Claiming against landlord

john_peters_3

hi all, looking for a quick bit of advice here,

a property i lived in October last year had an electrical issue from the week we moved in and it meant we had no electricity at the property for more than 5 minutes at a time (the main breaker rcd was faulty and due to age couldnt be replaced) , it took the landlord over two weeks to have it resolved and it meant the whole consumer unit had to be replaced. the landlord refused to put us up in a hotel and had homecare with a well known british based gas company. they attended 6 times before being able to fix the fault.

im looking to claim rent abatement from the landlord as we stayed at my parents for a large amount of the time it was off, the next door neighbour kindly allowed us to have an extension lead for some lighing when we were at the property.

I have written to the landlord and asked him to refund me the rental payment for the time the electric wasnt working (logged with the agent) i reported the property to the council as i felt having small children is not acceptable to have no heating hot water or lighting.

im looking to claim against my landlord for rent abatement under failure of section 11 of the L&T act. he basically told me no chance to any compo, Between me and my wife, we also used holidays and unpaid leave (sick days) to be able to wait in for landlords contractor.

I am not sure if i am able to claim for the loss of earnings as i would of had to take the time off if i owned the house, but i feel over two weeks was too long to wait, i found a local electrican who would fix the problem but the landlord told me that i would have to pay the bill mysekf,

any help would be very useful, thanks

bobbymotors

My advice is..........

Get over it.

G_M

You could have stayed in the property - claiming 100% rent refund will fail.

You did not need to take time off work, you could have left keys with the LL, EA or contractors - claiming loss of earnings will fail.

The LL complied with S11 of the Act by getting the electrics fixed.

Did the LL say you would have to initially pay your electician (and he'd reimburse you) or that he would not reimburse you? Not that it makes a difference.....

Yes, 2 weeks seems a bit excessive, but clearly the LL made efforts to get it fixed. The contractors came out 6 times in that period so your problem was not exactly being ignored!

You could claim for your neighbour's costs. How many units of their electricity did you use? However bear in mind you saved yourself money in terms of your own elecricity bill.......

Personally my advice is to move on. Life is too short for a dispute over at best a small amount of money with an uncertain outcome.

ps - I note this was 12 months ago. How come you've waited so long?

Dorian1958

You seem to be asking about both a rent abatement AND compensation for out of pocket expenses. Whether it is worth pursuing a small claim for compensation is a moot point, how successful you might be has to be balanced against any damage done to the tenant/landlord relationship - possibly risking being given notice - fancy a move in a month or two? As for rent abatement, was the house actually uninhabitable? Did you inform the landlord of your intention to move out and the invention of claiming a rent rebate? What does your tenancy agreement say? Bit of a minefield methinks.

john_peters_3

I do not live at the property now. I did originally mention to the agent when it happened via the agent about abatement to pass on to the landlord but never got a response.

all the comms were done through the agent. I made the agent aware we would need to go and stay elsewhere, the LL had a managed contract on a plan so wouldn't pay for anyone else to complete the work any sooner. the engineers that came out all said the part was too old to replace and would need to refer it to the LL for complete replacement. the job took 4 hours in the end. It was me chasing the landlords contractor constantly.

If the property has no electricity, it has no lighting, heating, would you say it was habitable? bearing in mind our rental nearly £1000 a month. If the property was mine, i would of paid for this to be fixed sooner than two weeks.

LEJC

john_peters wrote: »

If the property was mine, i would of paid for this to be fixed sooner than two weeks.

This sort of statement sometimes amazes me....as homeowner it doesn't always mean that you are able to get things fixed quicker,more often or not as a homeowner you tend to put up with the problem far longer than a tenant would.

Being a tenant does not automatically open up a whole host of trades people who are available at a given moment to perform a fix.

As a LL I am aware that tenants need problems attending to but there are occasions where I have to wait my turn for a trades person to attend,scope and quote for the work needed and then carry out the work...I sometimes need my tenants to appreciate I can't always magic a repair on the same day as the issue was reported.
Adding an agent into the mix who is basically just a middle man between LL and tenant with not always much authority to sanction work above a certain level,just adds to all the time it takes.

What also mystifies me is why you are now attempting to reclaim costs...almost a year later

How long were you actually a tenant there?

john_peters_3

FYI, I am now a home owner myself, I had an issue recently which needed attending to quickly, I paid for a plumber to attend and fix a problem in a couple of hours? I did not have to rely upon reporting it to someone else and wait for them to fix it. As a home owner, it is my choice which tradesman to use which could be the cheapest, the quickest, the one with the flashy van etc, as a tenant, I did not have this option, from logging the job it took the agents seven days to get someone to actually come out to the first appointment. I am sure comments will be made in reply to this about it being my choice to live there etc.

I wasn't asking for a same day repair....although what i did want clearly was too much and its acceptable for this problem to go unresolved for weeks and I am being unrealistic in expecting any kind of rebate.

Everything was done through the agent and i asked for the rebate when it happened as mentioned in my previous message, the landlords address for service was the letting agent.
but they have told me its nothing to do with them.

john_peters_3

We lived at the property for 10 months.

00ec25

john_peters wrote: »

FYI, I am now a home owner myself,

then put yourself in the position of your ex LL.

They had a Homecare policy in place with BG designed specifically to allow the LL to call upon tradesmen when required. The LL called them, the fact it took time for the works to be completed is "just one of those things". Why w(/sh)ould the LL call a different tradesman when he had already paid for the Homecare policy to cover just such an eventuality any more than you as a home owner would call a plumber from yellow pages after you had already called BG and they had fixed a date to attend

giraffe69

I find it surprising that anyone here comments that no electricity does not render the place inhabitable. No light, no heat (depends on time of year), fridge/freezer not working, no hot water. The extension lead from kindly neighbour may have solved a small part of the light problem.
Maybe the landlord tried to have it fixed and may be it could not gave been done any quicker.
Like others I've no idea why there is a suggestion to pursue it nigh on a year later.

cr1mson

Enjoy your new house and move on. Even if you did succeed in a claim I suspect it would be a pyrrhic victory anyway.