Black mould in a rental - what are my right?

HarryGray

Lover_of_Lycra said:

HarryGray said:

Thanks for the advice again. I did follow the procedures I was told to follow. My point is, my LL and agent are aware of the problem, they organised a damp specialist to see the house and now they are telling me they didn’t see the house. The procedures I was told to follow didn’t resolve a thing.

How am I meant to handle a lying estate agent? Is there a formal process for that lol?

The damp has resolved itself because it’s hot again, it only comes about in cold weather because of roofing problems, however, we CANNOT PROVE IT BECAUSE THE AGENT LIED ABOUT GETTING A DAMP SPECIALIST OVER AND NOW HAS DELAYED IT UNTIL SPRING SO THE WORST OF THE MOULD WOULD GO AWAY DUE TO WEATHER.

Very frustrating to keep being told on this thread that this is somehow my fault. ‘Farted’ around for 18 months lol, I followed the advice given and it’s ended up getting me nowhere apart from losing money. And now I’m being told just leave it, great!

The formal process, as per your other threads from back in 2018, involves escalating the matter to EH when the landlord fails to respond with a reasonable timescale.  Instead you waited 18 months to involve EH, not that they can do much during the lockdown, and signed a new fixed term contract. Lol.

I don't quite understand why the roofing issue only causes problems in cold weather.  I don't know which part of the UK you're in but I know where I used to live it still rained quite a lot during the warmer months too.  Hopefully EH will help get to the bottom of it once they are able to come out and investigate.

1) Appreciate the help but no one signed a new fixed term contract so not sure where you've got that from. It was 2 years to begin with.
2) Couldn't care less if EH fix it now as we are moving out in a few months.
3) Agent said that they had the damp specialist report from March but are refusing to give it to us and now claimed they never attended.

Seems the advice on this forum is just to do nothing but allow the agent to get away with it. Thanks for the advice, I will try anyway

[Deleted User]

HarryGray said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

HarryGray said:

Thanks for the advice again. I did follow the procedures I was told to follow. My point is, my LL and agent are aware of the problem, they organised a damp specialist to see the house and now they are telling me they didn’t see the house. The procedures I was told to follow didn’t resolve a thing.

How am I meant to handle a lying estate agent? Is there a formal process for that lol?

The damp has resolved itself because it’s hot again, it only comes about in cold weather because of roofing problems, however, we CANNOT PROVE IT BECAUSE THE AGENT LIED ABOUT GETTING A DAMP SPECIALIST OVER AND NOW HAS DELAYED IT UNTIL SPRING SO THE WORST OF THE MOULD WOULD GO AWAY DUE TO WEATHER.

Very frustrating to keep being told on this thread that this is somehow my fault. ‘Farted’ around for 18 months lol, I followed the advice given and it’s ended up getting me nowhere apart from losing money. And now I’m being told just leave it, great!

The formal process, as per your other threads from back in 2018, involves escalating the matter to EH when the landlord fails to respond with a reasonable timescale.  Instead you waited 18 months to involve EH, not that they can do much during the lockdown, and signed a new fixed term contract. Lol.

I don't quite understand why the roofing issue only causes problems in cold weather.  I don't know which part of the UK you're in but I know where I used to live it still rained quite a lot during the warmer months too.  Hopefully EH will help get to the bottom of it once they are able to come out and investigate.

1) Appreciate the help but no one signed a new fixed term contract so not sure where you've got that from. It was 2 years to begin with.
2) Couldn't care less if EH fix it now as we are moving out in a few months.
3) Agent said that they had the damp specialist report from March but are refusing to give it to us and now claimed they never attended.

Seems the advice on this forum is just to do nothing but allow the agent to get away with it. Thanks for the advice, I will try anyway

The advice on the forum has always been to follow out the correct process to report and escalate repairs.  You did not and now you are scrabbling around trying to claim compensation from your landlord.  I have already explained that it's letter before action and then court and for the to be successful you will need evidence.

HarryGray

Lover_of_Lycra said:

HarryGray said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

HarryGray said:

Thanks for the advice again. I did follow the procedures I was told to follow. My point is, my LL and agent are aware of the problem, they organised a damp specialist to see the house and now they are telling me they didn’t see the house. The procedures I was told to follow didn’t resolve a thing.

How am I meant to handle a lying estate agent? Is there a formal process for that lol?

The damp has resolved itself because it’s hot again, it only comes about in cold weather because of roofing problems, however, we CANNOT PROVE IT BECAUSE THE AGENT LIED ABOUT GETTING A DAMP SPECIALIST OVER AND NOW HAS DELAYED IT UNTIL SPRING SO THE WORST OF THE MOULD WOULD GO AWAY DUE TO WEATHER.

Very frustrating to keep being told on this thread that this is somehow my fault. ‘Farted’ around for 18 months lol, I followed the advice given and it’s ended up getting me nowhere apart from losing money. And now I’m being told just leave it, great!

The formal process, as per your other threads from back in 2018, involves escalating the matter to EH when the landlord fails to respond with a reasonable timescale.  Instead you waited 18 months to involve EH, not that they can do much during the lockdown, and signed a new fixed term contract. Lol.

I don't quite understand why the roofing issue only causes problems in cold weather.  I don't know which part of the UK you're in but I know where I used to live it still rained quite a lot during the warmer months too.  Hopefully EH will help get to the bottom of it once they are able to come out and investigate.

1) Appreciate the help but no one signed a new fixed term contract so not sure where you've got that from. It was 2 years to begin with.
2) Couldn't care less if EH fix it now as we are moving out in a few months.
3) Agent said that they had the damp specialist report from March but are refusing to give it to us and now claimed they never attended.

