Suing Landlord for compensation

Seansmit17

But how much is reasonable?

Long story short, I have lived in a rented flat for a little over 6 months with no hot water, and it has taken me to get in touch with the landlord my self vs via the management company to get it fixed. This is not fault of the management company but of the landlord. I have gotten information from them showing that they have repeatedly tried to contact him to sort the hot water with him not returning calls or saying he was going to sort it him self with his own contractor but then done nothing. 

I am preparing to take him to court and sue him for compensation. As it stands the hot water is due to be repaired tomorrow with the fitting of a new tank and pipe work.
I was planning on asking for £1500 in total for 1. No hot water for 6 months and paying full rent for a flat that has not got working hot water and for the inconvenience of having to live without it as well as the stress of trying over and over to get it fixed.

If anyone wants more info I can post full details of whats been happening if it would help.

I am planning to write to the landlord to try and settle this without court action and planning on asking him to pay the compensation to me and if he does I will not take court action and I will vacate the flat within 30 days as lets me honest, I do not want to rent from a landlord who wont keep on top of repairs, and its not just my flat, he owns this block of 5 flats and other tenants have been waiting for repairs as well.

Thanks for reading.

SpiderLegs

You don’t get compensation for stress and inconvenience.

unforeseen

As you presumably had the means to generate hot water E.G. kettle, pans etc then you have been slightly inconvenienced

Seansmit17

What about being in breach of the Tenancy agreement.

So your gonna tell me that 6 months with no hot water and my recourse is.. nothing. Thanks

SpiderLegs

Seansmit17 said:

What about being in breach of the Tenancy agreement.

So your gonna tell me that 6 months with no hot water and my recourse is.. nothing. Thanks

No your recourse is to be recompensed for your financial loss.
What is it?

Clearly you’ve put up with it for six months without at any point thinking about suing or compensation or using the correct process to enforce repairs. 

If it was me I’d have had environmental health/council involved in a week. And there’d have been no rent payments going anywhere.

tom9980

Seansmit17 said:

What about being in breach of the Tenancy agreement.

So your gonna tell me that 6 months with no hot water and my recourse is.. nothing. Thanks

There is a set procedure to deal with repair obligations, you don't mention this at all which tells me you did not do it. This likely will make it impossible to make a compensation claim and the most you would get would be a gesture of goodwill.

[Deleted User]

If anything you should offer to pay MORE to the landlord for such a unique opportunity for personal growth.  Because once you have mastered cold showers, you'll have mastered the mind itself!  And if tomorrow's engineer is cancelled - look at it as a blessing.  More time to develop superpowers!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dlCOYBKCKo

 

2bFrank

You can only sue for material costs for something like this. Is the property using central heating? if so you could sue for the extra costs of getting and running electric heaters. You will need to demonstrate you have occurred these costs but shouldn't be a too big of an issue.

In regards to bathing, if the shower isn't electric, i.e relies on your hot water, then maybe you could argue it has costs you more to get a bath by boiling kettles, pans etc and presuming your property has a bath. This will be a difficult argument though, as a warm shower is a comfort not a necessity, an exception to this will be if you have a baby or small children, as this would be reasonable to expect them to have a warm bath.

You are properly looking at around a couple of hundred at a very big push and you can prove you have had out of pocket expense, heating will be the biggest chunk of this. If you property uses electric heaters and has an electric shower, then i'm sorry but there isn't a lot you can claim for.

Comms69

Seansmit17 said:

But how much is reasonable?

Long story short, I have lived in a rented flat for a little over 6 months with no hot water, and it has taken me to get in touch with the landlord my self vs via the management company to get it fixed. This is not fault of the management company but of the landlord. - you seem confident about that. But it's not relevant. your contract is with the landlord. I have gotten information from them showing that they have repeatedly tried to contact him to sort the hot water with him not returning calls or saying he was going to sort it him self with his own contractor but then done nothing. - irrelevant

I am preparing to take him to court and sue him for compensation. - no you're not. Because you dont have the fundamental understanding of the law required to do this As it stands the hot water is due to be repaired tomorrow with the fitting of a new tank and pipe work. - sounds like a big job 
I was planning on asking for £1500 in total for 1. No hot water for 6 months and paying full rent for a flat that has not got working hot water and for the inconvenience of having to live without it as well as the stress of trying over and over to get it fixed. - What loss have you suffered - financially. Because you've just picked a figure from the air. 

If anyone wants more info I can post full details of whats been happening if it would help. - it wont 

I am planning to write to the landlord to try and settle this without court action - that's good, as you have to do that...  and planning on asking him to pay the compensation to me and if he does I will not take court action and I will vacate the flat within 30 days as lets me honest, I do not want to rent from a landlord who wont keep on top of repairs, and its not just my flat, he owns this block of 5 flats and other tenants have been waiting for repairs as well. 

Thanks for reading.

Only do this if you want to give the landlord a good laugh

jon81uk

Some great advice here https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/repairs/what_to_do_if_your_landlord_wont_do_repairs

Did you ever contact the council?

macman

Hot water is considered a fundamental necessity in a domestic property, so you really should have got EH at your LA involved at a much earlier stage if he refused to repair. If there were good reasons why not, then he should have rehoused you.
However, your compo must be based on your actual quantifiable losses, not mental anguish etc and 'punishing the LL'. So, you could claim, for example, pre-lockdown, for the daily cost of taking a shower down at the local pool, and your bus fare there. And for the extra cost of electrically heating water to wash up. These are just examples, but the point is that you can't just pluck a figure, any figure, out of thin air. The court will expect to see reasonable claims, backed with reasonable evidence. The fact that you are asking if £1.5K is OK shows that you have made no attempt to calculate your actual losses.
And, whatever else you do, don't confuse this with the issue of giving notice: your original notice period applies, regardless of any maintenance dispute. If you give him just 30 days and he accepts, then that cannot simply be withdrawn, and you may find yourself homeless.