Taking my landlord to COURT!

jaycm2007

Ill try and be brief but this won't be too easy!

I basically want to sue my landlord for the constant repairs to my property. I should say all the repairs are for the same thin. And it's mainly down to staff being incompetent.

Over a 2 year period the landlord has fixed my leaking shower 25 times, they have spent an average of 1hour30 mins per time at my home.

The shower still is not fixed it leaks a pile of water out the bathroom through the ceiling and into my kitchen all over my work tops.

I have had the kitchen ceiling replaced as it fell down onto my head, it's ruined endless amount of my property due to leaks. Rugs ruined. Which have to be down, towels as my floor is sloppy without. Cleaning products for constant cleaning of this leaking water it's awful.

They have also replaced the whole bathroom from scratch and made it worse. They seedless ly don't care about the problem enough to sort it. Now they want to come out and rip the bathroom out a second time and start from scratch putting it back together.

I've wasted endless hours when they are at my home, cleaned the mess. Then missed appointments, as well as phone calls wasting hours on end.

I'm also very asthmatic and the sever damp makes this worse, so I have to have the heating on to try and dry it all out.

My landlord has given me proof of attendance, 25 times so far soon to be the 26th


My questions are

What's a reasonable amount of money to charge per appointment with me? (Not the first appointment as ill allow that for general maintance when it should have been fixed)

Money for lost items ruined?

Cleaning products cleaning this mess daily!

Compo for the sever disruption to my life

Can I also claim money for some central heating to dry this all out?

What kind of figure can I lodge to a small claims court?

My landlord is offering £50 compo for all of this and did refuse to tell me all times of attendance at first as they know what I'm thinking.

macman

You can't make up the amount of your the claim based on what you or other people might think is correct. You need to quantify your actual losses. For example, if you want to claim for cleaning products and damaged items then you need to total up what you've spent on extra cleaning products and replacement items and receipt them accordingly.
Your 'attendance time' would presumably be based on your loss of earnings for the time wasted.
There is no 'small claims court'. You use the local county court and if the claim is under £10K (recently increased) it can be allocated to the small claims track.
Your first step is to put together a proper claim in writing and send it by RD to your LL. Only if he refuses to negotiate do you then move onto a civil claim.

rainbow12

It might be worth getting in touch with Shelter for some help and advice on getting the works done. If the landlord is a Registered Social Landlord you should writ3 to the Chief Exec stating what has happened and how it is negatively impacting on your life. If an RSL you could write to the Housing Corporation.

You could also send a letter of intent to take legal action, stating what the issues are and what you want done (at this point I would just state the repairs and that failure to resolve the issue will lead to you isuing court proceedings to get the work carried out and and to compensate you for damages). There are loads of templates for this kind of thing on the net. Ive used one a couple of times with good results in terms of things being sorted quickly. I think you do have to word the letter in a business like way and try to take the emotion out of it. CAB would be able to help you out too.
Good luck with it.

Norman_Castle

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/repairs_and_bad_conditions/disrepair_in_rented_accommodation/compensation_for_disrepair

jaycm2007

Thanks for all the advice, but I do need to clarify and justify what I see fit as compensation and why I see the sum as a correct amount.

However it's not as easy as that when it comes to time wasted, and the impact on my life, I'm thinking they should be paying me around £400 in total is that reasonable? Costs of decorating, damage to my health and everything else.

Societies in litigation manage to price an injury so there must be a way or a guide here based on what people has done done before?

macman

You are missing the point. If you can quantify £400 (or even £4,000) then that is a reasonable claim.
What you can't do is put in a claim and when questioned in court as to how you arrive at that figure, say 'I asked on mse and that's what someone suggested'.
You need to be able to justify your figures, which requires you to do the maths.'Decorating' is easily quantifiable. 'Damage to your health' much less so. For a claim of just £400 I'd stick to the obvious stuff.

jaycm2007

Ok thanks I will stick to all the obvious things

Telephone calls are expensive, can I justify these without records? I mean it's clear I phoned as that's how I reported the repair and just maybe say 20p a call? I know it cost a lot more than tbis but if I cannot prove the actual figure then it's not so easy.

Maybe I shall just stick to decorating, and cleaning bills and loss of items due to them being ruined.

However can I charge at all for all my time wasted while they attempt
To fix but fail x

mehera

What you should do is apply for a generous rent deduction backdated to when the problems first arised!

That should add up quite nicely and be fairly reasonable to justify in court - you will have to justify any costs you claim for . . . .

smashingyour...

jaycm2007 wrote: »

Ok thanks I will stick to all the obvious things

Telephone calls are expensive, can I justify these without records? I mean it's clear I phoned as that's how I reported the repair and just maybe say 20p a call? I know it cost a lot more than tbis but if I cannot prove the actual figure then it's not so easy.

Maybe I shall just stick to decorating, and cleaning bills and loss of items due to them being ruined.

However can I charge at all for all my time wasted while they attempt
To fix but fail x

You've already been told about that, you can claim for your actual loss.

Have you lost money by not being at work?

macman

jaycm2007 wrote: »

Ok thanks I will stick to all the obvious things

Telephone calls are expensive, can I justify these without records? I mean it's clear I phoned as that's how I reported the repair and just maybe say 20p a call? I know it cost a lot more than tbis but if I cannot prove the actual figure then it's not so easy.

Maybe I shall just stick to decorating, and cleaning bills and loss of items due to them being ruined.

However can I charge at all for all my time wasted while they attempt
To fix but fail x

This illustrates my earlier point. You simply have to go through your phone bills and total up the costs involved. You don't have to guess anything. You presumably have itemised bills?
You can claim loss of earnings if relevant. But you can't claim if you'd have been sitting at home anyway.
You can claim for impact on your health etc if you wish. But to do this you'll have to provide and pay for the relevant doctor's or consultant's reports to back it up. For £400 that you may not win, is it really worth it?
Which is why I suggested that you stick to the items you can easily quantify.

londonTiger

buy cheap, buy twice. Or in the case of this landlord, buy 25 times!!!