What are my rights - No Heating, Kitchen and bathroom flooded.

Lord Trollington

As the title suggests. what are my rights.

I have had no heating since 19th December, and will have none until the 5th Jan 2011 at the earliest.

Since the thaw, there has been a water leak with the Kitchen and Bathrom are completely flooded. Wooden floor and some of the kitchen units will need to be replaced, along with the flooring in the bathroom.

What are my rights regarding finding suitable alternative accomodation, paying rent ect.

Graces7

whycliff wrote: »

As the title suggests. what are my rights.

I have had no heating since 19th December, and will have none until the 5th Jan 2011 at the earliest.

Since the thaw, there has been a water leak with the Kitchen and Bathrom are completely flooded. Wooden floor and some of the kitchen units will need to be replaced, along with the flooring in the bathroom.

What are my rights regarding finding suitable alternative accomodation, paying rent ect.

What does the landlord say?

When we were flooded two houses back, the landlord was useless so we simply left without any more rent and as he was with an agent, we did get the deposit back and fast.

Plenty of rentals out there; and no he has no right to leave you with no heating ever, least of all in this severe winter.

Google daft , find somewhere and pack. We did; we were out within a week.

Lord Trollington

Can't get in contact with the landlord, have been only dealing with the letting agent.

At that they aren't overly easy to deal with. only got the plumber out today, even though heating has been gone since 19th Dec.

House is like an ice box, and the kitchen is a no go area, cant prepare food or wash clothes ect.

Graces7

whycliff wrote: »

Can't get in contact with the landlord, have been only dealing with the letting agent.

At that they aren't overly easy to deal with. only got the plumber out today, even though heating has been gone since 19th Dec.

House is like an ice box, and the kitchen is a no go area, cant prepare food or wash clothes ect.

So why are you still there then? sorry if that sounds harsh but your health and safety matter most.

We had the same thing; but when we realised the landlord was not about to do anything, we left.

Please, call Threshold?

http://www.threshold.ie/contact.asp?menu=76

They are experienced and know the law and how agents and landlords act; they can act for you which often avails best.

BUT we only get the situations we allow to continue do we not? Have to stand up to people.. and it does get easier with practice;)

convert

According to theshold.ie

Your landlord must, by law, ensure that your home complies with certain minimum standards (e.g. free from damp, in good structural repair, hot and cold water, adequate means of heating and ventilation, appliances in good working order, electrical wiring, gas, pipes in good repair). If your home does not comply with these standards, report it to your local authority or the Private Residential Tenancies Board. An inspection will be carried out and the landlord ordered to do any necessary repairs. Contact Threshold, the Private Residential Tenancies Board or your local authority for further advice.

Given that you don't have heating and that the kitchen is flooded, I would say that the house does not currently comply with minimum standards. Contact theshold and the PRTB (prtb.ie) for further advice as to what to do, while remaining within the law. The last thing you want is for the landlord to withold your deposit or take a case against you for non payment of rent.

Kimia

Hire a plumber immediately to fix the leak. Hire an electrician immediately to fix the heating. Then either sue the landlord to pay you back via small claims court or deduct it out of your next month's rent, and obviously provide receipts.

This is an emergency situation and your apartment is uninhabitable. Sort it immediately and let the landlord worry about either paying you back (which he will be legally obliged to do) or deduct it from the rent.

You'll be sorted within 24 hours.

goat2

whycliff wrote: »

As the title suggests. what are my rights.

I have had no heating since 19th December, and will have none until the 5th Jan 2011 at the earliest.

Since the thaw, there has been a water leak with the Kitchen and Bathrom are completely flooded. Wooden floor and some of the kitchen units will need to be replaced, along with the flooring in the bathroom.

What are my rights regarding finding suitable alternative accomodation, paying rent ect.

find the shut off valve and close it, it will keep filling up otherwise, no need to act helpless, get cracking and do as much as you can to stop the water seeping around the place, all our homes are having problems with water at these times, be it no water, or burst pipes, frozen pipes, landlord cannot be blamed for what has happened

delllat

Kimia wrote: »

Hire a plumber immediately to fix the leak. Hire an electrician immediately to fix the heating. Then either sue the landlord to pay you back via small claims court or deduct it out of your next month's rent, and obviously provide receipts.

This is an emergency situation and your apartment is uninhabitable. Sort it immediately and let the landlord worry about either paying you back (which he will be legally obliged to do) or deduct it from the rent.

You'll be sorted within 24 hours.

dont think so !

1. if hes up to his knees in water today hes not going to be "sorted within 24 hours" the place will take months to dry properly if its that flooded

2. he should arrange alternative accomodation and contact the landlord for his deposit back ( the repair work could cost thousands and its not your decision which contracter to use,there may be insurance that specifies who handles repairs in this case )

turn off the supply of water and electric ,pack your stuff and move is the best advice your going to get

Graces7

delllat wrote: »

dont think so !

