No heat, no rent?

flickarius

Several days before Christmas the boiler & heating timer gave up the ghost in a house my wife and I are renting (€600pm). The landlord brought in a plumber to look at it and he caused a pipe in the hot press to start dripping. He said he wouldn't be able to fix it before New Years and beat a hasty retreat. So now we've no hot water in the taps either! We got a bucket and connected a hosepipe and funnel to catch the drip and moved into my parents for Christmas. Now the heating is fixed (boiler has to be plugged in/unplugged outside in shed) but we still have to wait for the electrician to come and connect up properly the boiler, a new timer and immersion etc.. Our rent is Due on 10th of Jan and we'll have spent about 2 weeks unable to live in the house. Many people have told me we shoud not have to pay rent for the time we were unable to live in house. Anybody got any thoughts or advice please?

Giblet

If you don't pay your rent, he can give you 14 days non-payment notice, then your standard notice and evict you. Did you call the plumber back? Did you get back to the landlord?

Jehuty42

You have a legal obligation to pay rent, don't be stupid.

You can, however, TALK to your landlord and see if he'd be willing for you to make a deduction. If you're on good terms, it's worth a shot.

who_ru

Jehuty42 wrote: »

You have a legal obligation to pay rent, don't be stupid.

You can, however, TALK to your landlord and see if he'd be willing for you to make a deduction. If you're on good terms, it's worth a shot.

i didn't realise that you are legally obliged to pay for a service you are not receiving and a LL is not legally obliged to provide a minimum level of service that is stipulated in law.

D3PO

who_ru wrote: »

i didn't realise that you are legally obliged to pay for a service you are not receiving and a LL is not legally obliged to provide a minimum level of service that is stipulated in law.

and the landlord iis providing that level of service. The OP already said that the plumber was out and then back out a second time. The LL can only hire the workment to fix the issue . Seems to me hes done it in a timely manner especially if you consider the holiday period.

The OP must pay the rent. however as another poster mentioned if they suggest a deduction to the landlord and are on good terms there is every possibility some kind of agreement can be reached that satisfies both parties.

BostonB

Getting plumbers recently was like looking for gold. So bear that in mind. Theres no harm in asking the LL for a reduction considering the problems.

What law says you should not have to pay rent for the time when the heating is not working?

Cheshire Cat

We had a slightly similar problem approximately 2 years ago. The wiring in the house we were renting was dodgy which kept the fuses blowing. We had 2 sockets in the whole house we could use. It took 2 weeks for this to be resolved.
At the time our landlord offered to put us up in a hotel, which we didn't want as we couldn't take our dog to a hotel. He then refunded as a month's rent, which was decent and made up for all the hassle, spoilt food in freezer etc.

CC