problems with rented house

mhoc

My daughter is in a rented house with 5 others, this is their second week. They are having reaccuring problems with plumbing and electrics plus other problems like doors that lock themselves and the wireless internet still has not been installed. They have one point of contact but she is only available from 9 to 5 weekdays, other times she wont answer her homephone,mobile or email messages unless she thinks there is a genuine emergency.

The girls have also asked to see the house certs eg wiring, public liability etc within 14 days. They are all first year apart from one. I think that must be the one who has realised that we have not seen the certs yet

Any suggestions. You would have thought with 6 sets of parents ringing and leaving emails and 6 girls ringing and leaving messages these things would have been ironed out.

We did have one email a week ago which said something about best codes of practice and problems would be ironed out within 28 days but they were being given priority treatment, also about the rarity of plumbers in the city (one lives in the same street) Mind you this was before the electrics started playing up leaving them electricless at dinner time on a Sunday night!

Mary

shopndrop

If the property is accredited you should be able to contact local council. If not, have you tried the uni accommodation office? We had similar problems with the property our son rented. Eventually, I contacted the local council for the area he was living in and they contacted landlord as we could not get any reply from him. They said they would have work done and invoice him. I spoke to the Council on a Thursday, then contacted landlord same day and he arranged for plumber to come out on Saturday. Funny how landlord had ignored all previous requests from us.

Gooding

Get students to go through their Uni advice centre, which will almost certainly have some experience of dealing with landlords. Otherwise, as above, drop a letter off explaining that you will be hiring someone to do the essential work on the house and deducting the costs incurred from the rent. You must give the landlord plenty of notice.

mhoc

Thanks for all the useful advice coming in. My daughter went up on open viewing weekend and this was the first property on the list given to them via the accomadation office so it would have been vetted by the uni?

All the girls have said to her that they will withold rent until the repairs are done but I am not sure wether thye can do this legally, especailly as they all have standing orders for their rent

Mary

welf_man

No, it won't necessarily have been vetted, though the accommodation office should have checked the gas safety certificate - not that that sounds like an issue!

Withholding rent is breach of contract and should be a final step if all else fails - and that would be most appropriate to recoup money paid on essential repairs if they were not done by the LL.

I would put the complaints in writing and allow 7 days for an adequate response; if one is not forthcoming then contact the local council Tenancy Relations and/or Environmental Health offices and ask them to take it on.

The university accommodation office should be copied in on any previous and future correspondence so they can decide whether to delist the LL.

Mel.

Gooding

Do not withhold rent.

mhoc

I've now been in touch with the accomadation office and they seem to hold all the necessary certs so we can get copies from her.

I have to write to her with all the details of the problems the girls have been having and send it to her email. So at least its a start and if she gets all the versions of all the girls and parents she will have a full picture. The acc off did seem to think our concerns were genuine.


The girls filled in a form on the first day of the faults and that was September 16th or 17th.

Mary

I was always against withholding rent and I will make sure when I ring my daughter tonight that she understands why it has to be paid.

kittiwoz

I agree with the others. Make all grievances as official as possible. Go through the uni accomodaton office. Write to the landlord outlining the problems and what you expect to be done about and within what time frame. Make sure the letter is dated and signed and keep a photocopy for your records. You should probably send it recorded delivery too. You must give a reasonable time to respond. If the landlord still doesn't rectify the problems you can then contact the council or contract someone to do the necessary work (providing it is strictly essential) and deduct their payment from the rent. If the cost of the non-existant internet connection is included in the rent it may be appropriate to deduct this amount until it is installed. Do check this though, I am not sure of the legal situation. Generally it is certainly not legal to withold rent and will put your daughter in breach of her contract. Having said this I dare say that failing to do essential repairs and maintanence within a reasonable timescale puts the landlord in breach of contract which is why your daughter would be within her rights to deduct payment for the work from the rent providing she can demonstrate that the landlord is in breach of contract and that she has made reasonable attempts at resolving the issue by other means. Hence the paper trail.

We have a mouse problem in our house which we have complained about with no result. We are now going to pursue a similar course of action by writing to the landlord asiking him to resolve the problem. I was thinking a fortnight would be a reasonable length of time within which to ask him to deal with it, or do you think we could get away with a week? Tbh I'm hoping he doesn't act within the specified timeframe so we can get the council's pest control department out to it and have them bill him. He's likely to send someone round to do a half-arsed job which will only result in us having super-mice which have grown immune to all poison.

mhoc

:eek: Thanks for all the replies. I heard of someone whose student accomadation had a sofa that was a mouse colony:eek:

I finally had an email tonight from the owner which said that we would be receiving a letter tommorow "detailing all the problems we are experiencing at the moment". Very odd, why not just email it to everyone, saves a lot of time and expense. Makes you wonder if this is to stop everyone emailing her tonight and leaving messages on both phones and starting other actions!

Asked my daughter tonight and she says they have filled in several fault forms so I hope someone has had the sense to make copies of these.

At least so far tonight they have functioing locks and electricity in the kitchen which is good but still no internet, sky or adequete plumbing :rolleyes:

Mary

shopndrop

I think you can ask the council to come out about any vermin and they will come free of charge.

The_doomed

One tip. Make one person responsible for contacting the landlord and then distributing this to the other tenants / parents. That way there is no conflicting information going any way, and the landlord cant say well she said X and he said Y.

Must be terrible having no internet or sky...