1. if hes up to his knees in water today hes not going to be "sorted within 24 hours" the place will take months to dry properly if its that flooded

2. he should arrange alternative accomodation and contact the landlord for his deposit back ( the repair work could cost thousands and its not your decision which contracter to use,there may be insurance that specifies who handles repairs in this case )

turn off the supply of water and electric ,pack your stuff and move is the best advice your going to get

Well said. Takes the breath away what some tenants endure. Which is why landlords get away with so much.

We pay to live in a house. We are not caretakers.

BostonB

Kimia wrote: »

...Then either sue the landlord to pay you back via small claims court or deduct it out of your next month's rent, and obviously provide receipts.....

Do you know if the small claims court handles these kind of things, or if its legal not to pay you rent.

PCPhoto

goat2 wrote: »

find the shut off valve and close it, it will keep filling up otherwise, no need to act helpless, get cracking and do as much as you can to stop the water seeping around the place, all our homes are having problems with water at these times, be it no water, or burst pipes, frozen pipes, landlord cannot be blamed for what has happened

DONT DO ANYTHING WITH REGARD TO VALVES ETC ....contact the management company tell them if the matter is not sorted within 24hours you will have no choice but to leave and find alternative accomodation - tell them its a matter of health and safety and you will inform the fire department that the apartment is not suitable and do contact the fire department.

The apartment can be deemed unsuitable for habitation and your landlord could face jail if the matter is not resolved.

jemmie

Hi,
My house is flooded.
Im beyond devastated. I have been privately renting a house for over two years.
On the 22nd my heating didnt come on when I came in from work despite having it set on timer to come on twice during the day while I was at work.
I informed property manager by text. He replied that most of his properties were in the same boat and all I could do was to wait for the temperatures to go down. So I was left with no heat for two days, fair enough. He then told me to make sure I turned off water at stopcock before I went home for xmas on the 24th. I told him the exact dates I would be away from the property ( 4 in total) and assumed that he would check in on the property as he had the previous two years ( He had turned off the stopcock on those occassions) Being not really au-fait with the plumbing system I asked him where exactly was the stop cock to which he replied it was under the sink. On xmas eve I turned off the valve underneath the sink and ran taps ( all frozen) as advised by others. no water came out. I went home. Returned four days later to water flowing from attic to bedrooms through ceiling to kitchen and sitting room. My neighbours came in and turned off stopcock which was partially obscured behind kitchen units nowhere near kitchen sink. I had in my ignorance on christmas eve turned off the only tap which was under the sink -the washingmachine tap!
I had to take a few days off work and go home with my belongings to wash and dry them out. My landlord is in the house now, tearing down wallpaper and ceilings, and drying out the house. He didnt have landlords insurance, and I didnt have contents insurance.
I need to go back to work in the new year but have no accommodation.
What should I do? Should I get somewhere temporary until my house is repaired or should I cut my losses and ask for my deposit and rent back and look for a new house?
I feel so responsible firstly for having heating on twice a day rather than all day which froze the pipes in the first place and secondly for not double checking that I had infact turned off the stopcock.
I have a few days before I need to go back. Im contacting the property manager guy tomorrow to see about temporary accomodation. Does he have to provide this? Has anyone any advice?

delllat

jemmie wrote: »

Hi,
My house is flooded.
Im beyond devastated. I have been privately renting a house for over two years.
On the 22nd my heating didnt come on when I came in from work despite having it set on timer to come on twice during the day while I was at work.
I informed property manager by text. He replied that most of his properties were in the same boat and all I could do was to wait for the temperatures to go down. So I was left with no heat for two days, fair enough. He then told me to make sure I turned off water at stopcock before I went home for xmas on the 24th. I told him the exact dates I would be away from the property ( 4 in total) and assumed that he would check in on the property as he had the previous two years ( He had turned off the stopcock on those occassions) Being not really au-fait with the plumbing system I asked him where exactly was the stop cock to which he replied it was under the sink. On xmas eve I turned off the valve underneath the sink and ran taps ( all frozen) as advised by others. no water came out. I went home. Returned four days later to water flowing from attic to bedrooms through ceiling to kitchen and sitting room. My neighbours came in and turned off stopcock which was partially obscured behind kitchen units nowhere near kitchen sink. I had in my ignorance on christmas eve turned off the only tap which was under the sink -the washingmachine tap!
I had to take a few days off work and go home with my belongings to wash and dry them out. My landlord is in the house now, tearing down wallpaper and ceilings, and drying out the house. He didnt have landlords insurance, and I didnt have contents insurance.
I need to go back to work in the new year but have no accommodation.
What should I do? Should I get somewhere temporary until my house is repaired or should I cut my losses and ask for my deposit and rent back and look for a new house?
I feel so responsible firstly for having heating on twice a day rather than all day which froze the pipes in the first place and secondly for not double checking that I had infact turned off the stopcock.
I have a few days before I need to go back. Im contacting the property manager guy tomorrow to see about temporary accomodation. Does he have to provide this? Has anyone any advice?

you could ask him for your deposit back but he could refuse as you were told to drain the system by the property manager before leaving and shut off the water (which you didnt do leading to a flood )

if it goes to the prtb they will take everything into consideration but i couldnt see you winning the case with the facts you have presented against a lanlord left with thousands in damage ,I feel sorry for the poor fXXKer but he should really have bought an insurance policy when he bought a house

tenants are expected to take reasonable measures to prevent flooding and they simply werent taken in this case

BostonB

Drain the system? No one would be expected to do that. Turning off the stopcock doesn't drain the system. It just stops more water from entering the system. So if there leak occured somewhere with little water, not much damage may be caused. Depends where the leak was though. Seems to me the property manager may be at fault for telling you the wrong stopcock. Do you have a record of this, because that would help a lot.

