Landlord Stalling on Repairs - Breach of Contract?

evilsheep

Hi there

Compared to many lettings issues that other forum members are suffering, this is small fry I know, but some advice would be appreciated!

We have been renting our current property since May of this year. On moving in, we immediately emailed our letting agent with a list of repairs that needed carrying out. These include small things like no trap in the bathroom sink (it once had one of those integrated plugs which was missing), pet hair throughout the house (I emptied a full vacuum cleaner five times when cleaning), inside window sills being loose, broken attic hatch, daylight visible from attic (seemingly a hole near the chimney stack) to slightly larger issues of a downpipe being missing from the guttering outside, and one window handle is broken making the house un-securable (and presumably invalidating insurance in the process).

The agents responded promptly at first and sent a handyman around to produce a quote for this work. To cut a long story short, there have, to date, been three different contractors around quoting for the work, and no work has been done. Excuses for this have been the quote price too high, contractor being on holiday, estate agents' systems being 'down', landlady being ill/on holiday/can't afford work.

To further complicate issues, the house was on the market for sale as well as being up for rent when we moved in. Part of the condition of our signing a tenancy agreement was that the house would be taken off the market (unfortunately this wasn't listed as a condition in our assured shorthold tenancy agreement) - it wasn't, and in fact the landlady reduced the price by £10,000 a couple of weeks after we moved in. We made her an offer (under asking price) for the property, which she declined.

She has requested that the selling agents (a different agent to our letting agent) enter the property to 'update their photographs' (i.e. take photos of the house looking nice and cosy and lived-in with all of our stuff furnishing it as opposed to the current photos which show an empty house). We have declined this as our tenancy agreement states that we only have to allow access to the property during the last two months of the tenancy for viewings.

The selling agent tells us that there have been no requests whatsoever to view the property. This is presumably due to it being overpriced, and the fact that the listing makes no mention of there being tenants despite the house being clearly occupied and with a 'let and managed by' board outside the house.

We are now looking to buy elsewhere in the area (very grateful that she declined our offer as we know are aware of more repair issues and the house being overpriced by around £20,000), and wondered whether the landlady was in breach of contract, thus enabling us to possibly leave the tenancy early. We have emailed/phoned the estate agents approximately fifteen times over the last three months to check on progress with repairs, and the latest response (today) is that the landlady now wants a further two quotes for the repairs before proceeding. That'll make five quotes in total. We're pretty sure that she's stalling on the repairs until our tenancy ends in three months time, after which point she'll just leave the house untenanted and hope she finds a buyer without the need to carry out repairs.

So, any advice? The small internal repairs are annoying but don't make the property uninhabitable so I'm aware they're probably irrelevant. The main issue is that we cannot lock the window shut (it's UPVC and closes, but the handle doesn't turn so it can be opened easily from the outside). I've contacted Shelter and they've asked us to call in at one of their drop-in surgeries (the next one available isn't for another two weeks).

pmlindyloo

I'm afraid that the repairs issues in the circumstances described do not constitute a breach of contract.

As annoying as it is I think I would agree that the LL is stalling and does not want to repair because she is selling.

Other than following Shelter's advice which will involve writing to the LL and giving them so long to do the repairs etc (you can look up their advice on their website) I would be inclined to go for the easy option since this has already taken months.

So, contact your LL and say you understand that with selling she does not wish to spend a lot of money but in view of the fact that the window lock is a security issue would she be happy for you to deal with this yourself and either send the bill do her or deduct it from the rent.

We did this with guttering that needed cleaning. Rang the LL and he said go ahead and send him the bill.

Might be sensible to get a quote or two before you ring. From the sounds of the problem it should be relatively cheap.

Not worth all the hassle involved in writing, waiting for a reply etc etc. since you are leaving anyway.

jjlandlord

Id the landlord refuses to carry out repairs that he is responsible for then it is a breach of contract but in this case it just means that you may be able to have them carried out and set off against rent if you follow the proper procedure.

As a side note, I would think that cleaning the gutters would not be the landlord's responsibility.

evilsheep

Thanks for the advice. I suspected that there was very little that we could do about matters, just hoped that perhaps we could exit the tenancy early. We may try to negotiate with the landlady and say that, if she agrees to release us early that she doesn't need to carry out any repairs.

I imagine gutter cleaning is our responsibility, but our gutters are clean, there's just no downpipe! (it's lying at the front of the house - it appears with its fixings rotten) Meaning that, when it rains, the water comes gushing directly from the hole in the guttering, making the exterior wall a lovely green colour and flooding the garden.

pmlindyloo

jjlandlord wrote: »

Id the landlord refuses to carry out repairs that he is responsible for then it is a breach of contract but in this case it just means that you may be able to have them carried out and set off against rent if you follow the proper procedure.

As a side note, I would think that cleaning the gutters would not be the landlord's responsibility.

Since it is not a repair of the gutter then generally I would agree that it is the tenant's responsibility.

In our case the LL admitted that the gutters had needed cleaning before we moved into the property and he should have got it sorted.

BitterAndTwisted

Evilsheep: you need to put all of your observations to the landlord IN WRITING. Send a copy to their agent as well. Ask that the most urgent repairs are attended to without delay. That's the missing down-pipe, the daylight visible from attic and the window repair. Once we get some decent rainfall the outside wall will become saturated and may result in mould appearing on the inside.

The landlord is obliged in law to attend to "necessary repairs" in a "reasonable time". I am not aware of what a court would consider reasonable under the circs you describe.

It's obvious that your landlady has absolutely no intention of carrying out these repairs, so it might be necessary for you to contact Environmental health once the consequences of the lack of repairs becomes evident. This is likely to provide an incentive for your landlady to agree a mutual surrender of your tenancy.

If absolutely necessary, you can have the repairs carried out yourselves and deduct the cost from your rent, but this should be considered a very last resort. Guidance about how to go about this can be found on the Shelter website.