Landlord-behaving badly, please help!

guppy

Never use the phone for anything like this. Complete waste of time. They've forgotten you by the time the time handset hits the receiver. No evidence you ever called.

I don't recommend you withhold rent. No offence, but your original post already suggests you don't have much experience of using the law to stand up for yourself.

Do what has been suggested above, write to the LL requesting he fulfil his obligations under the contract. No point in getting too aggressive when you've effectively never used the nice approach first. (Phone doesn't count, agency probably never even told LL).

Start keeping notes of everything, put all correspondence in writing. Personally I never waste money on recorded delivery unless time is of the essence, just keep copies and if you don't get a reply in a week, just send another letter, much cheaper. The courts know the postal system is reliable, just try not paying your council tax for a couple of months.

Good luck anyway, everyone gets shafted once, let this be the last time

thesaint

guppy wrote: »

Personally I never waste money on recorded delivery unless time is of the essence, just keep copies and if you don't get a reply in a week, just send another letter, much cheaper. The courts know the postal system is reliable, just try not paying your council tax for a couple of months.

Recorded delivery is not given any priority over bog-standard mail.
So it saves no time.

Apart from that, I agree with you.

guppy

thesaint wrote: »

Recorded delivery is not given any priority over bog-standard mail.
So it saves no time.

I didn't mean it saves time getting there Just means you can prove it arrived by a certain date if that's important The personal touch always works well too

thesaint

guppy wrote: »

I didn't mean it saves time getting there Just means you can prove it arrived by a certain date if that's important The personal touch always works well too

That's if it is signed for, and that is a big if.

dunnomate

Sometimes I wish there was a real alternative to Royal Mail !

cheers

simhar

Debt_Free_Chick

guppy wrote: »

Personally I never waste money on recorded delivery unless time is of the essence, just keep copies and if you don't get a reply in a week, just send another letter, much cheaper. The courts know the postal system is reliable ...

But do get a certificate of posting, with the address of the recipient on it. That way, you can prove you sent it. Otherwise you're in no different a position to the phone call for which there is no proof of it ever having taken place

clutton_2

courts generally accept that the royal mail works and that mail does get delivered first or second class. folks can refuse to sign for a recorded delivery. alternatively you can deliver by hand with an independent witness watching you and willing to sign a "Statement of truth" about what they witnessed as a court statement.

betterlatethannever

Thanks for all your comments.
I finally managed to get hold of the agent by phone, and he admitted he'd received my previous messages and emails but gave no reason as to why he hadn't acted on them or contacted me.
He said someone will be round soon to do the boiler. He sounded in such a bad mood that i didn't mention the tv aeriel (i'm a wimp, i know)
I'll do as advised and give it two weeks to get done before i consider what to do next.
Thanks again for all the help.