The other issue is leaving the heating on all the time or not. Seems to be where you'd become partly responsible or not. That said you'd need a plumber to work out what actually caused the leak. Most of the people I know didn't run their heating all the time, and didn't have leaks.

Also seems like there was a known problem before you left. I'd assume its the LL to fix this if informed of it. If they didn't and it caused the leak, then may be they'd be responsible.

You need to get a plumber to give you some expert advice. Maybe a solicitor to, and get some legal advice.

delllat

BostonB wrote: »

Drain the system? No one would be expected to do that. Turning off the stopcock doesn't drain the system. It just stops more water from entering the system. So if there leak occured somewhere with little water, not much damage may be caused. Depends where the leak was though. Seems to me the property manager may be at fault for telling you the wrong stopcock. Do you have a record of this, because that would help a lot.

The other issue is leaving the heating on all the time or not. Seems to be where you'd become partly responsible or not. That said you'd need a plumber to work out what actually caused the leak. Most of the people I know didn't run their heating all the time, and didn't have leaks.

Also seems like there was a known problem before you left. I'd assume its the LL to fix this if informed of it. If they didn't and it caused the leak, then may be they'd be responsible.

You need to get a plumber to give you some expert advice. Maybe a solicitor to, and get some legal advice.

draining a system is just turning of the supply, leaving the taps running until the water stops coming out and yes ,they would be expected to do that if leaving a property unoccupied and being instructed to do so by the managment company

water expands by 9% when it freezes ,copper doesnt expand so if they pipes are full they will burst

useruser

delllat wrote: »

draining a system is just turning of the supply, leaving the taps running until the water stops coming out and yes ,they would be expected to do that if leaving a property unoccupied and being instructed to do so by the managment company

water expands by 9% when it freezes ,copper doesnt expand so if they pipes are full they will burst

It sounds to me that Jemmie made a reasonable effort to stop the water coming into the house and was just not correctly informed about which tap to turn off by the agent. Jemmie, you should talk to Threshold to get the low down but my understanding is that as the property is uninhabitable through no fault of your own you should have your deposit returned and be free to move on.

(Also, running the heating twice a day should be more than enough to keep pipes from freezing if the heating was working correctly).

BostonB

I'm no expert, so open to correction. But turning on taps doesn't drain the heating part of the system. It didn't drain the rest of the system either as the OP said it was frozen and no water came out. really once the tenant says theres no water, it needs immediate attention. It was ignoring that, which is the real issue.

I noticed a lot of new houses have plastic pipes not copper these days. Dunno if thats better or worse in cold weather.

Parts of Ireland were -18 and even Dublin was -10. How much you have to run the heating in those temps I've no idea. But I'm guessing that twice a day might not be enough. I don't think many LL or tenants have been in this situation before, and thus did not know how to handle it, in terms of a rental.

jemmie

thanks for all helpful comments. spoke to landlord today..house has been cleared out, carpets, ceilings etc..says it will be three weeks to get repairs done and house dry. Ive paid rent for month of january. I cant get through to property manager. landlord has recommended I contact him for temporary accomodation. I guess they dont have to provide this. I am at home drying out my things but have to go back in a few days to go to work, despite having no home. I dont know what to do.

delllat

jemmie wrote: »

thanks for all helpful comments. spoke to landlord today..house has been cleared out, carpets, ceilings etc..says it will be three weeks to get repairs done and house dry. Ive paid rent for month of january. I cant get through to property manager. landlord has recommended I contact him for temporary accomodation. I guess they dont have to provide this. I am at home drying out my things but have to go back in a few days to go to work, despite having no home. I dont know what to do.

get on daft and rent something else,your house not being habitable should be enough grounds to terminate the lease

Graces7

delllat wrote: »

get on daft and rent something else,your house not being habitable should be enough grounds to terminate the lease

Problem can be finding a new deposit though...

mbiking123

DONT DO ANYTHING WITH REGARD TO VALVES ETC ....contact the management company tell them if the matter is not sorted within 24hours you will have no choice but to leave and find alternative accomodation - tell them its a matter of health and safety and you will inform the fire department that the apartment is not suitable and do contact the fire department.

would do no harm but I dont think its a management company problem unless there is a leak etc in the common area.

Potentially damage will be caused to apartment below which will become a management agent issue as neighbours will be ringing them with complaints.