Can I exit my tenancy agreement? Various problems...

savykate

Hi everyone, first time user of this branch of the forum so not sure where to start really...perhaps from the beginning? Forgive the fact this message is so long. We've had a lot of problems.

Right before hubby and I got married last summer, we took over the tenancy of a flat being rented by a private landlord through Whitegates. Things seemed ok to start with, slightly dirty but we were promised everything would be cleaned before we moved in. Hubby moved in just before the wedding, and problems started pretty much then.

1) Wire sticking out from underneath storage heater (dealt with fairly promptly)

2) Leaking bath which flooded our bathroom which is carpeted! This started few days before the wedding but got out of hand morning of the wedding. Hubby and I were horrified to find it in a right state after being dropped off after the wedding but we had to go because we were going on honeymoon, so put towels down and had to leave. Thankfully concrete flooring, not wooden.

3) Returned from honeymoon to find boiler had leaked and left awful stain on carpet (now clean thankfully). Called out plumber through Whitegates who couldn't find leak from boiler and tightened few things under bath and it was ok again for a few days. Boiler strangely stopped being a problem after being looked at. Think it was scared.

4) Bath problems started again to ridiculous extent. New plumber called out via Whitegates. This plumber was actually good, found the problem which was pressure related but slammed the making of the bath/pipework and said that whoever put it in wasn't a plumber and it should never have been accepted in the state it was. We still have minor leakage if we have a shower after each other but thankfully not flooding.

5) Bathroom has not been properly tiled, only 2 rows of tiling around bath tub which means that paint/emulsion/whatever it is has cracked and peeled in few places. Looks awful.

6) No manuals were given to us when we moved in so we had no idea how to operate our heating (which we asumed were storage heaters) or how to effectively heat the boiler. Told by Whitegates to simply look it up on the internet. Couldn't find anything helpful but did our best...see a following point for further info

7) Metre reader broken from moving in date. Nice, honest citizens that we are, we reported it. E-on told us to not pay our bills for few months whilst they fixed it and swapped metre. Did exactly that. Come January, we get a bill of £333. Ring to pay, told to ignore it like the others. We do but ring back short time after and we pay £300. We then start getting threatening letters from debt collectors wanting the £33 and demanding we pay or they're coming round to cut us off and take payment!!!! I was livid. Husband told off e-on, I told off debt-collectors. Finally sorted after 3 nasty calls and 2 letters from them.

8) Shortly after this bill (remember not told how to operate anything?) we received £890 bill!!!!!! Spent a good deal of time panicing and crying because we don't have that kind of money. Had to be bailed out by our kind family. Turns out we only have 1 storage heater, the rest are wall heaters. We weren't told any of this and wouldn't know the difference. Now know roughly how to operate them but this is an expense that could've been spared, especially as I've been in hospital having serious thyroid cancer operation/ treatment and we had to turn the heating up whilst I was recovering.

9) Icing on the cake this one...our neighbour below bless her had a breakdown and set her flat on fire before Christmas. We managed to get her out, cleaned our own place up after from minimal smoke damage. The fire alarm system in our small building has been ruined ever since. I've put in multiple phonecalls with Whitegates and the property management group 'Blue Property' about it, only for technicans to come out, not know what the problem is, and defer it to someone else. Our neighbour's flat, which is now empty, was trashed and her fire alarms ruined which has in turn affected our fire alarm. It still works...but apparently too well. Last night at 3:30am it went off, screaming. We ran out of flat, as did neighbours who are in the same block, all of us with flashbacks from the fire, only to find it was the fault from the alarm. :eek:

I've had enough and really think we need to move but our contract doesn't expire until just before Christmas this year. Does anybody have any advice or know if we have grounds to terminate our contract and still receive our bond back? Thanks in advance for any help and sorry that the message is so long. Thanks for your patience!

telboyo

Whenever I rented places they were on 6 month contracts renewable every 6 months but when I wanted to leave I just gave 1 months notice and everything was fine and received bond back a few days later. I think the 6 month contract is there to protect the tennant to stop the landlord boosting the rent if they get a better offer.

BitterAndTwisted

Is there a break clause in your tenancy agreement, most usually at the six-month point? If not, you cannot terminate the contract except with your landlords agreement. If you can't reach some sort of compromise or agreement do not contemplate moving out and/or stop paying the rent that is due until Christmas. You risk being taken to court and the landlord winning

G_M

Your post is the reverse issue of this one here.

LL's repairing obligations are not affected by rent arrears.

Tenants rent/tenancy obligations are not affected by repairing issues.

Unless there is a break clause, the only way to terminate your contract early is by negotiation/agreement with the landlord.

The meter issue is between you and the electricity company not the LL.

The other repair issues should be dealt with in line with Shelter advice here.

savykate

I think we may have to find some way to reach an agreement with the landlord.

I've just been through the contract and I can't find anything in it which is designed to protect us as tenants, it's all about protecting the landlord's assets and making sure that we don't do anything that we shouldn't do. As far as I can tell, we're personally in the clear from all the things in the contact, but I can see nothing about fire safety etc.

Thank you for pointing out the difference between going to the landlord and taking matters elsewhere. I'll go through the Shelter advice.

