Update on friends situation with dodgy landlord. More advice required please.

swingaloo

I have posted before about 6 months ago on behalf of these friends but to save people wading through pages of replies Ive started this one to get advice on another issue.

Brief background-
. Their landlord has threatened to sell the house but cannot serve valid notice due to several factors, no deposit protected, no Gas Safety Certificate since moving in  nearly 4 years ago, none of the legally required paperwork given at start of tenancy etc.
Friends don't want to move for a lot of reasons and cant find another property locally which fits their needs. They are elderly and disabled and they are hoping the house would be sold to another landlord although they accept that this may not happen and they may have to move.
Despite several letters, email, and text messages telling them they have to leave/house is going on market etc nothing has happened for 6 months.
They know the landlord is in severe financial trouble . Since moving into the house lots of promises have been made to do repairs but they have never happened.

Now the new issue I need advice on please-
They have several repairs which need doing but the landlord ignores every letter they send and they have not seen him for over a year now. I have looked on the Shelter website which says that after you follow a set procedure (sending letter/notification/estimates etc to landlord) you can arrange to have repairs done yourself and then take the cost from the rent but, it does not clarify what type of repairs would be covered by this.
So the question- The particular repair they want to get done is a window at the back of the house. At the moment its not broken or allowing a draught in. It is a 3 panel window on the kitchen and all 3 panels are blown to the point that you cannot see though the glass on any panel. One of the panels is letting water into the cavity between the panes of glass and because of the weather we have had lately it is gradually filling up more and more. Its now about 2/3 of the way up and they are afraid that the pressure of the water is 
going to make the glass crack and they are going to lose the window. Would such a repair be classed as 'urgent'  and be acceptable as a reason to get the repair done and charged to the landlord if he will not sort it?
The landlord has been made aware of all this but he is not responding at all, probably trying to drive them out.

NewShadow

swingaloo said:

they have not seen him for over a year now. I have looked on the Shelter website which says that after you follow a set procedure (sending letter/notification/estimates etc to landlord) you can arrange to have repairs done yourself and then take the cost from the rent but, it does not clarify what type of repairs would be covered by this.

Where abouts are you/they in the country? 

At the moment its not broken or allowing a draught in.

A preventative act is, by default, not a 'repair'

AdrianC

swingaloo said:

So the question- The particular repair they want to get done is a window at the back of the house. At the moment its not broken or allowing a draught in. It is a 3 panel window on the kitchen and all 3 panels are blown to the point that you cannot see though the glass on any panel. One of the panels is letting water into the cavity between the panes of glass and because of the weather we have had lately it is gradually filling up more and more. Its now about 2/3 of the way up and they are afraid that the pressure of the water is going to make the glass crack and they are going to lose the window. Would such a repair be classed as 'urgent'  and be acceptable as a reason to get the repair done and charged to the landlord if he will not sort it?

No, it's not urgent.

The chances of the amount of water inside the unit breaking the glass are somewhere around zero. Let's do some maths...

How big is the pane, anyway?

kingfisherblue

I don't know whether all councils have them, but where I live, there is a department in te council that helps with problems in private lets. They can inspect the house and compel the landlord to bring the property up to certain standards. I appreciate that things may be more complicated with the landlord not having Gas safe certificate etc, but it might be worth checking to see if the council can help.

Morbier

I'm very sorry to hear of your friends' predicament.  I think they need to face the hard truth and that they are going to have to move at some point.  While there is no immediate rush to move (i.e. no Section 21 for example) then they can take a bit more time.  Why don't they contact their local council and apply for housing?  From what you say, they are of an age where they would qualify for a bungalow and, if they are disabled, then they would be given a higher priority. 

I am a long-term renter and there is no way I would put up with such a landlord and certainly wouldn't spend any money making repairs - from what you say, they're not likely to get it refunded.

I don't think waiting for the landlord to do something is an option in this particular case.

greatcrested

So sounds like they can't be evicted as no S21 would be valid. Even if selling, the LLcould not evict, so only another LL would buy : no owner-occupier would buy a property with tenants in occupation.

The gas report is worrying. Put aside that it invalidates any S21 - an inspection is needed for the tenants' safety. See HSE here for enforcement.

