Multiple problems with letting agents

Helen_J_3

Hi everyone

Me and 3 other post-grad students currently let a 4 bedroomed house in York. We've had problems with the letting agents from day one. They are an established company and have a lot of student houses and basically I think they have got away with being so slack for so long they think it's all a big joke. Does anyone have any handy tips about how to get any of these problems resolved?

1. Gas certificate - haven't seen a dated gas certificate for the property and we moved in in the first week of September. There is a green sheet in the kitchen but it's barely legible and doesn't have a date on it so how do we know it's valid? An engineer came round and had a look and reckoned it was years old. We've brought it up more than once and they simply say they'll act on it but then nothing gets done.

2. Smoke alarm - the smoke alarm is broken in that a bit of plastic that keeps it secure has broken off. An engineer (the same guy as it goes) came round to 'fix' it and simply taped it up with some electrical insulation tape which then came off and so now it's hanging off by the wires. It still works (it's still got a green light on it anyway!) but if it falls off completely then obviously it won't be working. Again we have notified the letting agents of this but still it hasn't been fixed.

3. Thermostat - the boiler overrides the thermostat so that the only way we can have the heating on is if we manually turn it on on the boiler itself. When it is on using the switch on the boiler it is on - no matter what we have set it to on the thermostat. So basically we've all gone away for christmas and haven't left the heating set to come on because we can't. So now if the pipes freeze the letting agents will try and pin the blame on us but we told them about the faulty thermostat at least a month ago.

4. Our deposit. We paid £400 each deposit when we signed the contract in June. I don't think we're going to get a penny of this back even though the house is in a much better condition now than the day I moved in. In the contract it mentions things such as having the curtains dry cleaned so that they're free of mould, but when I moved in the curtains hadn't been touched. Neither had the carpets - they hadn't even been hoovered! These 'letting agents' are taking £1200 in deposits each year but not putting a penny back into the houses.

What can I do to a) get their backsides in gear and b) try and salvage any chance of keeping some deposit when it comes to moving out next year?

Thanks
Helen

Yorkie1

Have you been reporting these problems in writing?

Have you received confirmation of the scheme the deposit is registered with?

Did you sign an inventory at the start of the tenancy?

Helen_J_3

Yorkie1 wrote: »

Have you been reporting these problems in writing?

Have you received confirmation of the scheme the deposit is registered with?

Did you sign an inventory at the start of the tenancy?

Yes all correspondence has been by email so we could print them off if we needed to.

I can remember receiving a piece of paper about deposit guarantee - it's in the house in York so I can find it and check but yes there was something about a deposit guarantee scheme?

Yes we signed an inventory and I went round very thoroughly reporting all stains, breakages etc on it so we didn't get stung for them. My housemate's dad also took lots of pictures!

BitterAndTwisted

Emails and your record of them only proves one thing: that you sent it. It does not prove that someone has read it or acted upon it. Start writing letters!

Quite honestly, if you were aware of the thermostat not working I think you are out of your minds going away and leaving the heating off. Tenants are expected to behave in a tenant-like fashion and risking the pipes freezing over the Christmas period is not acting in a tenant-life fashion at all. Just pray to God is all I'm saying.

You're blaming the agent but the final responsibility for having repairs carried out is the landlord's. Your landlord could be a short-sighted skinflint a-hole and the agents are the ones getting all the aggro from the tenants when their hands are completely tied.

jjlandlord

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Emails and your record of them only proves one thing: that you sent it. It does not prove that someone has read it or acted upon it. Start writing letters!

Well it'd be about the same with standard letters...

Helen_J_3

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Emails and your record of them only proves one thing: that you sent it. It does not prove that someone has read it or acted upon it. Start writing letters!

Quite honestly, if you were aware of the thermostat not working I think you are out of your minds going away and leaving the heating off. Tenants are expected to behave in a tenant-like fashion and risking the pipes freezing over the Christmas period is not acting in a tenant-life fashion at all. Just pray to God is all I'm saying.

You're blaming the agent but the final responsibility for having repairs carried out is the landlord's. Your landlord could be a short-sighted skinflint a-hole and the agents are the ones getting all the aggro from the tenants when their hands are completely tied.

But we told them about the thermostat in November - they've had weeks to sort it out! They let houses out to students - surely it's reasonable to assume that the house will be empty over christmas and thus make sure we have a working thermostat. It's not fair to expect someone to stay in a house alone over christmas because they have been so slow in reacting to a problem! We have acted like tenants - we've notified the letting agents when there's been a problem in plenty of time. If their hands are tied then they would have been last year as well - if it's so bad why don't they stop being the letting agents for this house!

Helen_J_3

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Emails and your record of them only proves one thing: that you sent it. It does not prove that someone has read it or acted upon it. Start writing letters!

How do we know they're acting on or even read a letter? They have replied to each email saying they're going to respond but they either don't do anything or take months to do it.

jjlandlord

Helen_J wrote: »

How do we know they're acting on or even read a letter? They have replied to each email saying they're going to respond but they either don't do anything or take months to do it.

Post using recorded delivery. That'd be more likely to trigger a response and it'd be a better record.

BitterAndTwisted

Helen_J wrote: »

But we told them about the thermostat in November - they've had weeks to sort it out! They let houses out to students - surely it's reasonable to assume that the house will be empty over christmas and thus make sure we have a working thermostat.

On the other hand it's also reasonable to assume that a property left empty with the heating turned off in the middle of winter may suffer from burst pipes. The consequences of which would cost you an awful lot more than the heating-bill. You have already disclosed that the thermostat isn't working so you can't even claim that it must have stopped working after you all left

If you had any sense you would contact the agent and ask them to send someone round to put the heating as a matter of urgency if none of you are close enough to do it yourselves.

Helen_J_3

jjlandlord wrote: »

Post using recorded delivery. That'd be more likely to trigger a response and it'd be a better record.

A better record than a print out of their reply to an email? This proves they've received it and read/acknowledged it?

Helen_J_3

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

In the other hand it's reasonable to assume that a property left empty with the heating turned off may suffer from burst pipes. The consequences of which would cost you an awful lot more than the heating-bill.

If you had any sense you would contact the agent and ask them to send someone round to put the heating as a matter of urgency if none of you are close enough to do it yourselves.

Yes it's reasonable to assume that - which is why more than a month ago we notified them that the thermostat wasn't working and if it wasn't fixed we wouldn't be able to have the heating on whilst we were away. They have acknowledged this and sent someone round to look at it. He confirmed it was broken and said he'd get back to us. By last Thursday he hadn't so it was too late. It's not like the first they knew about it was a week ago they've had ages to fix it!