Problems with rental house

Georgecarol

Right, I've decided to be sneaky and call the contractor directly. My sister just found his number, so I just called and asked him point blank when he was going to make time to come around and finish the job he started, and has been paid for, as I still have very little heat. Also made it clear that I wanted the gas check done at the same time as there is no safety certificate in the house and that contravenes the gas safety regulations. As it stands right now, even though he doesn't have his diary on him at the moment as he's on a roof:rolleyes: , he is coming to the house first thing Monday morning and if he doesn't have time to do the living room rad, he will book it for Thursday as he definitely has time then:p If he then puts me off, I will tell him that I am now going to take my complaint further and follow it through the proper channels.

:j :T :j

I'll keep ya posted:D

Georgecarol

lynzpower wrote:

sent you PMs OP

Can't send you a message your box is full:cool:

Georgecarol

Well, it's past first thing Monday morning now:mad: Granted, it's only 10am, it's not afternoon yet, but my no-show contractor is treading water now. I will wait till noon, then call him again. Knowing my luck, he'll show up around 11.30 when I've left to pick my son up from pre-school and that will be his excuse. Only that won't wash with me:mad: He knows what times I leave for school as we've had this discussion before and knows all of this. I'm just biting my tongue and hit him with the big guns (That would be the formal written letter about fixing the heat or I will inform the Gas safety people:p ).

I'll keep ya posted:p

MJMum

This thread is very topical and useful, thanks. We're living in a rented house which (a) has a hole in the roof resulting in a shower in the main bedroom (only when it rains) and black mould spreading across the whole wall to the extent that we can't use that bedroom (b) had the gas appliances condemned shortly after we moved in, and we insisted on a Gas Safety check being done (TG we did as the gas fire was immediately dangerous). The situation has been ongoing for 2 1/2 months; thankfully, we know that we will be moving out in another couple of months otherwise we would be much more distraught but it still rankles that we are paying for something we can't use and is potentially harming our health too!

barnaby-bear

MJMum wrote:

This thread is very topical and useful, thanks. We're living in a rented house which (a) has a hole in the roof resulting in a shower in the main bedroom (only when it rains) and black mould spreading across the whole wall to the extent that we can't use that bedroom (b) had the gas appliances condemned shortly after we moved in, and we insisted on a Gas Safety check being done (TG we did as the gas fire was immediately dangerous). The situation has been ongoing for 2 1/2 months; thankfully, we know that we will be moving out in another couple of months otherwise we would be much more distraught but it still rankles that we are paying for something we can't use and is potentially harming our health too!

Yes bad landlord's need bringing to task but can I add the warnings - the laws are very good stick to beat them with if you want to get out and keep your deposit but if you want to stay and your rent is cheap - you really are baiting the LL to serve you notice. The laws are rubbish if you want to stay and get improvements and/or keep rent low. ASTs give the LL the right to serve 2 months notice for no reason whatsoever. If you make him do work why not do it to spite you and get a tenant in at a higher rent....

http://england.shelter.org.uk/advice/advice-4037.cfm

As shelter say:
"Landlords are legally required to carry out certain repairs. But you need to consider the risk that your landlord might try to evict you rather than do the work. Would you know your rights if things turn nasty? What is it you want from taking action? If you are leaving anyway you may just want to take action to compensate you for the landlord's failure to carry out repairs. But if you want to stay, you need to be careful."

The Gas safety certificate is unacceptable, beyond that though, you want to stay because your rent is far cheaper than other places in area. You also want to force the landlord to do renovations and cosmetic work, and improve and pay for inefficient old heating system to be upgraded. We lived somewhere shabby with cr&p windows and heating because it was cheap rent, it's probably cheap because it's cr^p.