I'm thinking that I'm going to take a trip to the CAB to see what they can tell me. My understanding is that it's illegal to have a broken fire alarm as it puts us at risk of serious danger. Also considering ringing the local fire station to see what legalities of it they can tell me, and asking the police station across the road if they can advise anything. Thankfully know a couple of them who work there as a result of the neighbours fire and being the local youth worker.

Must admit, I'm pulling my hair out.

Thank you for trying to help.

Gorgeous_George

Hi

Let the agents know that you want to move somewhere new because of all the problems that you have had. The landlord has a responsibility to minimise your losses by getting new tenants as quickly as possible. If the agents/landlord are decent people they will do what they can to help.

Your landlord is responsible for providing manuals for appliances s/he provides. Not sure you could successfully claim for excess electricity bills. You should have been reading the meter and to be honest, there is a straightforward way to tell the difference between wall heaters and night storage heaters.

Is the plumbing ok? and the boiler? What's wrong with the ire alarm? Your landlord usually needs to provide smoke detectors - these cost about a fiver each. I know that you have had problem with the property but why exactly do you want to leave now? Generally, it is better to deal with problems than to walk away.

If you want to leave, speak to the agents/landlord and ask politely. You want them to do you a favour.

Good luck.

GG

samroo

if your smoke detector isn't working please don't call or wait for anyone to do something about it. get up and get one yourself, it's for your safety

savykate

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Hi

Let the agents know that you want to move somewhere new because of all the problems that you have had. The landlord has a responsibility to minimise your losses by getting new tenants as quickly as possible. If the agents/landlord are decent people they will do what they can to help.

Your landlord is responsible for providing manuals for appliances s/he provides. Not sure you could successfully claim for excess electricity bills. You should have been reading the meter and to be honest, there is a straightforward way to tell the difference between wall heaters and night storage heaters.

Is the plumbing ok? and the boiler? What's wrong with the ire alarm? Your landlord usually needs to provide smoke detectors - these cost about a fiver each. I know that you have had problem with the property but why exactly do you want to leave now? Generally, it is better to deal with problems than to walk away.

If you want to leave, speak to the agents/landlord and ask politely. You want them to do you a favour.

Good luck.

GG

Thank you for your input.

We were reading our metre the whole time (and still are every couple of days), but unfortunately because the metre was broken there were no proper readings. It then transpired only recently that e-on had on record that it was a 5 readings metre when it's actually a 6. This is despite the fact that we had multiple people from e-on over to look at it over quite a few months. Nobody noticed the problem and there is no way that we would know anything about it.

Similarly, as this is our first home and we are still very young, we have had no prior knowledge or understanding of the different types of heaters. When we moved in we were told by Whitegates that we had storage heaters and took them at their word. As a result, we treated the wall heaters (which look almost indentical to the storage heater in the lounge because they are made by the same manufacturing company) as if they were storage heaters and simply switched them on at night. We tried to find out as much as we could online about our heating but were misinformed in the first place so were looking up the wrong information. As our families have radiators, they had no knowledge or understanding of our heating either and so couldn't advise us.

Plumbing is ok, although occassionally have to fight with the toilet for it to flush, but that doesn't worry me. Since plumber has been out it's been a lot better. It's just been exhausting to deal with.

As for the fire alarm, the problem is that it although it's now working (took a month just for them to come and examine them all) it's very very faulty. There is a persistent beeping from the system's box at the bottom of the stairs (which is does when there's a fault, and it's very high pitched and loud). This faultiness has reached peak by all fire alarms in the building going off for no apparent reason.

The reason that we feel the need to leave is that we simply can't take any more problems from the flat. We've dealt with everything as best as we can but there seems to be one problem after another. The flashbacks from my neighbours fire can be very vivid and upsetting as I was the one who got her out and saw the state it was in. Whenever the fire alarm goes off, I get these flashbacks. I could manage if it was for a legitimate reason (e.g. silly cooking) and happened rarely, but not when it's the middle of the night when nothing has happened. I feel scared and unsafe.
These persistent problems have caused so much upset and we do deal with everything as it arises and call the relevant people and fix things where we can and make do, but persistent issues have gone on too long and quite frankly, given my health, we need to be somewhere with a lot less headaches (although I am of course aware that there will be some problems wherever we go, that's the nature of renting).

savykate

samroo wrote: »

if your smoke detector isn't working please don't call or wait for anyone to do something about it. get up and get one yourself, it's for your safety

Thanks for your concern.

The fire alarm is working in terms of registering if there is smoke etc. The problem is that it's persistently beeping from the main box downstairs which connects all the buildings alarms to each other and now going off in the middle of the night for no reason whatsoever. It's clearly faulty and concerning, but it is working. However, because it's faulty I feel permanently on edge.

LittleMissAspie

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Generally, it is better to deal with problems than to walk away.

One of the advantages of renting over buying is that you can just walk away from problems. I never had a bad landlord luckily but if I did I wouldn't want to stick around, it's not worth the stress.

Gorgeous_George

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

One of the advantages of renting over buying is that you can just walk away from problems. I never had a bad landlord luckily but if I did I wouldn't want to stick around, it's not worth the stress.

I know what you mean but you could move many times whereas, resolve the problems once and you could have many years in happy home.

The meter sounds a bit iffy. I'd want it checking by an independent engineer to make sure that I wasn't paying for somebody else's electrcity.

Again, the landlord should provide manuals for all appliances but I think you would struggle to gain compensation in the Courts.

Probably have to write it off to experience - as painful as it is.

GG