Bath cracked in rented property.

[The Halk]

You should hold up your end of a contract even if the other party does not. Then you have a leg to stand on. In this kind of situation the sane advice has to be to continue behaving professionally even if they are not.

That's true. However while they're flagrantly in breach of contract I don't know what the right thing to do is. I also hope (although I have no illusions) that it'd be reasonable to not pay rent while they do something ridiculous such as not maintain the property.

I'm pretty sure tenants have no such right, and there's no remedy available for bad landlords... but I might as well ask

 

[LOAM]

There are certain hoops you have to jump through before withholding rent. A tenant has a right to offset rent if you paying someone else to fix something but you need to be really careful as being in arrears is grounds for eviction. You have to follow the process through and serve notice that you are using rental to pay for the repair of a item that is the landlords responsibility to maintain. You must allow a reasonable time for that repair to be undertaken by the landlord also.

All in all its a last resort situation that is better being avoided if at all possible.

I just phoned them quoting the housing act which stated baths must be kept in a state of repair, she then said does it say anything about tennants damaging the bath - gggrrrr, anyway after a bit more agueing she said she would phone the landlord... belvoir lettings - avoid if you can when renting.

Did you remind her that it was listed as a pre existing fault and thus not damaged by the current tenant ?

 

[Xordium]

I'm pretty sure tenants have no such right, and there's no remedy available for bad landlords...

It's because it's completely unregulated in this country, unlike the continent, and then everyone wonders why everyone wants to own property. Because the alternative is hardly desirable for anyone to have any degree of security of where they live. You can't withhold the rent though they'll take a very dim view of that.

 

[dal]

Bear in mind that my tennancy ends next month anyway so there is only one more payment due to go out ( 20th ).
I dont think I will hold the rent back and the deposit is held in a deposit scheme.

 

[The Halk]

There are certain hoops you have to jump through before withholding rent. A tenant has a right to offset rent if you paying someone else to fix something but you need to be really careful as being in arrears is grounds for eviction. You have to follow the process through and serve notice that you are using rental to pay for the repair of a item that is the landlords responsibility to maintain. You must allow a reasonable time for that repair to be undertaken by the landlord also.

All in all its a last resort situation that is better being avoided if at all possible.

Hmm, yeah. I'm pleased to hear it's at least there... I'm a bit of a psycho when it comes to things like this and I can't remember a time where I've not 'won'.

I'd be telling the agency that I wanted it in writing that they were refusing to maintain the property and see where they went from there...

However in this case I think time needs to be given for the agency to come back with the landlord's comments on it.

Consumer law enforcement in the UK is pretty toothless and there's almost never any punitive side to it. It's 'good practice' for a company to refuse to do what they legally have to until they're forced to do it, because they have nothing at all to lose. If I ran things I'd have Trading Standards mystery shopping for things like this, and hammering companies who failed with crippling fines.

 

[antijoke]

When I rented through a letting agent I found going down in person to their shopped had better results than phone/email.

Unless you were tap dancing in it (pun intended) I can't see how this is your fault

Could you tell by the pixels?

 

[LOAM]

Bear in mind that my tennancy ends next month anyway so there is only one more payment due to go out ( 20th ).
I dont think I will hold the rent back and the deposit is held in a deposit scheme.

If your deposit is held then its safe, they cant simply take it and fabricate mythical damage as was often the case prior to 2007. If they do claim damage and wish to withhold deposit you can contest it and allow it to go to an arbitrator within the deposit holding scheme. Its basically safe though from unscrupulous landlords / letting agents.

 

[Slade2]

I rented a house from Belvoir and to be honest is wasnt that bad but I think they are a francise estate agent so if you have the money you can have the name so I would imagine they are not all bad.

If your tenacy is coming to an end have you informed them you are leaving? becuase they might assume you are intending to stay there if you dont tell them.

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

I just phoned them quoting the housing act which stated baths must be kept in a state of repair, she then said does it say anything about tennants damaging the bath - gggrrrr, anyway after a bit more agueing she said she would phone the landlord... belvoir lettings - avoid if you can when renting.

Once they get tricky it's far better to write to them. I have had a troublesome agent in the past and one of their favourite tricks would be to simply deny phones call had ever happened. I'd write to them simply stating that the bath has failed where it has previously been repaired, and that if the issue isn't resolved in 5 days (for minor issues you should give them longer) you will be contacting the landlord directly.

You have to bare in mind your contract is still with the landlord, not the agent. If the agent are not doing their job go over their head, simples.

 

[King Damager]

FATTTTTTTTY!

I jest.

I'd imagine they should be the ones to sort it out. Write a letter. Letters are much more formal.

kd

 

[Ace Modder]

Cheers for the responses guys, I'll either pop down tomorrow or go to citizens advice, I'm fed up with this letting agent, she speaks to me like dirt as well.
On a seperate note my tennancy ends 26th next month my rent is £425 and the deposit I had to put down is £637, I'm wondering wheather it would be a idea to just not pay the last months rent and let them take it out of my deposit, that way the most they can screw me for is £212, not that I've done any damage to the property but I just can see them picking up on the slightest of things.

Do not do that. As the letting agent will find more issues and will try to take you to court if they manage to find a way to show that their are any faults, no matter how minor.

I assume that your letting agent took photos when u moved in, so I suggest you do the same when you move out (once all your gear has been moved) showing that its in the same/similiar state as when you moved in.

My last letting agent verbally confirmed that I could replace the hall/stair carpet as my wife tipped a tin of paint down the stairs when repainting the walls as the magnolia paint was slightly dirtier after being in the house for almost 5 years. Anyway the carpet was not an exact match to the other carpets in the house, and when we moved out the agent tried to deny all knowledge of any agreement to replace the carpet (better than leaving it covered in paint). 2 months after the new carpets were fitted, then the letting agent tried to screw us for £150 to replace the new carpet -which looked as new - claiming they didnt authorise it and the carpet didnt match the same carpet previously fitted into the whole house from when we move in almost 5 years earlier! (similiar colour but not identical)

Luckily I let the government run company who hold your deposit for disputes have a copy of the photo's of the house when we left ( I didnt tell the letting agent I had these) and they sided with me and the letting agents lost the dispute. (There were other things they tried to do similiar also - they basically tried to get £500 of my £650 deposit as "wear and tear" usage. They ended up with £50 overall which I deemed was fair and that was to weed the front and rear gardens as it was a litttle overgrown due to moving in December and not doing any garden work since September due to the time of year!.

In fact my thread was here. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=21099790&postcount=45

The letting agent tried to get £300 from me for that! What a joke!

 

[J.B]

Could you tell by the pixels?

Turns out I didn't have a back garden, was just a picture stuck to the back door

 

[Tyron]

Go down to the letting agent, if they refuse tell them you will pay for the repairs and will deduct it from the rent.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

How was the bath repaired? I have never seen anyone actually repair a bath the consequences of a failure in that regard and all that water escaping compared to the cost of a new bath seems dramatic.

Unless the repair made the bath good as new surely a failure of the repair had to be expected at some point.

 

[Jono8]

she then said does it say anything about tennants damaging the bath - gggrrrr, .

Standing in a bath is not damaging it.

 

[SpeedFreak]

It sounds to me that when it was originally "fixed" they didn't actually address the cause which is probably inadequate support of the bath tub. Personally I would not back down on this one and it doesn't seem you will so best of luck.

 

[Andy]

Flood the house, tell them the bath was leaky due to some previous fault. Unfortunately, you didn't notice untill the ceiling fell through.