Broken washing machine, LL liable for laundry costs?

G_M

denseCake wrote: »

5.6 The Landlord will provide the following services for the licensee in respect of the Room;
c. Repair and maintenance of the room except where damage has been caused by wilful neglect of the licensee

Earlier

1.3: The room means the rooms in the premises that are from the time allotted to the licensee by the landlord.

Strange inclusion of the word 'licensee'. Not 'tenant'. They are very different, with significant legal implication.

What exactly is the set-up in this property, and, critically, does the landlord live there?

The definition of 'rooms' is ambiguous. 'alloted to' might imply exclusive use - are you the only person with access to the room with the washing machine?

If the washing machine room IS included within the definition of 'Room', then, as you say, the next ambiguity is definition of 'repair & maintenance of the room'. I would not interpret that as including the contents, but hey! courts are unpredictable so if it got that far, they might rule it includes the washing machine.

Best approach is an amicable agreement.

Ignore your email threat - don't back-track and don't reference it. Just move on.

I would call the phone number. Is it for the landlord or agent? Either way, be friendly, not confrontational or threaening. If raised, laugh off the threat you made and say you were stressed. Your aim should be to get agreement for a repair.

Assuming you reach an agreement on the phone, write a friendly letter/email immediately confirming the agreement ("further to our telephone conversation today, just a quick note to confirm that..... whatever..... Many thanks for your help blah blah")

By the way - what are the other people in th property doing/saying, if anything?

dancingfairy

Why are you emailing the agents? Are the agents managing the property or were they just there to find you as tenants?
Emailing the agents would normally be a good first step but it seems they are either a bit slow or ignoring you (or waiting to hear back from the landlord).
Unfortunately despite it being a very frustrating and stressful situation having no working washing machine, 2 wrongs do not make a right. Threatening to withold rent is a bit too aggressive at this stage.
With regards to the electrics I do not see how it can be the power companys fault. They have to provide power to the property. After that it is your landlords responsibility to ensure it is safe and works properly. It sounds like either the fuse is not high enough somewhere or things have been wired in wrong as using more than one thing at once clearly should not trip the electricity.
Write (email is fine for speed but you should sent a hard copy in the post) a polite but firm letter to the landlord. When you write I would get proof of posting (for free) from the post office in case the agency start playing silly.
If you still get no response then you may want to consider contacting someone at your local council who may help with housing in disrepair, tenancy disputes regarding the electrics (as they sound dodgy) , although I doubt they would be able to help with the washing machine issue.
IF you want to get the repairs done yourself and withold rent to recover the costs there are very specific processes you have to go through and I believe these are detailed on the Shelter website.
df

dancingfairy

Oh it might be worth a quick google on your make and model and repairs just in case it is simply a case of changing a filter or whether you can someoehow reset the machine. Note I am obviously not talking about taking the machine apart but someone may have found a simple solution.
df

denseCake

molerat wrote: »

Have you checked the filter, this is a user check and if it is found to be blocked expect a bill for clearing it. If an engineer is used instead of the LL popping round that could be in excess of £100.

So just saw this post, who knew washing machines had filters that needed to be cleaned? Says on the flap to be cleaned every month, probably hasn't been cleaned for over a year.

So I removed the filter and all the dirty smelling water came flooding out, inside was a few hair pins, a huge piece of plastic and a blackened 20p coin.

I am just running a quick cycle now to see if it drains, I'm quite optimistic.

I did google the problem when if first arose but didn't see anything about filters, what a tit I am...

Thanks.

Edit: Cycle just stopped on the rinse cycle again! God dammit I was really thinking it was fixed. So now the filter has been cleaned, and it has stopped on the rinse cycle again. Any ideas what the problem might be? FYI there is a considerable amount of water in the bottom of the drum again.

denseCake

G_M wrote: »

Strange inclusion of the word 'licensee'. Not 'tenant'. They are very different, with significant legal implication.

What exactly is the set-up in this property, and, critically, does the landlord live there?

The definition of 'rooms' is ambiguous. 'alloted to' might imply exclusive use - are you the only person with access to the room with the washing machine?

