Access Rights

amy104

Our LA have arranged for a new wall to be built in the garden of the house we rent as the existing fence posts have seen better days. The building work will take 3 weeks. Only external access required. We have asked them to delay the work by a week for personal reasons as obviously its considerable disruption. They are refusing. Can they just let themselves in?

Dan-Dan

3 weeks to build a wall ?

amy104

Its a big wall. I checked with my dad who's a builder and he agrees the timescale is about right. Its just a shame he's not the builder doing the job.

jjlandlord

Delaying by a week for "personal reasons" does not strike as the most reasonable request...

Is there anything that makes an actual difference whether they start as planned or a week later?
If not, perhaps best to be done with it.

pmlindyloo

amy104 wrote: »

Our LA have arranged for a new wall to be built in the garden of the house we rent as the existing fence posts have seen better days. The building work will take 3 weeks. Only external access required. We have asked them to delay the work by a week for personal reasons as obviously its considerable disruption. They are refusing. Can they just let themselves in?

Can they just let themselves in? In theory 'no' since they need your permission to enter the premises. You can tell them that and confirm in writing.

However, I would urge you to reconsider.

We have many posts about LLs not keeping up with their repairing responsibilities and at the very least your LL is adhering to his.

Also, please take into account that employing people to carry out such jobs usually takes some juggling and cannot be altered that easily.

You have to decide how inconvenient the work will be and balance this with having to wait a much longer time for it to be carried out or not having it done at all!

amy104

We have a family member coming out of hospital. We are not being unreasonable tenants.

AnnieO1234

A family member coming out of hospital isn't giving a reason, and if you're being this cagey with your landlord then I can see why they're telling you to whistle Dixie.

If however you approach your landlord and explain that maybe your family member requires one of you to spend the night with them, so you will be sleeping during the day that week and therefore it is unreasonable for building work to commence... Yada yada. Unfortunately it is essentially outside the property and no different to the neighbours getting the work done on their side of the boundary.

Xxx

brightonman123

why would LL need access to house, if just doing an outside wall?

G_M

Bear in mind if the LL tells the builder to postpone by a week, the builder may respond "Sorry, I have booked another client to start as soon as I finish your job. I can't mess him around, so I'll have to put your job at the back of my work queue. I have 3 weeks available in September. Is that OK?"

Good builders get booked up months in advance. Only the rubbish builders are keen to start tomorrow. Or at your latest whim.

dancingfairy

Is it access to the house or just the garden they require? If they require access to the house then yes you could refuse and you could just change the barrel of the lock. Obviously a bit of give and take and compromise on both sides here would be the best solution. I would write to the actual landlord (not the agents) and explain that you are very keen to get the wall done but unfortunately great auntie ethel (or whoever) will be recovering from a major operation that week and would it be possible to reschedule?
I guess you could obstruct them and literally write and revoke all permission for them to enter the land but you would have to go to court to actually enforce it I think and it would probably cause a lot of ill feeling all around.
I would also put your request in writing as a someone else might actually look at it (as opposed to the person who answers the phone) and b) it carries more weight in writing and they are likely to see you are not just being difficult.
Best of Luck coming to an agreement
df

amy104

We explained that they will be staying with us and need peace and quiet to rest and we don't want the disruption of the noise. The la have it on file that we work shifts and sometimes sleep during the day so need advanced noticed before they book things, it's not like we have just sprung this on them. Normally they get the contractor to book it with us directly but for some reason they just did this with no notice. The garden can only be accessed via a locked gate for which they'd need a key.