Deposit Return: Withholding Emergency Call Out Fee after Carbon Monoxide Incident

greatcrested

Making assumptions as to whether there is or is not a valid gas report is pointless.

If there is, the LL can't be accused of negligence or non-compliance with the law.

If there is not, he can!

Perhaps those baying for the LL's blood expect him to get the boiler checked every evening before the tenants go to bed, just in case a fault has developed during that day?

Ah- no, that would be an infringements of the tenants' Common Law right to quiet enjoyment and we'd all be advising the tenants to change the locks.....

The problem is that because the LL has (stupidly and unsympathetically) decided to try to deduct this call-out charge from the tenants' deposit, he is now categerised as 'an evil LL' who must be punished, sued and vilified for other possible but unsubstantiated faults.

Jeepers_Creepers

Whether the CO alarm worked or not - or whether the tenant is responsible for maintaining it - surely does not mitigate the responsibility on the LL for maintaining the boiler in a safe manner? Boilers do not  pump out CO for no good reason. The responsibility for not being poisoned does not sit on the lodger's shoulders (other than a reasonable duty of care - "Yes, the front of the boiler had fallen off and flames were coming out - so what?"). 

I'm also not saying that the LL is at fault; if he fulfilled his obligations (eg annual safety checks) then he's theoretically done his bit. BUT, had the OP's DD (what's 'DD' anyway?) actually died in this incident, then the cause and person responsible would almost certainly have been found; if the fault was 'obvious' and should have been picked up by the GasSafe, then he'd been in deep poo. Or had the LL employed a non-GasSafe for the job, then he'd be the one in the slammer. 

I'm gobsmacked the LL is trying this on - it looks as tho' he dodged a bullet. I'd challenge it. How? Dunno - how about threatening a Facebook article that'll be read by other students in the area? 

greatcrested

Jeepers_Creepers said:

Whether the CO alarm worked or not - or whether the tenant is responsible for maintaining it - surely does not mitigate the responsibility on the LL for maintaining the boiler in a safe manner? Boilers do not  pump out CO for no good reason. The responsibility for not being poisoned does not sit on the lodger's shoulders (other than a reasonable duty of care - "Yes, the front of the boiler had fallen off and flames were coming out - so what?"). 

I'm also not saying that the LL is at fault; if he fulfilled his obligations (eg annual safety checks) then he's theoretically done his bit. BUT, had the OP's DD (what's 'DD' anyway?) actually died in this incident, then the cause and person responsible would almost certainly have been found; if the fault was 'obvious' and should have been picked up by the GasSafe, then he'd been in deep poo. Or had the LL employed a non-GasSafe for the job, then he'd be the one in the slammer. 

As I  tried to demonstrate above, a LL can only do so much. If he complies with the law and has the boiler checked every year, how can he be accused of not "maintaining the boiler in a safe manner?". Only in 2 ways

1)  checking the boiler more frequently (rather, getting an engineer to check). Monthly? Weekly?....

2) responding to a report by the tenant that there is or may be a problem

1) is clearly both impractical and an infringment of Quiet Enjoyment

2) well yes - assuming the tenant informs him he should respond, but in this case there is zero suggestion of the tenant doing this.

As for

if the fault was 'obvious' and should have been picked up by the GasSafe, then he'd been in deep poo.

the gasSafe engineer would be in dep poo - not the landlord.

had the LL employed a non-GasSafe for the job, then he'd be the one in the slammer.

True - but again you are just theorising. There is zero suggestion that is the case here.

On the basis of what we have been told in this thread by the OP, the landlord has not been negligent, not broken the law, not done anything knowingly to put the tenant at risk, and cannot be blamed for the CO poisoning. Yes we can all sit here blaming him IF he did or did do XYZ, but that's how conspiracy theories and mob justice starts.

Reminds me of the pediatrician who was attacked by a mob after a local child had been molested. It only takes one idiot to say the wrong thing......

A_Lert

Well, one of two things has happened. Option 1, a boiler in perfectly good order developed a potentially lethal fault less than a year later. Or Option 2, the safety checks were fraudulent. My money's on option 2, just saying.

I would be reporting the poisoning now to just about everyone I felt relevant. If the landlord is above board and it was an unfortunate rapidly-developing fault, then no harm done. If this turns out to be a pattern of poor safety by the landlord - or a manufacturing or design fault in the boiler, or an incompetent gas engineer, or anything else that might be repeated - then it needs to be stopped.

After all, it's no exaggeration to say your daughter nearly died in this incident.

Chandler85

Assuming the CO alarm worked (as per inventory) and the boiler checked annually as required.  The landlord is doing what he can.

However, surely it is the nature of the fault, i.e. CO poisoning and not just "the hot water stopped but everything is safe still" that virtually compelled the landlord to act and get an emergency call out to fix the issue.  He is now disputing having to pay the call out charge (not the fix).  Given leaving a boiler leaking CO is definitely dangerous, and leaving it would in such a manner would be negligent, the landlord should pay the call out.

The nature of the fault required the emergency call out, as oppose to the tenants stomping their feet over not being able to get a shower, which would unlikely require an emergency call out.

mark55man

Thank you again - some nice words in the above posts.  I may be re-using them tomorrow as my DD and I reply to the LL rejection of our suggestion that this deduction should be un-deducted 

onwards&upwards

I'm not sure why everybody is focusing on the alarm. 

If the alarm had been in perfect working order, perfectly maintained and had gone off, that would still have needed an emergency callout, wouldn't it?  Its not something you can just ignore until working hours, and as I understand it turning off the gas appliances isn't always enough to make it safe.  

Therefore its irrelevant to the actual issue of the landlord trying to charge for this. 

AdrianC

onwards&upwards said:

If the alarm had been in perfect working order, perfectly maintained and had gone off, that would still have needed an emergency callout, wouldn't it?  Its not something you can just ignore until working hours, and as I understand it turning off the gas appliances isn't always enough to make it safe.  

CO is the result of gas combustion.

Yes, a leak of unburnt gas won't stop if you turn the boiler off - but that's not what happened here. What happened was a leak of exhaust gases, post-combustion. Turn the boiler off, no combustion, no gas entering the boiler. No CO leak.

If there was a leak of unburnt gas, even with the boiler turned off, then you wouldn't call a boiler engineer - you'd call the National Gas Emergency number, 0800 111 999.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/help-and-support/breakdowns/gas-leaks

So, no, a CO leak is not an emergency - because you just turn the boiler off. The emergency in this case came about because of the effects on the occupant of the undetected CO leak.