Emergency contact for letting agent?

Flibsey

is this a legal requirement? because we have a a
water leak and have called the agent's call forwarding service 3 times today since 11am, all within office hours. The problem is I am wondering if they're passing on the messages by email or phone, if it's by email they may have a job because hubby emailed the company as well and the email got bounced back with a DNS server error meaning the address no longer exists.

Now, although the leak isn't dangerous and isn't harming any of our posessions, it IS causing problems for the house in the form of mouldy ceiling, wet carpet and wet plaster on the walls. And possibly for next door too as we appear to share a joist...

It looks like the leak has been slowly going on for a while now, but we only noticed it today when water began pouring through the ceiling......it's now stopped dripping, but it WILL begin again.

I know it's a bank holiday weekend. joy of joys!
surely there should be SOME way we can contact the agent in emergencies??!

Can we legally get a plumber in, with hold rent and use the rent money to pay for repairs or is this not allowed?

G_M

No it's not a legal rqmt.

But you have a duty of care and obligation to act in a tenant-like way, so

* find the stopcock and turn it off.
* are you in a house or flat? (ie is water communal to many flats..)
* Can you identify the origin of the leak? An appliance (eg washing machine?) or drain (beneath bath?) or supply pipe (going where?
If you can isolate that section and keep rest of the water switched on, fine - you can easily last the weekend. If you have to turn off the mains things are harder
* But you do need to minimise further damage

As a last resort - yes get a plumber but on a BH w/e you'll be paying.... There IS a process for tenants to pay to get repairs done and reclaim via rent, but it is complex and involves several weeks of letters FIRST!

On the other hand, any decent LL would far rather you protected his house in an emergency. So Q is, is it an emergency and what sort of LL is he?!!

Have you the landlord's address? Should be on the tenancy agreement (but may be c/o the agent!). If so, can you contact him direct? BT enquiries?

Lifeforms

My tenancy agreement actually states that in case of emergency I should call someone out, outside the hours of rental agency hours.

G_M

Lifeforms wrote: »

My tenancy agreement actually states that in case of emergency I should call someone out, outside the hours of rental agency hours.

Gosh! Does it specify in what circumstances? Just water leaks or any repairs? What about that blown lightbulb.....?

"can of worms...."

missile

G_M wrote: »

Gosh! Does it specify in what circumstances? Just water leaks or any repairs? What about that blown lightbulb.....?

"can of worms...."

You might be joking, but I can assure you it is not so funny when a tenant calls
"The central heating is not working"
Try finding a tradesman, Friday night on a bank holiday weekend.
Turns out they had messed up the settings on the time clock :mad:

Flibsey

G_M wrote: »

No it's not a legal rqmt.

But you have a duty of care and obligation to act in a tenant-like way, so

* find the stopcock and turn it off.
* are you in a house or flat? (ie is water communal to many flats..)
* Can you identify the origin of the leak? An appliance (eg washing machine?) or drain (beneath bath?) or supply pipe (going where?
If you can isolate that section and keep rest of the water switched on, fine - you can easily last the weekend. If you have to turn off the mains things are harder
* But you do need to minimise further damage

As a last resort - yes get a plumber but on a BH w/e you'll be paying.... There IS a process for tenants to pay to get repairs done and reclaim via rent, but it is complex and involves several weeks of letters FIRST!

On the other hand, any decent LL would far rather you protected his house in an emergency. So Q is, is it an emergency and what sort of LL is he?!!

Have you the landlord's address? Should be on the tenancy agreement (but may be c/o the agent!). If so, can you contact him direct? BT enquiries?

leak doesn't happen all the time, it appears that because the boiler is fitted too high for it's usual working procedures (cheap boiler + crappy LL) they've fitted what looks like a BOAT BILGE PUMP for overlfows, this sends boiler overflows into the loft for some reason. can't trace the pipe any further as it disappears. it may be peeing out water over the roof for all I know.

it's a mid terrace house.

it's the boiler "bilge pump", can't do anything to isolate it, but have a bucket under the stairs. that's as protective as we can get without professional help!
it was an emergency this morning, but the leak isn't flowing any more. it does flow again when the bilge pump kicks in.

