Problems with the landlord

Wings

slinks wrote:

there was a burst pipe and massive flooding in a communal hallway in the middle of the night in my building.

unfortunately i was the only one who heard it so i had to sort it out.

the force of the burst pipe was so strong that i couldn't help but got absolutely soaked which made me ill soon after as i was trying (but failing miserably) to try and stop it...

i was up for hours trying to stop it, getting hold of the right people to come and sort it and meanwhile had to call the fire service to turn it off for me.

not allowed an emergency number for the landlord - if there's a problem i have to wait til 9am to call the estate agents (except sundays of course) so had to stay up until 9am to call them.

no apologies, no thanks and it took the estate agents 2 days to get the landlord to get the water back on after the fire service turned it off.

i wish i hadn't bothered!!! the only thing that came out of this was a bad cold and no water.

got my first water rates bill this morning - who's betting that i have to also pay for that burst pipe with all the water that flooded the hallway and out into the street?

In a situation like that where you can't make contact with the landlord, then you contact an emergency plumber and bill the landlord for the repairs. If you were my tenant you would be povided with a 24/7 contact telephone numbers, landline and mobile. I honestly fail to understand these landlords who allow such repairs that have been mentioned to go unattended.

clutton_2

whenever one of my tenants contacts me with a problem, i deal with it straight away by calling one of my team. Sometimes they can come immediately, sometimes we have to wait - thats life. But, a few weeks ago, after fiercesome thunderstorms, they were so inundated with fixing other folks' roofs, that they were unable to fix my little non-urgent jobs. As long as i continue to communicate to my tenants, what the delays are about, they usually are very understanding. Nevertheless, it has sometimes taken 4-6-7 weeks for relatively minor repairs to get done.

Emergency things, i really do try to pull out all the stops - i dont want tenants living in discomfort - but, as i have said several times on here, i am not a miracle worker, i do my best.

When i have been very very ill and my builders have been unavailable, i have asked tenants to go to yellow pages, and then bill me - i trust them not to take advantage and they recognised that i was very sick at that time.

Having a good relationship with all of my tenants is what works for me - there has to be give and take.

Sadly this board seems only to be full of bad-landlord stories - but i guess that is what the Brits love - a negative story sells more newspapers than a good story

Generali

clutton wrote:

Sadly this board seems only to be full of bad-landlord stories - but i guess that is what the Brits love - a negative story sells more newspapers than a good story

I move around quite a bit so have rented many flats and houses. Unfortunately there are a lot of bad landlord stories around because there are a lot of bad landlords. Because you have very little security of tenure in the UK, if you complain (e.g. when I have wanted a gas safety cert in a couple of places, another place where I had not hot water or central heating for half of Feb) you get thrown out at the earliest opportunity.

Guy_Montag

clutton wrote:

Sadly this board seems only to be full of bad-landlord stories - but i guess that is what the Brits love - a negative story sells more newspapers than a good story

The reason we have bad landlord stories on this board is people come here for help & they don't generally need that when dealing with good landlords like mine (& you).

I've never had a really bad landlord, but I rented through an agency once, & that's put me off for life!

My best landlord provided a list of approved tradesmen (two of each) for any problems & told us to go directly to them. Perfect really: he doesn't get bothered; he probably gets a good deal; knows the work will be carried out well; we got things fixed promptly. Not rocket science really.

Generali

Guy_Montag wrote:

The reason we have bad landlord stories on this board is people come here for help & they don't generally need that when dealing with good landlords like mine (& you).

I've never had a really bad landlord, but I rented through an agency once, & that's put me off for life!

Absolutely agree. Despite some dreadful experiences, I don't think all LLs are scum.

You're unlikely to see a 'Please help' thead along the lines of 'My LLs so great, should I get her flowers, chocolate or wine?'

slinks

In my case it's not just my landlord - it's also the estate agents who either don't pass messages on or don't chase him up. They just don't do their jobs properly.

I can't count how many times I've asked for the communal hallway light to be fixed (broken ankle just waiting to happen!)... I'd fix it myself if I could.

I bumped into the landlord and told him that the extractor fan in the bathroom has stopped working - he said "It's ok, you have a window"!?

Then there was the time recently when the hot water decided not to work - I was without hot water for days on end - plus cue an unecessary phone bill as they made me call British Gas myself 20 times to try and sort it - and the estate agents gave me wrong numbers, wrong information, wrong reference numbers - and then it turned out the contract hadn't been renewed by the landlord so I had to wait for him to pay it before it got fixed!!

But can I claim for anything like this? Of course not - I'd be in danger of losing the place where I live

Generali

slinks wrote: »

In my case it's not just my landlord - it's also the estate agents who either don't pass messages on or don't chase him up. They just don't do their jobs properly.

I can't count how many times I've asked for the communal hallway light to be fixed (broken ankle just waiting to happen!)... I'd fix it myself if I could.

I bumped into the landlord and told him that the extractor fan in the bathroom has stopped working - he said "It's ok, you have a window"!?

Then there was the time recently when the hot water decided not to work - I was without hot water for days on end - plus cue an unecessary phone bill as they made me call British Gas myself 20 times to try and sort it - and the estate agents gave me wrong numbers, wrong information, wrong reference numbers - and then it turned out the contract hadn't been renewed by the landlord so I had to wait for him to pay it before it got fixed!!

But can I claim for anything like this? Of course not - I'd be in danger of losing the place where I live

All LLs aren't scum but I've yet to meet an estate agent that wouldn't be improved with a bullet to the head.