Terminating tenancy early

Dan97

So I have one of those nasty student tenancy agreements that says I have to pay the estate agents rent for a year. Personally I don't really want to go down that road anymore as I'll end up broke. So I have concocted a plan, my question is will it work?

Essentially the showers have been broken for months, they leak from our top floor to our ground floor through the light fitting (banter). On no less than 3 separate occasions I have emails from 3+ months ago saying that they 'promise to send an engineer round to fix the problems'.

Long story short they didn't, I used that as an excuse to tell them I'd like to end my tenancy at the end of next month, they said 'hahaha no' and have now stopped replying to me (they actually said no and that they'd send an engineer round to fix the problems).

Believe it or not, nobody has been round to fix the showers. Could I now terminate my tenancy due to *OP looks up law he has very little understanding of* 'material breech' of contract and give them notice that I want to leave at the end of next month and then give them the keys back and stop paying rent before saying 'good luck suing me for rent'?

Or must I continue to suffer under this !!!!!! tenancy I want out of and go down the environmental health agency route to at least have functional showers?

System

The property has to conform to the Fit for Human Habitation legislation if it doesn't the landlord could end up in court. On that basis you may be able to get out early but will need to involve the local authority

Slithery

Dan97 wrote: »

So I have one of those nasty student tenancy agreements that says I have to pay the estate agents rent for a year.

You mean a standard 12 month tenancy without a break clause, there's nothing 'nasty' or 'student' about it. Many millions of tenants all around the UK are perfectly happy with them.

Could I now terminate my tenancy due to *OP looks up law he has very little understanding of* 'material breech' of contract and give them notice that I want to leave at the end of next month and then give them the keys back and stop paying rent before saying 'good luck suing me for rent'?

No. Not until environmental health order him to do the work and he doesn't comply.

Or must I continue to suffer under this !!!!!! tenancy I want out of and go down the environmental health agency route to at least have functional showers?

Yes.

Dan97

Thanks, shouldn't take them too long to ignore them as well, these ones seem more incompetent than before.

I suppose they aren't nasty (just a rip-off for a !!!!! service), more the estate agents that take advantage of students by not following the tenancy agreements are nasty.

Slithery

Dan97 wrote: »

more the estate agents that take advantage of students by not following the tenancy agreements are nasty.

How have the agency not stuck to the tenancy agreement? You didn't mention this earlier. The agents are simply that, agents. Anything they do is the legal responsibility of the LL.

When did you first write a proper letter (ie paper, envelope, stamp) reporting these issues to the address for serving notices that's outlined in your tenancy agreement?

Dan97

Well minus the informal phone calls etc (which were on the 1st day albeit very little I can do with this as there is no proof), the first time I have a record of me telling them this (via that special delivery by 1pm service - the 9am is a bit pricey, also a little annoying that the PO didn't have any special delivery stamps so I had to use a ton of value ones) was at this point over 4 months ago. I have 3 replies from then telling me that the issue will be sorted 'tomorrow'.

Apparently now they are only just carrying out an assessment. Although the assessment that they said would be carried out last week has not materialised.

The tenancy agreement very clearly (and even if it didn't estate agents do have a responsibility to ensure the LL does carry out emergency repairs) that they must carry out emergency repairs within a 'reasonable' amount of time.

I feel like water mixing with electricity every time one of the tenants touches the showers/light switch constitutes an emergency (the showers leak thru the light fitting to the room below - which cuts power to the house).

*Edit as a side note: I forgot to mention that the tenancy agreement says that the estate agents are essentially taking on the role of the landlord.