Problems with Landlord

Tenant Discussion
1

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone has any advice on my below problems,

We’ve rented a house for 6 months starting December 2020 whilst we waiting for our house purchase to go through, likely before June 2021 when our 6 months is up

Since we’ve been in our house we’ve had loads of issues

Issue 1 - the “brand new boiler” broke within 2 months of us moving in leaving us without hot water or heating when it was below freezing outside. We rang the letting office and they sent one of their staff members round at 16:55 the same day (we called at 9am) for him to press a button and say “ I need to call the boiler company they close at 5 sorry” I assume this was so they look like they’ve done something within 24 hours as per the law. However the next day there was no response from the staff member, I text for 3 more days for him to respond “ give the boiler company a ring, number is” so they didn’t actually do anything and this nearly made us so ill from the cold

Issue 2 - the roof above the bay window leaks every time it rains, it’s been 5 months now since we’ve moved in and atleast once a month it rains enough for it to leak. We’ve contacted them several times and they send a builder round who knocks the door and says oh I’m going to do XYZ and then Goes away and the roof proceeds to leak again the next time it trains heavily. The ceiling is now stained and the paint is falling off and the carpet is like a damp stain. We can’t be held liable for this can we out of our deposit?

Issue 3- the garden is awful and needs completely redoing, the letting agent told us the landlord was getting this done in spring and not to touch it. Now it’s completely overgrown with weeds and our tenancy agreement says we need to keep the garden neat & tidy, should we remove all the weeds etc or should we leave it as the letting agent said?

I’m worried we have a dodgy landlord who is going to take our deposit for things we haven’t done and not fix any of the issues. TIA.

2

If you have the records of your complaints, emails, photos etc I would have thought you would have good evidence in your favour.
Do you have it in writing that the letting agent said to leave the garden?
The other option would be to strim it if it’s not beyond this.

3

As above make a formal complaint to the agent. If you don’t get satisfaction escalate it to whichever redress scheme hhey belong to. Sorry you had such a bad experience. Bad landlords and agents must be made to improve or leave the market.

4

Thank you both,

Originally they used to only answer phone calls but I told them I need email exchanges as I can’t always be ringing when I’m working so I have some of the complaints on email but some I have phone records. I have the texts regarding the boiler.

Unfortunately I don’t have the garden in writing, this is my first ever rental property due to the stop gap between property completion - guess I better get the strimmer out of storage!

If I don’t get the full deposit back I certainly will raise it and potentially look at making a claim against them for all the distress/ breaches. Just can’t believe this is allowed and people don’t look after their properties!

5

Good luck, agree it is disgusting behaviour and something I really do not understand as to why someone would not want to maintain what is an expensive investment.
You could send an email now about the garden, we are half way through spring so he still has time to fulfil the promise. State what you were told about the landlord sorting it out and also what you were told about not having to attend to it yourself until it was sorted. This may then count as evidence depending on the content of their reply.
If you do have phone calls in the future reiterate what was discussed in an email back to the agent.