Hi thank you for that.
This is certainly a confusing situation. Certainly not made easy by them.
As for the reference, we will ask them for one. Never had to ask for one before.
There is literally nothing here to buy and when it does come up it is gone for way over the odds. The only house nearby to buy which has been up for 6 months is 1.3 million.
Did the lottery last night but did not win. 
We have now received our section 21 notice. The landlord is citing that they want us out first then they are going to sell the property after we have left.
They have not supplied any evidence to back up their statement other than a mention that a home buyers survey will be supplied after we leave.
There was also mention that it would be fairer to all parties that they provide notice and not let us buy it.
Not sure of that logic.
Shelter and the CAB have both advised us to ask the landlords why there will be a long delay in providing evidence to back up the s21 notice.
As we are still waiting for them to solve the leaks and damp and mould we wrote back to them to ask when they plan to resolve the issues.
There are 18 items on the list they are clearly aware of, 5 of them they have looked at and found a quick fix for but have not resolved them fully. Like the low water pressure and the damage to our washing machine. They bought a new low pressure one but yet it also struggles with the low pressure and we have to keep topping up the machine manually to help it work otherwise it will just stop. Sigh.
Is there anything we should be asking them or need to do?
They cannot just pop over whenever they like. They have to give 24hrs notice unless its an emergency and then you have to agree to it or give a more appropriate date and time. No wonder private landlords have a bad reputation with people like that dragging down our good name. Always remember you have rights and don’t be afraid to use them. Most of us are good caring people who want our tenants to be Happy in their home and treat them with the dignity and respect we want for ourselves.
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The story drags on.
We wrote to the landlord requesting a timely resolve to the problems in the house, we suggested we get a third party surveyor involved or the council if that helped.
The landlord then sent an email, 10 days later, telling us a date and specific time their ‘damp specialist’ would come over.
They never asked us first just this date and time and that was it. Normally this would be OK as my wife is at home. Typically the date and time they chose coincided with us having to take our daughter to the hospital for tests.
We asked politely if it could be rescheduled as we wanted to be there. We were told it was unlikely and it did not matter as they had a key and would let themselves in.
I had the audacity to suggest they needed our permission before they just popped over and I received quite a lot of vitriolic emails back. One suggesting we we’re killing the male landlord with our emails and implying we we’re the cause of his heart condition. The last one was this.
“According to the repairing standard information here: The Repairing Standard - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) we are actually able to access the property with 24 hours notice, with or without your consent, but we would not have dreamt of exercising that right as we respect your right to quiet enjoyment. We haven’t asked to inspect the property once during your tenancy until recently when you asked us to resolve these issues. I would imagine the council would expect you to have given us the opportunity to investigate and where appropriate remedy any problems before referring matters to them, but whichever way you want to go is fine with us.”
What is rich is they have never respected our quiet enjoyment and never resolved the main health damaging issues in the house. Or bothered to investigate the other issues noting over 6 months ago.
And the so called time they asked to view the property was never actually a request, it was a musing they maybe should pop over and take a look. Not can we come over or would it be ok if we did.
They let themselves in only 3 days before to look at an electrical issue I had found. My wife was livid I let them come into the house.
Added to this I like the way they attempt to claim they have only just been made aware of these issues when throughout we have been telling them the problems.
One of their emails stated that as they have now issued a notice to leave they would rather wait until we have left to resolve the problems in the house. That’s when I suggested surveyor and council involvement.
My wife and I are so upset we want to change the locks.
Can they really do what they say?
Not if it were in England. I’m not familiar with the law in Scotland, but I doubt it. You need advice from Shelter Scotland.
Just called shelter they said they are wrong. They told me to refer the landlords to Section 22 of the rent of Scotland act 1984 sections 1 and 2.
Apparently once they been notified they cannot enter the property without our permission as it would end any implied access and would be classed as harassment if they do and we could call the police on them.
I know they will go mental if we send them such a notice but their threats and incinuations and lack of action to repair stuff has got to us.
So we have been waiting two weeks for them to reschedule their surveyors appointment and heard nothing back. I had to prompt them for and update as they suggested they wanted to inspect first, so three days ago they said that as a chimney sweep was already coming over they said they wanted to come round tomorrow at the same time.
Wife had a breakdown as she does not want the landlords wife in the house as she is awful and has been the one sending the threatening emails and is not a listed landlord or on the contract or appointed as agent.
I said the landlord could gain access but delicately suggested she was not welcome.
The landlords wife had a hissy fit and said that her ‘reasonable’ attempts at entry were being thwarted and as she was not invited they would not repair the damp and mould issues until we left the property.
Can they do that?
