VERY short notice of major renovations

philman

Hi,

For starting: I share with 4 others, so 5 of us in total; 4 of us share a single bathroom while one person has an en-suite and pays extra for it, which none of us begrudge.

So our landlord(landlady?) sent us a text out of the blue a couple of weeks ago saying she would be repainting the hall and landing and replacing the carpet in the following couple of weeks. We all shrugged, said it was a bit out of the blue, but new carpet and paint job sounds nice.

On Sunday (24th) she sent us an email saying builders would be turning up the next day to install a new toilet in what was the under-the-stairs cupboard, and replacing the entire bathroom suite, and the shower should be out of action for a day or so.

It is now the 28th and we still have no shower, sink, or indeed anything other than a toilet (thank god they replaced that straight away!) in the bathroom, and most of us have taken to showering at work, at the gym, or at friend's/partner's houses.

My question is how legal is it to give such short notice of renovations that cause that much disruption, and lack of access to a shower for much longer than was previously stated? I have looked up on various sites, and found that we can ask for rent decreases for the length of time the disruption occured, but is the fact that we were given such short notice that it would even be happening a breach of tenant rights?

ValHaller

Is there any indication she wants you out? Because action like this is either harassment or stupidity.

silvercar

Difficult one as she is improving the property and did give you 24 hours notice (albeit by email).

The time to object was when you received the email. On the face of it, losing the use of the shower for "a day or so" and gaining improvements as a result is not bad. The problem is that the work has taken longer than scheduled.

philman

ValHaller wrote: »

Is there any indication she wants you out? Because action like this is either harassment or stupidity.

Not as far as I am aware. the bathroom was in a bit of a state, and we had mentioned a few problems with it before to her (water leaking through the floor into the rooms below if the shower curtain wasn't in exactly the right place) but none of us had asked for a new toilet downstairs at all, and a couple of us were wondering whether she is doing these works to increase the value of the house and getting ready to sell or something.

But one of the girls is moving out next week (unrelated reasons, she is moving in with her boyfriend) and landlord approved the new housemate to move in next week. (Although she approved the new tenant before all this renovation work started, so goodness knows what the new girl will think if the builders are still here when she moves in!)

steeeb

I think you need to firstly contact the landlord to make her well aware you don't have facilities to shower etc.. and that it is distrupting you all and what is she going to do about it.

Suggest a meeting with the landlord and all of the tenants if possible so you can get the problem resolved.

The landlord might be unaware of the fact you don't have showers connected etc.. as the building might just be saying they're still working or something.

If the landlord is aware of the problem make sure they know it needs resolving as soon as possible.

If still nothing is being done, or in fact all the above has already happened - then I'm sure plenty on here can tell you what the next step should be.

philman

steeeb wrote: »

I think you need to firstly contact the landlord to make her well aware you don't have facilities to shower etc.. and that it is distrupting you all and what is she going to do about it.

I have sent her an email this morning, with the other tenants cc'd in, complaining about the situation and the short notice of it all, and describing the current situation (as of this morning when I left for work anyway). You are right, she may not be aware that the builders have ripped out the old shower on Monday and still not replaced it!

I was interested on here in advice about the next step, whether we can claim reduction in our rent for this month due to the disruption, and whether we can complain if she suddenly announces she is selling the property once the renovations are done!

thelem

philman wrote: »

I was interested on here in advice about the next step, whether we can claim reduction in our rent for this month due to the disruption, and whether we can complain if she suddenly announces she is selling the property once the renovations are done!

The first step is always to communicate with your landloard. In this case it's urgent so a phone call is probably best, that way after a few minutes you will each know where the other stands (landlord could say "I'm chasing the plumbers twice a day" or "Oh, they said they should be finished in a week or two"). You can follow up with an email or letter confirming what has agreed if you want to create a paper trail. If you're not happy with the landlord's plans, that is the time to look into legal recourse.

Regarding selling the property, provided she follows the correct procedures to end the tenancy then you can't complain. But it sounds like you're about to sign a new 6 month contract, so she won't be able to do anything before that 6 months is up anyway.

moromir

thelem wrote:

Regarding selling the property, provided she follows the correct procedures to end the tenancy then you can't complain. But it sounds like you're about to sign a new 6 month contract, so she won't be able to do anything before that 6 months is up anyway.

She would be perfectly within her rights to sell the property with the tenants in situ though, to say an investor.

philman

After a reply from the landlady, she says that the instructions were to install the new downstairs toilet FIRST, and then rip out the bathroom to replace it quickly, in order to minimise disruption. What they seem to have done instead is rip out everything, replacing the old toilet, but leaving no sink/shower/tiles/floor/lockable door. And then start work on installing a new toilet downstairs.

I have been doing a bit of googling to find the tenant's rights in these situations and apparently she has to give us 24 hours notice before entering before repairs, but she has to specifically ask our permission for improvements.

I would assume the replacing the bathroom might count as a repair due to the leaky shower (although replacing the entire bathroom is a bit of an OTT repair!) but the installation of a brand new toilet in what used to be the under-the-stairs cupboard is definitely an improvement.

I wasn't actually in the country when the work started, I returned on Tuesday to find the bathroom in the garden and an email inbox with the notice in! I am unsure how much my flatmates email responses I have read to the very short notice count as permission, in so much as they seem to just be asking a few questions about what was actually happening.

Also I think we may be able to ask her for a % rent abatement after the work has finished, to account for the amount of time a fairly essential feature of the house was disrupted!

thelem

Has she said what is going to happen now? i.e. when you're going to have a shower again?

philman

Not in the email she sent, she basically said that wasn't what she asked them to do, she said she'd ring them, then sent another email saying she'd rang them and that the toilet was working, as well as a bath, but no shower yet. I could bathe, but the room still has new plasterboard on the untiled walls, and just an MDF floor with no lino, so I would probably make the builders jobs harder to get it finished on time if I splashed anywhere while doing so!

I have sent another email asking if we can have a more exact date on when the room may be tiled with a shower and available for use, but no reply yet.