Help! Unexperienced first time renter with HA who are RUBBISH!

I-Owe-You

Hi all

I live in a new build, one bedroom flat in London... (£800 PCM - and thats keyworker affordable housing -apparently!)

Anyway, in the summer I decided to have Sky HD installed for the world cup... worked fine all throughout the summer, until around 4 months ago and I lost signal on most of the channels. I called sky, did the re-installation process with them over the phone/met with engineers etc.. and they informed me that the signal receiver is not strong enough to provide for all the flats in my complex, and that I maybe better off with a separate dish...

Believe it or not there's one receiver for the entire estate (around 150 flats), and we have been told adamantly that we are not allowed to have our own dish.

Cut a long story short I have been on the phone continuously for the past 4 months to try and get this fixed (along with other tenants) to the housing association I am renting from, who are still yet to do anything about it. Of course, during this time I am still paying for my Sky subscription as understandably in their eyes the service they offer is being provided.

Ive been met by all sorts of excuses from the HA in recent months, one being that sky "must have missold us the package" (obviously not the case, as I had received the service in the summer)
Ive now since been informed by the HA that the receiver needs to be replaced as its not strong enough to provide satellite for all the flats....this was around 6 weeks ago and the problem is still yet to be rectified.

Paying what I do in rent & service charges is ridiculous enough as it is, and its even more frustrating that there is no sense of urgency to get this fixed.

My numerous complaints don't seem to be getting me anywhere apart from annoying generic apology letters... can anyone advise me on how I can take this further??? I apologise for my naivety, but this is my first rented home since living with my parents and Ive not much experience. I cannot believe the lack of competence with the housing association.

It is a Bellway built new build, and I have had nothing but trouble with it since I moved in 2 years ago.

Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated!xx

BitterAndTwisted

Is there a tenants association so you could press the LA to sort this out together?

Unless you've got an undertaking from your landlord to supply satellite TV in your tenancy agreement I fear you won't be able force them to sort it. Perhaps a combined effort to pay for it might get you somewhere

G_M

Just to clarify: you took out your own subscription to Sky but are providing it (or trying to) to everyone in your block?

I decided to have Sky HD installed for the world cup... worked fine all throughout the summer, until around 4 months ago and I lost signal on most of the channels. I called sky, did the re-installation process with them over the phone/met with engineers etc.. and they informed me that the signal receiver is not strong enough to provide for all the flats in my complex,

Do Sky know this is a block subscription not an individual one?

Have you read your tenancy agreement? What does it say about
a) provision of TV/Sky by the LL / HA?
b) about your right (or lack) to put up a dish?

Owain_Moneysaver

I-Owe-You wrote: »

Ive now since been informed by the HA that the receiver needs to be replaced as its not strong enough to provide satellite for all the flats....this was around 6 weeks ago and the problem is still yet to be rectified.

This is nonsense.

You will not have one receiver for all the flats. You will have one dish with a quattro (4 output) LNB (the bit that picks up the satellite signal).

The 4 outputs are needed because satellite receivers can pick up 4 types of signal:

Low Band - Horizontal Polarisation
High Band - Horizontal Polarisation
Low Band - Vertical Polarisation
High Band - Vertical Polarisation

The LNB doesn't provide all these signals imultaneously - the receiver sends tones/voltage up the cable from the receiver to the LNB to switch the LNB to the desired signal.

If you just have ordinary Sky and your own dish you have one cable connecting to one output on the LNB. If you have Sky+ you have two cables connecting to two separate outputs on the LNB. This lets you watch/record programmes which are on dufferent bands/polarisations.

Because you have a shared dish (and because LNBs don't come with 100+ outputs) the 4 outputs from the dish are connected to a multiswitch which cross-connects the cable(s) to your flat to the desired outputs on the LNB (and amplifies the signal to the required number of outputs, and usually mixes analogue/freeview TV and FM/DAB radio onto the cable down to your flat as well.

As far as your receiver is concerned you have your own dish because you have your own output on the multiswitch. The 'not strong enough' argument is nonsense because the multiswitch outputs are not shared.

It you have a degraded signal then:

- your output on the multiswitch has gone faulty. The larger ones are modular so individual outputs can be replaced. If for example you can only receive certain satellite channels, then the multiswitch is not responding to the tone/voltages being sent by your receiver

- the cable(s) between your flat and the multiswitch has gone faulty. This would typically show dropouts, picture freezing, interference on analogue TV/radio. It might be as simple a problem as a loose or corroded connection somewhere.

- or, your receiver (Sky box) is faulty.

Any half competent satellite engineer will have a test set, or be able to access the test menu in the box, that will show the signal levels, noise levels, etc across different channels/bands/polarisations and would be able to tell the Housing Assoc "your multiswitch is only passing High Band Vert at xx dB below level" and they can take it from there.

Once you have eliminated your Sky box then your HA has to provide the satellite connection to your flat if that is in your service agreement. Suggest to them that if they don't within x weeks you will appoint your own engineer to demonstrate their equipment is not providing a usable satellite signal and seek to recover that costs together with ongoing damages for breach of contract.

If providing satellite feed isn't in the service agreement you're stuck.

You also don't have to pay a subscription to Sky to get satellite, there is Freesat-from-Sky and Freesat.

Owain_Moneysaver

As far as the HA and Sky are concerned, there are two possible scenarios:

1. The HA provides the satellite distribution infrastructure, and pay for this out of your service charges. Sky supply your TV programmes and are ecstatic they don't have to run any wires because they're already in place.

2. Sky provide the satellite distribution infrastructure because they will do it for free if a certain number of flats in the block sign up.

If multiple flats are having the same problems that sounds like it's the common parts of the system rather than the wire to your flat. If no-one can get any L/H channels then it's likely that part of the LNB or that section of the multiswitch input is broken.

If (1) applies then you have to moan at your HA.
If (2) applies then you have to moan at Sky.

If it's a HA then it should have a management board, which is likely to include at least one local councillor.

poppysarah

Start a residents group.