Halls of Residence legal standpoint for payment delay/reduction?

Hutchch0920

Since the beginning of term I have been paying £84.50 to rent an ensuite room in central Manchester, I am finding it hard to come to terms with the amount that I am paying in comparison to the standard that I am getting.

The company that manage the halls (Opal Estates) have told me that they are replacing part of our kitchen over this christmas period, I have a feeling however that the work will not be completed and If not it will most likely remain like this.My flatmates and I have had a number of problems with the maintainance of the flat since the beginning of September namely missing chairs, broken lights and taps and It often takes us a number of weeks to have the problems fixed and a number of visits to the office to get someone to come along. Infact our 3 chairs have still not appeared and up until the second week in December we had no vacumm cleaner!

I have a strong urge to delay or reduce the amount that i am willing to pay unless the work is completed and the requests for work that i put in some weeks ago are also finished.

I would like to know if anyone knows my legal standpoint, I am aware that if i do not pay my fees the university may remove me from the course however I feel that I have a strong cause for complaint and that my delay in payment would be quite valid, any thoughts please? . . .

Oompa_Loompa_2

I had the same problem with Unite, had to go down to the office about 10 times before anything got done! I lived in student flats "designed for final year students", so you would think they would be pretty quiet and a good environment for studying in - wrong! They were sooo noisy, I kept complaining but nothing was done. I had to work as well as uni and hardly ever got sleep at night which meant missing uni during the day - consequently had to leave my course for a few months as my marks were poor. Also, I went away for a week and someone (on behalf of Unite) came in to the flat and switched off my freezer! All my food was ruined and the smell was terrible!

Start by keeping a note of everything that goes wrong for you - dates, times, what you did to resolve the situation, the response you received from them. This will make your letter to them more convincing. I don't know how things stand for you legally, but I would not advise you to withhold payment just yet - do not give them anything to hold against you. Have a look at your contract - I'm sure there will be a clause in there somewhere about what they should be doing. You could write them a letter, including examples of when you have requested help and it has taken X amount of time for the problem to be resolved. Copy phrases from your contract and ask them in your letter if they believe this "amount of time/level of communication" is acceptable? State that you are paying X amount of money for a service, and they are not fulfilling their side of the bargain. Why should you be paying full price for something that is not up to standard? Say it in a nice way, but tell them they are not providing what you are paying for, and so their service should either be improved, or your payments should be reduced.

That is just a brief outline, I'm sure you will be able to phrase it better! But you should start off nicely, don't be too demanding in your first communication to them (whether it be in person or by letter). If being nice doesn't work, then start demanding reductions in your rent.

My story didn't end well with Unite (I just try to warn others about how terrible they are! :rotfl: ) But my sister stayed in Unite accommodation at one point too. When she moved out, they deducted £70 from her deposit because of a large dark stain on the mattress which was there when she moved in!! (They had not provided her with an inventory at the time she moved in). So she wrote a letter stating that she was not responsible for the stain, they had not provided her with an inventory and she believed "student friendly" was false advertising. Said she would go to the local and possibly national press. Result = she got her full deposit back.

Good luck!

hostie

I would make sure that all your complaints are in writing. That way you are covered if you decide to take the type of action you are suggesting. If they are in writing you will probably find that things get done much, much quicker. If things to not change I would contact your student accommodation office in the first instance for guidance. The welfare people at my uni have information on legal aspects of student accommodation and I think the same might be the same in your uni. If this is the case they will probably be able to help you find the right people to give you legal advice. As a last resort you could contact your student's union for legal advice.

Savvy_Sue

If you withhold your rent, they'll go to court to evict you. They won't look at the correspondence you've had with them about their failures, and the court probably won't have much sympathy with that either.

As others have said, get your union on side, or go to Shelter. Don't stop paying your rent ...

Voyager2002

Savvy_Sue wrote:

If you withhold your rent, they'll go to court to evict you. They won't look at the correspondence you've had with them about their failures, and the court probably won't have much sympathy with that either.

As others have said, get your union on side, or go to Shelter. Don't stop paying your rent ...

Yes, but the OP could legally withold PART of his rent if the kitchen is not useable, or if there is some other serious problem.

If there is a serious problem, write to them about it, and state that unless it is put right by a certain date you will withold a portion of your rent that corresponds to the loss of amenity that you suffer as a result of their failure to provide the quality of accommodation that they had agreed to provide. If they still fail to deal with the problem then you would be within your rights to withold a reasonable proportion of your rent, and so would have a strong defence against eviction.

Savvy_Sue

Voyager2002 wrote:

Yes, but the OP could legally withold PART of his rent if the kitchen is not useable, or if there is some other serious problem.

If there is a serious problem, write to them about it, and state that unless it is put right by a certain date you will withold a portion of your rent that corresponds to the loss of amenity that you suffer as a result of their failure to provide the quality of accommodation that they had agreed to provide. If they still fail to deal with the problem then you would be within your rights to withold a reasonable proportion of your rent, and so would have a strong defence against eviction.

Well, you may know something I don't, but when I worked for a Housing Association withholding rent ALWAYS led to eviction proceedings, even if there was an ongoing complaint about repairs. You might have a strong defence against eviction in this situation, but withholding your rent isn't generally advised, even if you've written to say you are doing so because of X, Y and Z.

The point is, that there's a contract: your landlord says they will provide accommodation (of a certain standard), and you agreed to pay rent. Just because your landlord has broken the contract doesn't make it a good idea for you to do so.

Also, if your landlord does go to court for unpaid rent, there will be a court fee added to your arrears, and you'll normally have to pay this.

Only if Shelter or a similar housing expert recommends withholding rent would I ever consider doing so ...