Help with house problems

aav

I am currently living in a student house which is not very good. When we moved in everything seemed fine, but once we lived there for a bit things changed. There are so many problems like having cracks in the wall and it having water damage. I know that we will loose all of our deposit if not more when we move out. I wanted to know if there is anything that we can do. Is there any companies out there that can take a look around the house and conferm that we did not create the damage. Please bear in mind that we are students and finances are tight.

Any help would be great

jrrowleyws

Have you actually had your landlord round when the problems appeared?

Wheres the water damage come from? Are the cracks there because someone damaged the wall or did they just appear?

Prudent

Have you reported the faults in writing to the landlord?

melancholly

Could you try someone from the students union? Is the house on a list of registered landlords at the university?

Blacksheep1979

You don't have to prove that you didn't cause the damage - the landlord has to prove you did.

Did you have an inventory and did you sign it?

Are you paying by direct debit/standing order/post dated cheque?

There are easy ways out of this but answering those q's should help with the soloution.

mhoc

How important is the inventory? Is it a legal requirment for shared houses? My daughter is in the student house and they were not given one and not asked to sign for one.

Its an old house and there have been a lot of problems with it, problems that were there before they moved in like the landlord not realising that the plumbing was not done properly and radiators not working, various other plumbing, electric problems etc.

Also my daughter was out of the house for a week or so and another girl took over her room without permission so I dont really know where she sleeps now.

The deposit was £300, doubt wether she will get this back

m

pinkshoes

aav wrote: »

There are so many problems like having cracks in the wall and it having water damage.

lol you're only responsible for damage you cause i.e. falling drunk down the stairs and making a hole in the wall!!

phone the landlord ASAP, and get him to come and fix these problems immediately! cracks in wall and damp patches are house/structural problems which are nothing to do with you, coz you're only the tenants. He'd probably covered them up with paint when you moved in, and is no doubt already aware of them, but he should have insurance against this sort of thing.

It's the landlord's responsibility to fix things like this, and not yours, so you don't have to pay for it.

Blacksheep1979

mhoc wrote: »

How important is the inventory? Is it a legal requirment for shared houses? My daughter is in the student house and they were not given one and not asked to sign for one.

not a legal requirement at all, but it covers the landlords back. Without one it can be v difficult to prove what damage was done by the current/exiting tennants.

The only real problems the op may have is if the landlord is clever enough and the op hasn't reported any problems as they emerge they can then still be held accountable.