Issues with rented house

Mina88

Hi all,

I moved into my rented house on 3rd December 2017. The landlord if a friend of a friend and it wasn’t done through an estate agents. The deposit was paid directly to the landlords son.

So far, I have paid the rent of time and kept the house clean and tidy and looked after it (in my opinion), but there are a few issues which the landlord hasn’t been proactive in sorting. I will just state that I have 3 children, a 3 year old and 8 month old twins. So the issues are as follows.

1. Broken glass panel on front door and broken pane of glass in our bedroom window. The replacement glass was delivered for both on the day we moved in. Not heard anything about when the replacement glass will be installed.
2. Garden is littered with rubbish I.e old cooker, fridge, decorating items. He has not come to remove this. I know it’s been cold but my daughter wanted to play in the garden the other week but it’s way too dangerous.
3. Mould. I have lived in a rented property before with mould but have never seen mould come through so fast and thick. It is Black mould in the kitchen.
4. The kitchen is atrocious. Old units which fall apart when opened.
5. Biggest issue. Insufficient heating. I.e sometimes it won’t even switch on.

Everything bar the heating issue he knew about when I moved in. The heating was reported on 19/12/17 and someone came out the next day however it had decided to switch on. The engineer said oh well it’s on now. Told me the boiler probably needed a new pump and left.

Fast forward to spending a Christmas with a heater as it was temperamental again but would switch on and even eventually stayed on constantly for a week, the heater has broken and the heating started being temperamental again. It’s off more often than not. The engineer came out last Tuesday. Told me he restarted the boiler (as I have done before) and it came on. He told me again the boiler needed a new pump again and left.

I contacted the landlords son (who asked me if everything was alright) and I sent the list via WhatsApp and he printed off and handed to his dad. This was exactly 2 weeks ago. Obviously I had the engineer out who I am sure thinks I can’t work the heating! But, nothing else has been sorted. Like I said he knew of this as it was like this when I moved in and he was in here the day before I moved in cleaning everything.

Anyways. My question is how long should I wait? The back and forth with the heating is awful. Do you think he’s doing enough? Have I waited long enough for everything to be done?
He has also just turned up before and started getting some wood out of the garden without knocking or prior warning. (The back garden which has a ‘gate’ or just a piece of metal being held by some bricks!).

Please can anyone give advice?

Thanks.

Comms69

Have you got an address for serving notices? and if so, have you written there?

pmlindyloo

There is a procedure to follow about landlord who refuses to do repairs. Have a read of this and follow the procedure.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/repairs/what_to_do_if_your_landlord_wont_do_repairs

Is the landlord's son acting as his agent?

Have you got a tenancy agreement?

Has your deposit been protected?