Council Bill for Repair Work

WhiteHorse

Why is she required to pay anything? Definately check the terms of the tenancy agreement. Did this invoice actually come form the council? Or has it come from third party contractors?

mazza111

Has your mother applied to buy her council home? Sometimes when the ball starts rolling, then you may have to pay for repairs. That's the only reason I can see her having to pay anything. Other than that, as others have posted, it should only be chargable if it's tenants fault.

talksr

Hi guys, bad news. I have been on the phone to the council today.
First, I will answer your questions....

The hot water tank and boiler have been fitted by council and have never been touched by my mother.

She is not applying to buy the place, she is finding it hard enough to pay the rent!

She can't find her tenancy booklet to date, so I am in the process of getting a digital copy as I, like many of you on here, find this very hard to believe.

She has only ever contacted the council to carry out repairs, although it appears, that when she called about her boiler, they sent a boiler company to do the work. Maybe now they are trying to recoup some of this cost?

I spoke to the man today from the department who invoiced her (yes invoice is from council and not contractor) and he said that basically her oil tank had ran dry and that because of this, the system needed to be re-started, hence the £200 charge.
My mother refutes this saying, the man who came (telling her he was from council) was in the house all of 5 minutes, so how on earth the bill could get so high is anyone’s guess.

The bill is a real mishmash as some of the work carried out was carried out as part of the bathroom refit and was never called in or requested by my mother.
The man refused to lower the bill and said he can help with flexible payments but I said we are unprepared to pay for something we were never told she needed to pay for.

She is understandably upset about all of this.

I am going to take the day off of work tomorrow and head into the offices with her and ask to speak with someone about it.
If I have no luck, I will get onto our local councillors.
I am just connecting onto the council site now to see if I can get a copy of their handbook for tenants.

Thanks for all or your posts and help J

mazza111

We've had big problems with this in our area, people with payg gas meters letting their gas run out, then get the council out to repair (relight) it. I believe the councils were starting to charge for this. Had your mother run out of fuel? This can cause problems and is an avoidable repair, therefore she may need to pay.

It's normal for the council to send out sub contractors for heating works. Local gas company services all the council houses round here

Mallotum_X

Ask the council for proof of what they are claiming for, an engineers report for instance.

GDB2222

RECOMMISSIONING THE BOILER NORMALLY (oops caps!) means just restarting it. The tenant should be able to restart it themselves if there is no problem. On this occasion, it appears there may have been no oil in the tank. If so, it's reasonable that the tenant should foot the bill for that. I understand that there is an argument about that, and I think it is an excellent idea that you are going along to the council with your mother. if the problem with starting the boiler was something to do with a fault on the boiler, your mother ought not to pay at all, but if there was no oil (or there was insufficient oil) than I can understand why the council would want to charge you, and £45 is a very reasonable fee.

talksr

GDB2222 wrote: »

RECOMMISSIONING THE BOILER NORMALLY (oops caps!) means just restarting it. The tenant should be able to restart it themselves if there is no problem. On this occasion, it appears there may have been no oil in the tank. If so, it's reasonable that the tenant should foot the bill for that. I understand that there is an argument about that, and I think it is an excellent idea that you are going along to the council with your mother. if the problem with starting the boiler was something to do with a fault on the boiler, your mother ought not to pay at all, but if there was no oil (or there was insufficient oil) than I can understand why the council would want to charge you, and £45 is a very reasonable fee.

Hi, thanks again for all of your posts.

I can't agree more with what you have all said.
I believe there was insufficient oil, but there were still quite a bit in the tank.
She mentioned this when calling in and also mentioned that her son (my brother) who has more knowledge in these areas, had tried to restart it but was unable to do so. They said there may be a £45 charge for restarting it if the council deemed it necessary to charge. My mother agreed she understood this and scheduled an appointment.

That was in August 2011, she has now had a bill through for said restarting, but it’s in excess of £200 and also includes works carried out to her hot water tank, which were authorized and carried out by council workers as part of her bathroom refit. She was never made aware there would be a charge because her hot water tank had a leak (part of bathroom refit) and therefore she would be responsible for that. It appears there has been a big lack of communication and truth in costs. Either that or a big mix-up at their end.
I have trawled all through their website and can find no mention of even a £45 charge for repair work.
Lets hope tomorrow we get a chance to see someone if they are not too busy and I can go over things with her and the council. I am going to insist (if possible) that from now on, anything involving money is run past me as well as my mother so I can log and keep an eye on exactly what is going on.

She is very upset, it has been one thing after another for her and so close to Christmas. They said don't worry to me on the phone and they said they would work out a monthly repayment plan, but I said that is not the point, she was told £45 not £200+, you can't expect anyone, let alone someone on a low income to stump up over four times the amount you told them it would be on the phone.

eamon

Name and shame the council/HA. Then the experienced peeps on here can go through the website with a fine tooth comb. I also work for a HA and echo what has already been said by other posters. If your mother is already struggling to pay the rent then the next logical step is to ascertain if she is entitled to claim any benefits that may help re finances.

Hump

As others have said, first check that the council actually has a charging or recharging policy that has been properly consulted upon and formally adopted (it's likely to have gone through a tenant consultative process and they will have had to amend their tenant handbook etc)- I'm continually amazed at councils trying to charge outside or without a policy

Assuming the charge is legitimate and you make them see sense and they accept that your mother only owes £45 then take up their kind offer of flexible repayments - offer £1 a week for 45 weeks.

Then gently harass the lead member (councillor) for housing, the tenant's association/ panel and the chief housing officer/ head of housing along the lines of that 'isn't it terrible that the council doesn't communicate more effectively' and that 'in this case there has clearly been a breakdown in communication' and 'what are they going to do to stop this happening again' - I'd put money on them exercising their discretion and 'writing' the charge off - without accepting that the charge was outrageous.

mondello

With regards to no/insufficient oil, do you know when the last gas servicing was done? This has to be done by law so if this was done recently then surely this should have been picked up. If this was not done within the past year then the council is breaking the law. Your mother should have been provided with a certificate for this, I believe.