Rented property 20+ years - neglect

HappyMJ

hinton7 wrote: »

So my mother has rented her property for over 20 years. Landlord has never done works, no gas safety check, repairs, nothing. Only fitted a new boiler after 20+ years, 3 days ago because council ordered him to.

Mum has suffered over the years, now has been discharged after being treated for pneumonia.

After a bit of advice, can we legally sue landlord for neglect?

The boiler in my tenanted property is over 20 years old. Does that make me a bad landlord? The boiler works and is safe. It's not up to the latest efficiency standards being a non-condensing boiler but it works. I don't foresee replacing it for at least another 10 years.

Property I looked at the other day didn't even have central heating at all. It just had a fire in the living room and that was it.

melstar11

Well this thread is going nowhere at the moment. OP if you want advice then you need to take the emotion out of things and provide the facts about the tenancy as requested by pp. I suggest you contact Shelter who will be able to help you with regard to your mum's rights, but they will also need all the pertinent information about the tenancy. It sounds as though this is a retaliatory eviction attempt by the LL and your mum has rights in these circumstances. However I can't help thinking that it may be more productive and a better use of your energies and those of your mum to find her somewhere else to live.

FBaby

I suspect not, however when the house is in the state it is in, surely the conditions have contributed

Not surely, only maybe. However, you said the council came and 'only' made an order for the boiler, so unless a medical expert was prepared to say that the lack of boiler is likely to be a direct cause of the pneumonia, then I don't think you have much to go on, even less if she made full recovery.

One thing you haven't mentioned is how often he has raised the rent during these 20 years. Because if the rent has remained the same for most of the time, then there is at least a moral case that she didn't get such a bad deal with it.

In the end, he didn't force her to remain there. The fact that she couldn't get a council house is not his issue. She chose to be there because out of a number of bad alternatives, this one was the least bad one.

nb73

As Thrugelmir says, people get pneumonia despite having double glazing and new boilers.

Hope she is better now.