Boiler Failure- Letting Agents Trying to Charge Us for Weekend Call Out

KHud

I wondered if I could get some advice/ confirmation that I'm right with regards to an issue I am having with our lettings agent- they are attempting to charge us for call out to fix a broken boiler. Bear with me as I explain!

Last Friday our boiler failed (it hadn't been working since last Wednesday) and an engineer came out to fix the problem (sent by the lettings agent), he provided a fix which should have lasted a few days over the weekend until a new part was available. However by the evening the boiler completely broke down, so we were left with no heating or hot water for the foreseeable future. I called the lettings agents on Saturday morning (a huge company that essentially has a monopoly on lettings in this town!) and just got an answer phone message giving a number to call for repairs. I called this number and a chap came out later that afternoon to fix the problem, so we were clearly pleased to have heating and hot water back; I'm disabled so the cold was doing me no good!

Monday morning comes and my partner received a very aggressive phone call from the property manager saying that we should never have called out the workmen since we knew a new part was needed. However I believed that the problem was a new fault since no workaround got the boiler working and the engineer that attended on Saturday said that the part the original engineer wanted to replace wouldn't have fixed the problem since it was fairly new and working- which I believe since we've had working heating since Saturday! The property manager is now saying that we are liable to pay for the call out over the weekend.

As far as I am aware there is no way that we are legally responsible to pay this. Nowhere in our contract does it say that we have to pay for any repairs, it wasn't made clear when I phoned the call out people that I may have to pay and, our contract and Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 state that it is the landlords' responsibility to repair heating and hot water. I've never come across a letting agent acting like this. Am I right that we can not be held liable to pay for the call out?

princeofpounds

Yes you are almost certainly right. Obviously we can't be completely certain as we don't know the exact words that passed between you and your various points of contact.


This sort of aggressive 'customer service' is not unheard of with letting agents and their contractors, especially when someone has been exposed as incompetent or even on the fiddle to earn multiple call-outs.


I find the best response is firm and brief. Tell them that you will not be paying, if they rant, tell them to put it in writing and then cease the call if they don't shut up.