If the washing machine room IS included within the definition of 'Room', then, as you say, the next ambiguity is definition of 'repair & maintenance of the room'. I would not interpret that as including the contents, but hey! courts are unpredictable so if it got that far, they might rule it includes the washing machine.

Best approach is an amicable agreement.

Ignore your email threat - don't back-track and don't reference it. Just move on.

I would call the phone number. Is it for the landlord or agent? Either way, be friendly, not confrontational or threaening. If raised, laugh off the threat you made and say you were stressed. Your aim should be to get agreement for a repair.

Assuming you reach an agreement on the phone, write a friendly letter/email immediately confirming the agreement ("further to our telephone conversation today, just a quick note to confirm that..... whatever..... Many thanks for your help blah blah")

By the way - what are the other people in th property doing/saying, if anything?

The set up is a house with 3 bedrooms, rented out separately. We have one kitchen and a bathroom with what would be the living room being the 3rd bedroom. The landlord does not live here, I have never met them nor do I know their name.

Everyone in the property uses the washing machine.


The other people in the property have always had (or develop) a disdain towards the agency/management company due to them being slow to respond to issues. At the moment only 2 rooms are occupied, with the other guy moving out in 5 days so he is obviously not too concerned with the washing machine issue.

I assume the phone number is for the agency.

But it is a weird set up to me at least, I am the only English person that has lived in the property as long as I have been here. Everyone else is foreign, and the majority of the staff at the agency are foreign (Spanish I believe). They once sent a member of staff to the property when we had boiler issues who could not speak English which was quite funny. I have nothing against non-English people, but I always thought it was slightly odd. I guess that's London for you.

blackshirtuk

denseCake wrote: »

So just saw this post, who knew washing machines had filters that needed to be cleaned? Says on the flap to be cleaned every month, probably hasn't been cleaned for over a year.

So I removed the filter and all the dirty smelling water came flooding out, inside was a few hair pins, a huge piece of plastic and a blackened 20p coin.

I am just running a quick cycle now to see if it drains, I'm quite optimistic.

I did google the problem when if first arose but didn't see anything about filters, what a tit I am...

Thanks.

So you have threatened your Landlord annoyed the agent, demanded urgent action over a weekend when you could have sorted the problem yourself.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to start a thread about a washing machine not draining than a thread about deducting monies from rent because you couldn't do your washing.

I come here primarily to find information and secondly to provide any help if i can. I am seeing a lot of threads about "whose responsibily is this" when it would clearly easier to take control of the situation.

silvercar

Edit: Cycle just stopped on the rinse cycle again! God dammit I was really thinking it was fixed. So now the filter has been cleaned, and it has stopped on the rinse cycle again. Any ideas what the problem might be? FYI there is a considerable amount of water in the bottom of the drum again.

You may not have cleared all the blockage. There could be a build up of stuff past the filter.

denseCake

blackshirtuk wrote: »

So you have threatened your Landlord annoyed the agent, demanded urgent action over a weekend when you could have sorted the problem yourself.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to start a thread about a washing machine not draining than a thread about deducting monies from rent because you couldn't do your washing.

I come here primarily to find information and secondly to provide any help if i can. I am seeing a lot of threads about "whose responsibily is this" when it would clearly easier to take control of the situation.

If you had any reading comprehension, you would see that I have made no contact to the landlord whatsoever, only the agency.

Also the post you quoted has been edited and it appears the washing machine is still broken.

Your problems with the forum, take it to the mods, if they see fit they will remove all such posts.

I have quite clearly admitted that I have made mistakes, if you can't get past that fact, then feel free to remove your 'help' from the thread.

Thanks.

Billie-S

PMSL, poor old densecake! :rotfl: People can be rather 'abrupt' on here at times!

I hope you get this sorted, but I would have to agree that you should not with-hold rent because of the duff washing machine. If you are leaving soon anyway, does it even matter?

G_M

As advised

* ring the number
* write to the landlord at the address provided
* google the washing machine make/model - look for instruction manual online
* google 'washing machine stuck rinse cycle' - there are lots of helpful sites

Let's hope you have not cuased damage or damp by flooding the kitchen floor.......