will probably only accept instructions off the payer ... and will probably expect payment in full immediately on completion of the job for any work instructed by a private individual.

There's no guarantee a landlord/agent wouyld pay a gas engineer they had not themselves instructed, and in this case where they have already gone to the trouble of seeking quotes in advance of the work being carried out, I would certainly not expect them to pay more than the cheapest quote already received ... and then only if they can be certain it was for the entire work the original quote covered.

Calling out a gas engineer on bank holiday weekend isn't going to be cheap . I would suggest waiting until Tuesday if contact cannot be made with the agent beforehand, and get an agreed date established for when the work will be carried out by whatever engineer the landlord/agent wishes to appoint.

C_Mababejive

BimboDonnax wrote: »

Thanks, I just thought the council for if she received benefits and they might be associated with the council, (something that I heard - must be wrong) also knowing that they run a service too over the holiday period.

If she got an engineer round, would she be able to have the engineer invoice the agency rather than her having to pay ?

It would be a foolish engineer who would enter into such an arrangement for the chances are that he would not get paid.

undaunted

Have a look at Shelter. If a freeholder refuses to do repairs the Councils Environmental Health Dept may be able to order them to do so. At what point they would consider such a delay unreasonable or "refusal" I'm not sure but it may be worth a call to find out.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/