My own view is that a blown double glazed window is not an urgent repair. I lived (in my own house) with one for 10 years before finally replacing the window. The only inconvenience was a blurry/restrictd view. However,in this case with water filling up the space I believe that is more significant, and warrants repair enforcement.

The tenants have two options.

1) follow the Shelter process. They must follow every single step meticulously. Furthermore, I suspect it will require complete replacement, so they'll need suficient funds for this. They'll also have to ensure the replacement closely matches the original and/or or other windows.

The risk is that the landlord claims the rent witheld constitutes arrears, and thies to evict on that basis. The tenants would then have to hope the court agreed with them, not the landlord, that the repair and process followed was justified.

2) contact the Private Tenancy Officer (if any) and/or Environmental Health at the council. If they deem it sufficiently seriously, they can serve an improvement notice on the landlord.

kev25v6

Why repair anything? The landlord sounds like he has no money so needs to sell, why should your friend think they can just decide they are staying and it doesn’t matter what happens to the landlord? They will be evicted at some point so why not start looking elsewhere now before they get the stress of court cases and bailiffs and extra costs when they can do the decent thing and not try and bankrupt the person who’s house they are living in. 

diggingdude

kev25v6 said:

Why repair anything? The landlord sounds like he has no money so needs to sell, why should your friend think they can just decide they are staying and it doesn’t matter what happens to the landlord? They will be evicted at some point so why not start looking elsewhere now before they get the stress of court cases and bailiffs and extra costs when they can do the decent thing and not try and bankrupt the person who’s house they are living in. 

By the sounds of it they won't be evicted for a LONG time

dimbo61

I can only hope your friend is paying very cheap rent ?
Landlord is an !!!!!! by not looking after there investment and carrying out the legal duties of being a Landlord 
IE Gas Safe certificate ! 
Contact the environmental health department of your local council.
New rules coming into effect in April may require the Landlord to do even more work to make the property habitable.
In the mean time Sit tight and if your friend does receive any contact Ask how much will you pay us to move out.
Full return of deposit plus a compensation for not doing his job

dimbo61

Your friend can sue Landlord for not protecting the deposit

swingaloo

kev25v6 said:

Why repair anything? The landlord sounds like he has no money so needs to sell, why should your friend think they can just decide they are staying and it doesn’t matter what happens to the landlord? They will be evicted at some point so why not start looking elsewhere now before they get the stress of court cases and bailiffs and extra costs when they can do the decent thing and not try and bankrupt the person who’s house they are living in. 

Thank you for the reply but to clarify a few points. Firstly they will not be evicted, they have never been a day late with rent and there can be no valid notice served.

As for doing the decent thing for the landlord! 
This is a landlord who has misled them and cheated them for over 3 years. For the first 12 months he was great and because he seemed such a nice guy and kept reassuring them that they would be long term tenants (this house is my child's  inheritance etc, etc) they had new flooring/carpets/tiling all done at their own expense. They repaired a lot of damage done by the previous tenants themselves to save the landlord the bother. 
This is a landlord who recently let them spend over £1000 of their own money (which he said he would refund to them but never did) damp proofing and pointing the outside of the house to make one of the rooms habitable for the winter after the landlord said he was too ill to do the work at the moment. Bear in mind that he is a builder by trade. He also knew at that point that he was going to put the house up for sale but still let them go ahead and do the repairs at their own expense. They emailed him to say the work had been done and mentioned at the same time that they were decorating right through before Xmas to which he replied that he appreciated that they were taking such good care of the property. Then 4 weeks later he tells them he is selling and gives them 4 weeks to leave!
This is a landlord who has had bailiffs at their door because he had been sued by an unhappy customer twice. He has also folded his business twice and then started up again under a new name to avoid debt.
He has a current court case going on now with another customer suing him. He still uses my friends address as his business address. 
This is a landlord who has let them live with dodgy electrics for 3 years, he got an inspection and report done a month after they moved in but said he could not get the work done until the following summer which was over 2 years ago and it is still not done
despite the fact that he has his own electricians working for his company.
On top of that he has taken over £1500 from a lady in the village for materials and building work he has never started . This happened over 12 months ago and she is still trying to get her money back.
He is driving round in a van which has not had a valid MOT for 10 months and deleted the phone number from the side of the van so people cannot contact him.
He is the true definition of a cowboy builder and cares nothing for the safety of his tenants so perhaps they don't feel obliged to 'do the decent thing'.