Tenant in a dangerous property, advice please

Tenant Discussion Property Search
1

Good Evening

I would be grateful if anyone could give me some advice.

I was renting a house previously with many heating issues, leaks etc and when I raised this with the landlord they served me with a Section 21 (no fault) eviction notice claiming they had a family member moving in.

The only replacement in the area available at the time (August 2024) was a house in a lovely area but it appeared to me to be a bit of a DIY disaster zone. This time I went through an estate agent and she was very sympathetic towards my situation and assured me that I would be fine in this house and felt I had been unreasonably treated. She assured me this would not happen again.

Although the agent has been paid without fail every month like the last one, they have never had any complaints against me but really objected to any complaints . There are many issues, but I will highlight just a few.

Within days of moving in, a huge water leak was addressed, meaning removal of part of the ceiling and insulation. This ceiling repair has never been actioned despite numerous complaints. The agent said it “was not for want of trying” to get a builder to repair this, and other jobs!

The house has 9 night storage heaters but only 2 appear to work. Running these gave me an electric bill of over ÂŁ600 per month so I decided to use portable heaters and the wood burner until this was resolved.There are 3 rooms including the master bedroom with no heating whatsoever.

last January (now a year ago) I had an issue with the wood burner. The carbon monoxide alarm was going off and the rope on the door had perished. The flu had never been attached to the burner.

With the agent doing nothing, even after emails stating the danger, I was unable to get a HETAS engineer to look at it as it was not registered on the HETAS site or with the Council under any planning. The wood burner is newer than 2015 so would need a certificate.

The agent sent a chimney sweep out a month later, but he agreed the burner was “not right” and cleaned the chimney but was not prepared to get more involved. I now know that in reality, he shouldn’t have even touched it and should have condemned it .

After a year of 2 home visits by the agent and emails saying things like “we really must get on top of these repairs”, I sent them a firm email asking for the certification (they claim to have) for the wood burner and for the heating and other to be sorted out.

The agent called to say she had not read the email but was calling to say it was coincidental but she had to serve a Section 21 due to the landlord wanting the house back for a family member! She claimed she had not read the email and then went on to discuss her proposals to sort out the issues I raised!!

There is a wire in the shower exiting the wall into the ‘wet’ area and then into the electric shower unit. I really feel this is dangerous.

There are many other issues.

Now I know this house is a nightmare but I needed it as a stop gap before moving later this year. Due to previous experience, I didn’t want to be more of a nuisance than I was already, complaining about these dangerous issues for fear of eviction.

I have researched building control on the dangerous wood burner and discovered that there appears to be no wood burner listed. At the same time I noticed two applications for building control from 2004 and 2015 were never approved or signed off explaining some of the dangerous work carried out at the property.

I would ideally like the agent to provide me with like for like housing as this is not suitable for habitation but what are my rights?

Many thanks

2

Flue not attached to the burner? Wow . Did you not realised when you went in?

1 Like
3

The fire was not lit until i got some wood and was rather shocked at the electricity bill!

I am in disbelief that there are some really decent conscientious landlords but others don’t care and seem to get away with it!

4

I don’t have the knowledge to advise, but would suggest you Google retaliatory eviction for some research

5

Unfortunately,’unless I had reported it to the local Cpuncil Private Sector Housing prior to the notice, it cannot be considered retaliatory or revenge I believe.

Been here before!

6

An agent is going to provide you with anything, they have no responsibility to you. Your legal relationship is with the landlord only. for these safety matters you can report them to the council’s housing standards team and let them come and inspect and they can challenge the landlord probably more effectively than you can alone. As for the cost of heating, the property should have been advertised with an EPC certificate, the purpose of which is to give you some idea of the likely cost of heating it. If the house is able to hold a “healthy” (see HHRS) temperature then the cost of getting to that temperature is not taken into account unfortunately. You can review the HHRS guidelines that the council’s housing standards team follows. Getting the council involved will help with any retaliatory eviction claim you will make, but if they already issued the s21 before you got the council involved then it might be more difficult. But getting the council involved is the first step if you want any chance of staying put.

7

Storage heaters use cheaper night time electricity, so running 2 of them should not cost ÂŁ600 a month. You may be on the wrong tariff or they may have a fault or be coming on at the wrong times.

8

Thank you for the kind reply. Unfortunately the EPC is from several years ago and things have changed dramatically since then if this is to be considered current.

There are two outstanding extensions to the property which have never had building control signed off and are still showing as incomplete. These date from 2004 and 2015.

I can’t find any legal reason why a landlord cannot rent a property with a lack of building control assuming it is safe, but unsure on this?

I would welcome any more help?

Many thanks

9

There appears to be an issue with the storage heaters and I am having them tested today.

There appears to be only one tariff on the property so this is not economy 7

many thanks

10

Economy 7 is phased out because the radio signal the meters used is being switched off, and the house had an old economy 7 meter then it needs to be upgraded to a smart meter, and a controller (timer) will have to be fitted for the storage heaters. I imagine these are old storage heaters put in the 1970s when the government promoted storage and economy 7, and the landlord hasn’t dealt with the radio signal being switched off. They never worked well, I had them at home! So now the house is stuck with old storage heaters that don’t work well and you need to find the best tariff. However, you need to read the HHRS I told you about because if they cannot heat the house to a "not excessively cold” temperature then you have a claim. But you need to get council involved ASAP, do not try to deal with this yourself.

11

Whether safety, heating or building control, all this is down to the council’s housing standards team.