Landlord-behaving badly, please help!

MrShed

jerb, I am not insisting on an aggressive approach. As a balanced advising forum, I feel it is wrong to rule it out as an option.

TJ27

As a council officer I regularly ask for landlords to produce a CP12 gas safety certificate and most of the time I get one. It's probably a good idea to phone your council in the first instance. However, I think I'm correct in saying that the enforcing authority is actually the HSE. So a quick call to the HSE may also be worthwhile.

sooz

TJ27 - what is your councils policy on enforcing SI1903 on section 257 managers? I have been calling my council, who say they no longer have any powers to enforce this. I cannot believe that this is true.

jebervic

MrShed wrote: »

jerb, I am not insisting on an aggressive approach. As a balanced advising forum, I feel it is wrong to rule it out as an option.

Its an ill advised approach in my view, the process can be very stressful for ALL concerned, with the ultimate mandatory risk of eviction, also the loser could end up paying all the costs.

Shelter has clear step by step advice on how to deal with disrepair issues, they don't reccomend witholding rent, although a final step will involve getting the repair done and deducting it from the rent.

MrShed

As I say, it is still an option, and sometimes the only option available.

It is wrong for us to entirely rule it out, as there will clearly be some circumstances where it is advisable or even required. I did state several times that it has to be used extremely carefully, and as a last resort.

TJ27

sooz wrote: »

TJ27 - what is your councils policy on enforcing SI1903 on section 257 managers? I have been calling my council, who say they no longer have any powers to enforce this. I cannot believe that this is true.

I think that's a bit of English law to do with licensing and management of HMOs. Being in Wales I don't really know much about it I'm afraid. However, we do have a very wide rangeing set of HMO Management regs for which no notice exists. So you might think that the regs are not enforceable. This is not the case. We are in fact able to prosecute landlords for not complying with the management regs without serving a notice, and in some cases without even writing a letter. And we have in fact done so. Quite recently a colleague of mine visited an extremely poorly managed house and simply went straight to prosecution. No notice, no warning, straight to court!

Perhaps the English have no notice either? "Wn I ddim". (Dunno)

sooz

sorry - different country!


I was told that they have enforcement powers against licensable Hmos, but none so far against non-licensable ones. Apparently there is a new bill they are trying to pass at the end of November, but i find it strange that they can pass new legislation, and not have the power to enforce it.


will continue to pester my local council & dept of local govt, communities and other ********

jebervic

MrShed wrote: »

As I say, it is still an option, and sometimes the only option available.

It is wrong for us to entirely rule it out, as there will clearly be some circumstances where it is advisable or even required. I did state several times that it has to be used extremely carefully, and as a last resort.

My last post on this, why is it a last resort, surely if you have taken the legitimate steps of allowing the landlord to complete the repairs in a given time and he/she doesn't do them, why withhold rent and put yourself at risk of eviction (and ultimately making yourself homeless) surely its best to do the repairs yourself and deduct it from the rent?.

MrShed

Which is what I said? I'm sorry jerb but with respect have you even read my original post? I have the entire time been talking about the right of offset to perform repairs and withhold the amount of the repair from the rent!

TJ27

Does this help?

http://www.lacors.gov.uk/lacors/ContentDetails.aspx?id=16973

It looks like it's not that it's not enforceable but that it simply doesn't apply to non licensable HMOs. And S257s aren't manadatory licensable.

(Well, some of it does apply but most of it doesn't.)