Seems the advice on this forum is just to do nothing but allow the agent to get away with it. Thanks for the advice, I will try anyway

The advice on the forum has always been to follow out the correct process to report and escalate repairs.  You did not and now you are scrabbling around trying to claim compensation from your landlord.  I have already explained that it's letter before action and then court and for the to be successful you will need evidence.

Explained this so many times. We wrote to the LL and agent about 5 times. They spent two months trying to organise a damp specialist. They organised a damp specialist and then said they didn't organise a damp specialist. What can you do? 

My point is its pretty hard to get proof, when the LL has lied about a damp specialist coming over to our house. That's the point I am making. I appreciate your advice nonetheless but it seems tough when the LL can get away with lying about reports etc 

[Deleted User]

Mickey666 said:

If I was in dispute with someone I wouldn’t want to rely on them providing evidence to be used against them.
Why didn’t you arrange your own independent damp survey?

The tenant doesn't need to, and in fact shouldn't, spend money on things like independent damp surveys.  One letter to the landlord at the address for the serving of notices.  Followed up by another letter if the landlord does not act after the first letter.  Then if the landlord still fails to act it's off to Environmental Health.

This damp issue appears to have been going on since August 2018.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5888698/what-is-reasonable-time/p1

csgohan4

HarryGray said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

HarryGray said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

HarryGray said:

Thanks for the advice again. I did follow the procedures I was told to follow. My point is, my LL and agent are aware of the problem, they organised a damp specialist to see the house and now they are telling me they didn’t see the house. The procedures I was told to follow didn’t resolve a thing.

How am I meant to handle a lying estate agent? Is there a formal process for that lol?

The damp has resolved itself because it’s hot again, it only comes about in cold weather because of roofing problems, however, we CANNOT PROVE IT BECAUSE THE AGENT LIED ABOUT GETTING A DAMP SPECIALIST OVER AND NOW HAS DELAYED IT UNTIL SPRING SO THE WORST OF THE MOULD WOULD GO AWAY DUE TO WEATHER.

Very frustrating to keep being told on this thread that this is somehow my fault. ‘Farted’ around for 18 months lol, I followed the advice given and it’s ended up getting me nowhere apart from losing money. And now I’m being told just leave it, great!

The formal process, as per your other threads from back in 2018, involves escalating the matter to EH when the landlord fails to respond with a reasonable timescale.  Instead you waited 18 months to involve EH, not that they can do much during the lockdown, and signed a new fixed term contract. Lol.

I don't quite understand why the roofing issue only causes problems in cold weather.  I don't know which part of the UK you're in but I know where I used to live it still rained quite a lot during the warmer months too.  Hopefully EH will help get to the bottom of it once they are able to come out and investigate.

1) Appreciate the help but no one signed a new fixed term contract so not sure where you've got that from. It was 2 years to begin with.
2) Couldn't care less if EH fix it now as we are moving out in a few months.
3) Agent said that they had the damp specialist report from March but are refusing to give it to us and now claimed they never attended.

Seems the advice on this forum is just to do nothing but allow the agent to get away with it. Thanks for the advice, I will try anyway

The advice on the forum has always been to follow out the correct process to report and escalate repairs.  You did not and now you are scrabbling around trying to claim compensation from your landlord.  I have already explained that it's letter before action and then court and for the to be successful you will need evidence.

Explained this so many times. We wrote to the LL and agent about 5 times. They spent two months trying to organise a damp specialist. They organised a damp specialist and then said they didn't organise a damp specialist. What can you do? 

My point is its pretty hard to get proof, when the LL has lied about a damp specialist coming over to our house. That's the point I am making. I appreciate your advice nonetheless but it seems tough when the LL can get away with lying about reports etc 

So instead of a single letter before action, you wrote to them a further 4 times, you didn't report them or follow procedure . So you didn't follow procedure then. If you did, what did EH have to say?

Op you need to read replies in its entirety and not skipping over what you don't want to hear

[Deleted User]

Mickey666 said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

Mickey666 said:

If I was in dispute with someone I wouldn’t want to rely on them providing evidence to be used against them.
Why didn’t you arrange your own independent damp survey?

The tenant doesn't need to, and in fact shouldn't, spend money on things like independent damp surveys.  One letter to the landlord at the address for the serving of notices.  Followed up by another letter if the landlord does not act after the first letter.  Then if the landlord still fails to act it's off to Environmental Health.

This damp issue appears to have been going on since August 2018.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5888698/what-is-reasonable-time/p1

Fair enough, though the tenant is then relying on EH.  My preference is always to be dependent on as few people/bodies as possible.  Armed with independent evidence of a problem, any sort of problem, puts the complainant in a stronger position to complain.  But you’re right that there’s no NEED to do this, especially if you’re prepared to let the issue run and run, as this one clearly has.

That’s correct. If the landlord fails to carry out a repair and EH then investigate and find the landlord to be at fault they can slap the landlord with an improvement notice to force the landlord to get it sorted. An independent damp survey wouldn’t achieve that. 

[Deleted User]

Mickey666 said:

An independent damp survey might not, of itself, 'force' the landlord to carry out the necessary repairs, but it would show them you're serious about pursuing the issue and they'd know that an EH notice won't be far away.  In this case, the OP has relied on emails to the agent/landlord and they've basically ignored them or fobbed them off with lame excuses (and, alledgedly, lies) with the result that nothing has been done for 18 months or so.  I imagine it's not uncommon behaviour for agents/landlords to behave in this way, basically hoping the complainant simply gives up.  I guess there are many ways to skin a cat, as the saying goes.

It just seems like an unnecessary step and therefore a delay to me when a tenant can go straight to EH.