Her 'reasonable attempts were to threaten us with her entry with or without our consent.
My reply was to mention this and note the rent of Scotland act and her other unannounced visits and poor attitude.
I asked again if they were refusing to fix the items in the property and their reply was I was being too personal, ridiculous and we were causing the mould issues in the property becuase he claims we do not ‘ventilate’ the property. Though we have evidence we open the window daily and take photos of us doing this and record temperatures in the room and relative humidity, which is constantly at 72% even when the window is left open. It climbs up when it rains which then fogs out the window.
I gave them multiple dates and times to gain access to the property and suggested they pick one.
Then he claims he now has an operation at the hospital and cannot enter the property to inspect, but is able to go out for evening meals and have friends over the last few days. Every single time we give them the opportunity to come over and inspect their are issues which supposedly get in the way but blame us for the problems.
Shelter suggest forcing them to affect repairs by going to first tier tribunal.
What do you guys think?
We are still stuck trying to find other accomodation, we have currently no where to go within our price range.
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you are not getting anywhere with the landlord Sounds as if lack of somewhere else to rent at a decent price is keeping you there against your better judgement. Go to war thru the tribunal seems your only way
The landlord wrote back yesterday evening to now say they will not be visiting to property and wishes to now appoint his wife as agent, or a solicitor.
We have accepted the solicitor option as his wife has harrased us in the past.
This is fair right?
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Just call in the local Environmental Health Officer now. They will force the landlord to deal with the issue.
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OK. Deep breath. Here is an update.
We kept giving our landlord time to initiate repairs and delaying contacting the environmental health person.
We hired our own surveyor, as the landlords kept saying there was nothing wrong with the house.
The environmental health person and our surveyor came at the same time to visit. They both are in agreement that the house has serious health issues.
The landlord retorted with their surveyor they hired said there was nothing wrong with the house, though their surveyor spent 15 minutes at the house and did nor make any formal written documentation.
After quite a few emails from her, including one showing our daughters bedroom window, even though there was no formal inspection that day. And the landlord in our back garden without permission, sent my wife and daughter into stress mode.
We gave the landlord a deadline for repairs and received the usual delaying guff back peppered with alleged unfounded facts and allegations.
I then requested to only deal with their contractors in future and refused to give them any more time, or permission to contact me or my wife directly again.
Following the damming report, they have now, apparently, made a formal complaint to the Police I have alledgedly been harassing them.
Wow, if I thought the Landlady could not stoop any lower.
The I was told the landlady had contacted my bosses to say she had made a formal harassment claim against me, in some sort of weird attempt to get me sacked.
Yep she crossed a serious line today.
I have finally requested the environmental health person to step in and help us get the repairs done.
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You need legal advice at this point as the landlady contacting your bosses is definitely harassment and could lead to her being banned from letting property.
Have the Council said they will send the landlord an improvement notice?
The council have been waiting for us to give the go ahead.
He is currently on holiday until the 24th.
Poor guy. Having to deal with our Landlord and wifes mercurial behaviour.
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I would suggest you call Anthony Gold or JMW solicitors and get some advice on the actions of the landlady. The initial calls and advice should be free.
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Update. We kept giving the landlords the benefit of the doubt. Which as you can imagine. The landlords wife came round, unnanounced and talked to our 13 year old daughter. My wife was in bed convalessing her M.E. symptoms. I wrote to the council for help. It seems the landlords wife also works for the council as well. So as you can imagine, our complaints and request for help with the council went no where.
At at that point we finally threatened the first tier tribunal.
And no further direct contact from the landlords wife. She as you can imagine has ignored that in favour of threatening eviction, more false claims etc.
I cannot get this woman to stop harrasing us.
Then in an odd turn of events after my final email to them requesting them to cease and desist all direct contact.
I got a call from a pest control person, a plumber and a roofing contractor. Half of the things wrong with the house are allegedly being fixed this coming Monday.
Our notice to leave expires on the 16th of April and the Landlords wife has already threatened us twice in October and January that they are going to apply for a section 21.
There is no hint of them actually selling the house, which is their claim in the notice to leave. Also all they have been doing since giving us the notice last october is harrasing us and what seems like retaliatory eviction since all this started because we told them about issues with the house.
The paperwork for the first tier tribunal has been done but not sent. Some how the landlord seems to want to look like they are doing something now.
Not sure if, when I send the first tier tribunal claim for repairation that it will be watered down as they seem to be only now doing stuff.
All our landlord has done to date is try and force us to leave. Thankfuly we have all the emails and video and audio recordings of them doing this.
Just working so hard at the moment as we really want out of here as they are so unpleasant.