Georgecarol

Well, here's my update The heating guy showed up about 1.30pm. Asked which rads I was still having problems with, directed him to the living room, kitchen, bathroom and 1 bedroom. Tried bleeding them all again, (done 6 times in total now since Oct), all were fine except for the kitchen. That let out an awful lot of air. Asked him why it always did that, what's the problem. Said he wasn't sure and asked if I had a wet cloth and a lighter Gave them to him and he lit the lighter, got the cloth ready and turned the rad key. We almost had lift off folks:eek: After furiously trying to blow out the flame, he said it was producing hydrogen, then proceeded to make my hair blow as all the technical jargon he was going on about flew right over my head:o Apparently, different things react differently with different metals, then birds start singing in my head yada yada yada. Oh, and now I have a melted paint mark behind the rad, which is I guess the least of my problems as the rad is by the back door and my husband and I both smoke, but only at the back door, so the amount of times I've leaned on the rad with the back door open with a cigarette in my hand:eek:
Anyhooo, to cut a very long story short, he has to contact a friend to borrow a machine that hooks up by hoses as when the rads are drained, it brings in more oxygen when they fill up again from the tank So.....he'll get back to me this week with a time when he gets "the machine". If anyone knows anything about this and can tell me if it's a big pile of bull crapola, please let me know, thanks.

Georgecarol

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I just got some good news today. A house just came up on one of the agency sites and I got in there fast and we're the first ones to look at it on Saturday. It's in a nice area and the online pics look good.
Now bringing myself back into reality, my concern is always the credit check. We got this house because our family recommended us and we didn't do a credit check as we don't have any. I was up front with the agent as I don't feel like paying money out again and losing it because we failed the check, with the usual not enough info. She said we only need one, my husband, as I'm not working right now, and as long as his wages cover the rent, shouldn't be an issue as they're pretty discretionary when it comes to that and they're the ones that talk to the landlord. Even though we've had some major issues with this house, we have never once been late with the rent and always maintained the house, so I shouldn't have a problem getting a good reference from the agent should I?????? My other concern is, with only having 1 income, it is quite tight when it comes to the budget, we only get working tax and child tax, we don't claim for other benefits. When they look at income, what do they consider when it comes to covering the rent. Is there a percentage they work on, or do they just look at the wage alone and not take into consideration any tax credits, as his wage alone pays the rent and we use the tax credits for bills and food. I was ecstatic about an hour ago, now I'm getting antsy:o

barnaby-bear

Georgecarol wrote:

Is there a percentage they work on, or do they just look at the wage alone and not take into consideration any tax credits, as his wage alone pays the rent and we use the tax credits for bills and food. I was ecstatic about an hour ago, now I'm getting antsy:o

A lot of reference agencies work on 30 times monthly rent must be less than annual TOTAL income so for £400 pcm you need to earn £12k, £600pcm £18k and £800 pcm £24k and £1000pcm need 30k.


If you can do it on one income stream i.e. coming in to one person do because you'll be charged for one credit check rather than two.

HTH

Georgecarol

barnaby-bear wrote:

A lot of reference agencies work on 30 times monthly rent must be less than annual TOTAL income so for £400 pcm you need to earn £12k, £600pcm £18k and £800 pcm £24k and £1000pcm need 30k.


If you can do it on one income stream i.e. coming in to one person do because you'll be charged for one credit check rather than two.

HTH

I foresee this as being a problem then as we don't even make close to 18k with the one wage. Those percentages seem quite high, do they all work on that, if so, I don't see us being successful.

BTW, we are in a low income area as we live in a tourist town, many of the wages are minimum. The rent has certainly shot up in this area, even though it may not seem high compared to other parts of the country, but then I'm sure the wages are higher to compensate that, London for example, make higher wages. In the last job I had, when the pay banding went around, London made £1.50 an hour more than I did.

barnaby-bear

Georgecarol wrote:

I foresee this as being a problem then as we don't even make close to 18k with the one wage. Those percentages seem quite high, do they all work on that, if so, I don't see us being successful.

BTW, we are in a low income area as we live in a tourist town, many of the wages are minimum. The rent has certainly shot up in this area, even though it may not seem high compared to other parts of the country, but then I'm sure the wages are higher to compensate that, London for example, make higher wages. In the last job I had, when the pay banding went around, London made £1.50 an hour more than I did.

Are you sure if you throw in the tax credits, child benefit, they count as income - provable income?

I had one reference that used 24 rather than 30, but 30 seemed pretty standard on most agnecy checks.