Launching legal action against Landlord / Agent

StefanM

Hi All,

It would seem that my visits to this particular board always tend to be negative so firstly I apologise for that but if there is any advice I would be most grateful.

To provide a brief summary of the situation.

In October last year I moved in to a flat in London costing just over £1500 per month in rent with £100 flat rate on top for bills. The moving in date of October was already nearly 2 months later than had been agreed with the estate agent / landlord's agent and this had resulted in my flatmate being significantly out of pocket for short term accommodation (£600 per week) until we were actually able to move in to the property.

On finally moving in to the property, we found a letter to the previous tenants that stated they must deal with a number of issues before they left the property. The first item on this list was... a cockroach infestation. I think it is understandable that myself and my flatmate were incredibly angry that the landlord's agent had not declared this to us (the letter was from them to the tenants). On the first night in the property we found a live cockroach in the airing cupboard. From this point onwards we found a number of live adult and nymph (baby) cockroaches, both alive and dead. We also discovered the skeletal remains of numerous cockroaches on the inside of door frames and even stuck to the top of doors. We immediately complained about this to the landlord's agent and stated that this was completely unacceptable and that they needed to deal with it. After at least a week (I believe it was 2+) they finally sent around a pest control guy who simply put poison gel down (this is not what we had expected - we had anticipated the property to be fumigated properly to get rid of the infestation).

The remains of the cockroaches that were dying as a result of the gel were mostly left down to me and my flatmate to cleanup until eventually the "professional" cleaners arrived a few weeks later (a Colombian mother and her son who could not have been older than 14 years of age). After some very direct guidance (they really were bad at cleaning), most of the skeletal remains were removed and 10s of 100s of dead cockroaches were removed from beneath the kitchen surfaces, in the fridge, and on the surfaces. It is however worth noting that 6 months in to the tenancy and still to this day dead cockroaches continue to fall out from the back of the wall mounted kitchen cupboards onto the kitchen surface (this has meant that we do not use the kitchen surface or any kitchen cupboards at all).

In addition to this point, there were a number of points that we highlighted to the agent such as:
- Missing toilet flush button in main bathroom
- Broken runner on kitchen draw
- Dishwasher does not work and smells like mud
- * Ensuite bathroom shower holder broken
- Kitchen extractor fan above hob not working
- Numerous bulbs within the kitchen, lounge, hall and rooms all blown
- Window in 2nd bedroom jammed open (this was "fixed" temporarily by the handyman who simply broke it further so that I could close the window but I am unable to use the latch)
- * Main bathroom bath in need of resealing (this was disgusting - the white sealant had turned completely black)
- Temperature regulator on main bathroom shower is unresponsive (it's either ice cold or boiling without a middle ground)

Now to this day the only items that the agent has dealt with to a point that we could say it was complete are those I have asterisked above (*).

Now this is where it gets more complicated. Both I and my flatmate have raised these points with the agent directly and they continue to ignore our messages about them, focusing only on the window in the 2nd room. They appear to have conveniently not logged any of the other issues we have raised to them over the past 6 months (although we have the email trails to prove they knew about them). It is also worth noting that for the dishwasher, they told us after a month that it would take 5-6 weeks to order the part needed and now after 6 months we have finally been told that actually they need to replace the entire unit (still with no ETA).

And finally the most complicated part of this arrangement:
- The agent for the property is based in London
- The landlord for the property is registered in Nigeria

Now the cynic in me says that the landlord is not really in Nigeria and this is some sort of scam mechanism the agent has to rent properties but "protect" themselves by attributing ownership to an overseas identity so that UK law does not apply to them.

What I want to do is get back what I feel is a fair proportion of the rent we have shelled out over the last 6 months, as this has not been a cheap flat and it has most certainly not been up to the standard that was set out at the outset of the agreement.

Does anybody have any advice as to how we go about getting back some of the money we have paid, I assume through civil court but the peculiarity in the property "ownership" makes me wonder which avenue we should be pursuing.

Any and all help accepted!


Thanks

StefanM

*miaomiao*

Wow, what a mess. I'm going to bump this to the top of the forum to help! Good luck and do wait around here for some good advice from good tenants and LLs who know tenancy law.

You should, however, immediately get in touch with your Private Tenants dept of the council who can advise you on this. Depending on whether circumstances continue, they might decide to send Environmental Health out.

BitterAndTwisted

Have you been communicating with the agent IN WRITING?

Unfortunately issues of disrepair are not directly connected to the rent you are paying so I would not hold out any hope that you will get a rent-reduction or be able to pursue an action for repayment of any.

Vote with your feet and find another, more decent property!

Out,_Vile_Jelly

You need to separate the major issue, which is the cockroaches which may be a case for Environmental Health, and minor niggles like wonky drawers. A court isn't going to be interested in the functioning of the extractor fan unless a deposit deduction is made for something that you noted as faulty on check in.

Assuming your contract has a 6 month break clause, I would move elsewhere. There is no point in living in a property with an overseas landlord who doesn't properly treat insect problems.

Adi770

Don't moan, just move!