Where shall I start? What a nightmare!

HannahIOW

Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice please...

Basically my OH has lived at his flat since 2004 (i've lived with him for nearly 2 yrs), rent is paid every month on time, we get on with the neighbours etc so no problems there.

Prior to him moving in, the bathroom was repaired as there was a leak from upstairs. Within a year of him living there it leaked again and took 2 weeks to sort out.

December 2009 it leaked yet again from upstairs and was that bad its damaged a lot of the plaster boards, floor boards, carpet and ceiling. It's taken over a year to get the insurance to sort it (currently being repaired as we speak), leading to the bathroom being full of mould and mould appearing in all rooms around the windows, doors and behind units at ground level. (I suspect the flat has a major damp problem aside from the bathroom.)

Now the letting agency have let us stay in a holiday let for the 4 days while the bathroom is being done. We have been there 1 day and the boiler has a gas leak, so now we are without hot water and heating. We phoned up the gas board who came and looked, tried to fix it but it requires an engineer. They have shut off the whole supply due to it being dangerous.

The engineer can't look until tomorrow afternoon so phoned estate agent and they think it's ok for us to stay there with no heating and hot water, they say they weren't obliged to put us up anywhere, OH said about staying in a hotel at their cost and he basically told him to get ****ed...

There have been several problems with the flat that have been there since he moved in 6 years ago which have never been fixed, we've been in a substandard property for over 12 months now and want to take this further...

Where should we go from here please? We are going to take photos of all the damp and other problems in the flat for evidence. Off to search for a hotel for the night now... thanks in advance.

PasturesNew

Why don't you just find another one to move to? A better one?

moromir

Who offered you the holiday let? Was it the landlord or the letting agent?

The letting agent certainly isn't obliged to offer you alternative accomodation for any reason, including their client's bathroom refit.

For a simple bathroom refit - depending on the scope of the work - theres no reason why the toilet or the bath should be out of commission for more than a few hours at a time so I would query whether the Landlord had an obligation to provide alternative accomodation during this either.

Is this simply the LA trying to do you a favour and its gone wrong?

A day to sort out an engineer is reasonable bearing in mind the backlog from the Christmas break.

Is the hob in the property gas or electric? Is there a kettle? Is there a microwave?

If so then you have a way of heating water, whilst not ideal, is hardly the end of the world for less than 24 hours.

Have the outstanding problems you refer to been reported to the Agent in writing?

HannahIOW

moromir wrote: »

Who offered you the holiday let? Was it the landlord or the letting agent? the letting agent

The letting agent certainly isn't obliged to offer you alternative accomodation for any reason, including their client's bathroom refit.

For a simple bathroom refit - depending on the scope of the work - theres no reason why the toilet or the bath should be out of commission for more than a few hours at a time so I would query whether the Landlord had an obligation to provide alternative accomodation during this either. the toilet, bath etc were all ripped out yesterday morning and shoved in the kitchen where they have remained since

Is this simply the LA trying to do you a favour and its gone wrong?

A day to sort out an engineer is reasonable bearing in mind the backlog from the Christmas break.

Is the hob in the property gas or electric? Is there a kettle? Is there a microwave? the hob is electric, we have both kettle and microwave but as stated previously the contents of the bathroom are now in our tiny kitchen so we cannot get to any of it

If so then you have a way of heating water, whilst not ideal, is hardly the end of the world for less than 24 hours.

Have the outstanding problems you refer to been reported to the Agent in writing? not by us but they were reported to the person doing the yearly safety inspection every time, they wrote it all down. Have not seen them for over a year come to think of it

thanks for reply, see comments above

sundancegirl

If you are a private landlord/agency and its taking more than 7 working days to get repairs resolved and you feel you are being missed about with your decanted accommodation and your permanent residence then I would seek further advise from Shelter or your local council. Your local council should have a register of legitimate private landlords. If the landlord is not playing ball he/she can be removed from the register and fined. Your landlord has a responsibility to re-house you in a safe and warm environment.

Good luck and hope your repairs are sorted soon.

HannahIOW

Bump........

HannahIOW

moromir wrote: »

For a simple bathroom refit - depending on the scope of the work - theres no reason why the toilet or the bath should be out of commission for more than a few hours at a time

I wouldn't call it a simple bathroom refit to be honest, plasterboard on all walls had to be replaced, the floor had to be replaced and so did the ceiling, plus once the old ceiling was ripped down they discovered that the joists for the upstairs flat were rotten and needed replacing, which has delayed everything further. They have been working on the bathroom from 8am - 3:30pm since tuesday, with all that has to be replaced there's no way they can keep plumbing everything back in each day.

moromir wrote: »

Is the hob in the property gas or electric? Is there a kettle? Is there a microwave? If so then you have a way of heating water, whilst not ideal, is hardly the end of the world for less than 24 hours.

It's not 24 hours though, it's a predicted four days provided there are no more set backs. You say they aren't obliged to provide us with alternative accommodation, but are we just expected to go without the toilet or being able to wash for at least four days?

The lettings agent have suspended our rent (450pcm) while this is being done, in order to pay for the holiday let they put us in. So currently we are paying but have no suitable place to stay, no heating or hot water at either place. We ended up having to shell out for a hotel last night as we had no other option. Surely this week's rent should be used to cover an alternative?

With regards to the other problems in our flat such as the damp etc and various things not working, which haven't been for ages - surely we are paying for a warm dry home but this is not what we are receiving? The storage heaters also do not work properly anymore, we have told them this but yet again it gets ignored. They are giving out a very tiny amount of heat compared to the amount of electricity they are using lately. End of the day, the flat is not fit for purpose. We have been left with a mouldy bathroom for a whole year (the person from the insurance said it was a certain kind of black mould which is bad for your health - which I agree with seeing as I had a chest infection which I couldn't shift for 5 weeks.) Our belongings are going mouldy from the state of the place. Basically paid a year's worth of rent for something which is substandard. Think I may phone Trading Standards today to see where we stand.

tbs624

sundancegirl wrote: »

... Your local council should have a register of legitimate private landlords. If the landlord is not playing ball he/she can be removed from the register and fined.

Landlords in Eng/Wales are not required to register: Councils may hold a list of private sector LLs (who may have voluntarily undertaken an accreditation course) but the fact that a specific LL does not appear on the list does not mean that s/he is not a "legitmate" LL.

The Council can however serve formal notice on a LL that they are to get repairs done

tbs624

HannahIOW wrote: »

]Have the outstanding problems you refer to been reported to the Agent in writing? not by us but they were reported to the person doing the yearly safety inspection every time, they wrote it all down. Have not seen them for over a year come to think of it

So you have not contacted anyone *in writing* since then, to highlight ongoing repairs issues, prior to this latest problem ??

HannahIOW

No as every time they do an inspection they assure us it will be sorted out. Obviously we know now that they are lying. We both work 6 days a week, long hours, we don't have time to keep chasing and chasing them to do something which they should legally fix asap, not just 'choose' whether or not they can be bothered.

HannahIOW

So basically you're saying if any maintenance etc needs doing, they only legally have to do something about it if we put it in writing? Otherwise they can just legally fob us off?