I can't use a word for what kind of landlord he is because the profanity filter will cut it out. but it involves seeing you and next tuesday. bear in mind 2 weeks after moving into this house in november a few years ago with our 18 month old baby, we had to threaten legal action to get him to do repairs when the boiler was condemned. did I mention is was november? we'd just moved in? we had a baby...?!

the landlord refused to give direct contact details and lives (aparently, although I don't trust anything he says) in canada... so all we have is c/o agent. The agent's address is a mail forwarding centre. The head office of the company is another flipping mail forwarding centre!!!

I have an address for the director of the company, can I legally contact them?!

I am also a little worried now, as the emails were bounced back. if the phone call/mail forwarding centre uses email....does this mean the info isn't getting through?

I'm taking progress photos.....it's about all I can do!

G_M

Not an emergency. Just switch off the boiler. That will sort the leak for the wekend.

OK, it's a bit chilly at present, but it is May, not December!

Since you seem to be having email issues (and you should do this anyway) make sure you get a 1st class letter in the post reporting the issue formally.

Flibsey

I managed to find an email address that's not been bounced back, and the leak has stopped and dried itself up. it's probably only temporary but woohoo!

and by the way, it was -4 here last night. it's Britain, the month has pretty much no bearing on temperature.

tbs624

OP - send a written request to the LA, under S1 of the LL&T Act 1985, requesting the name and address of the LL. LA has 21 days from receipt of that request in which to provide you with the info or he will be committing a criminal offence ( note this does not include provision of phone no/email address). That address has to be the LLs place of abode or place of business.

If you paid a tenancy deposit, has the deposit been scheme registered and have you been given the scheme's precribed info? If yes and yes then check what LL address/contact info is given there.

You may also want to have a look at the land registry to see what address is recorded for the property there - costs you 4 quid to do so.

If the LA is registered at companies house you can look them up there.

Is LA signed up to ARLA or similar? If yes trawl the appropriate code of practice.

LL is statutorily obliged to "keep in repair and proper working order" the means of heating space/water at the property. ( s11(1)(c) LL&T Act 1985) My bolding. If LL can't get job done within a reasonable time then he should supply the T with temporary heaters/water boilers, which can be hired by the day/week.

If you need help with getting repairs issues addressed then talk to the local Council's private sector tenancy relations officer and also google Shelter's Guide to Getting Repairs Done.

As G_M says, all repairs issues absolutely should be reported in writing, with a copy retained by you. If there is any discussion in person/via the phone then you write again confirming your understanding of that discussion and what , if anything, has been agreed.

tbs624

missile wrote: »

You might be joking, but I can assure you it is not so funny when a tenant calls
"The central heating is not working"
Try finding a tradesman, Friday night on a bank holiday weekend.
Turns out they had messed up the settings on the time clock :mad:

Part and parcel of letting property in exchange for money.

(1) retain a decent heating engineer for GSCs and general repairs to plumbing/heating
(2) Ensure that T has instruction leaflet for heating, and "idiot check list" for troubleshooting and has had a physical demonstration of how the heating system works, at the start of the tenancy.

dizziblonde

tbs624 wrote: »

Part and parcel of letting property in exchange for money.

(1) retain a decent heating engineer for GSCs and general repairs to plumbing/heating
(2) Ensure that T has instruction leaflet for heating, and "idiot check list" for troubleshooting and has had a physical demonstration of how the heating system works, at the start of the tenancy.

Laughing at that one - the guys who took on the tenancy of our old place hadn't been shown the somewhat antiquated central heating controls at all - in the end because we'd only moved down the street - hubby went along to show them out of empathy for them (only reason we knew how to work them was that they were the same as the ones on my mum's long since removed old boiler)... letting agency didn't have a clue how it worked!