Absent landlord

Tiddlypeeps

I moved into a house that I love about 4 months ago. The only thing I don't love is the landlord, he is impossible to deal with. When we first moved in it was on the condition that several jobs were done around the house. Those things weren't done when it came time to move in and on top of that pretty much all of the appliances in the house were broken (fridge, freezer, tumble drier etc). He assured us all would be fixed asap.

They weren't fixed, any time we'd call he kept fobbing us off and occasionally he would send a friend of his around to asses the situation, do very little and then leave.

After about a 3/4 weeks we decided to take the situation into our own hands and address the issues ourselves. We then deducted any costs from our rent. The landlord wasn't at all happy about this but he got over it.

Everything has been fine until now because we haven't had to deal with the landlord for anything since. Our heating broke a couple of days ago and our shower isn't electric so we have to have cold showers. We called the letting agent earlier today and she is going to try and get in touch with the landlord.

I just know that we are going to end up waiting weeks for him to even acknowledge our request to have somebody come out and fix it. The letting agent isn't much better, we called this morning to tell her what happened and then we tried to call again this evening to see if she had any luck getting through to the landlord and she is ignoring our calls (it's a mobile number).

How long do we legally have to wait before we just call a plumber and deal with it ourselves?

djimi

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

When we first moved in it was on the condition that several jobs were done around the house.

Theres your first problem right there! Never hand over a penny or sign anything unless all required work has been carried out, because chances are once they have your money you wont be getting those repairs any time soon. Basically, assume the house that you are renting is the house that you see when you put pen to paper.

The heating not working is a pretty serious issue. Write to the landlord (registered mail if possible), outline the issues and request a responce in writing outlining what will be done to resolve and what kind of time frame you can expect. If nothing is forthcoming, write another letter advising that unless a timely resolution is forthcoming you will have no choice but to take measures to seek to terminate the lease.

Tiddlypeeps

This escalated a bit today. We called yesterday morning to let the letting agents know about the heating, we tried calling back later in the day to see if they managed to get in touch with the landlord. They wouldn't answer the phone. We tried calling again today and weren't having much success. I tried calling from my mobile instead just to see if they were screening our calls and she answered.

She told me she got in touch with the landlord and a plumber would be out tomorrow. She then started to snap at me for calling so late (it was just coming up on 6). This annoyed me a little so I asked when she intended on letting us know there would be a plumber out tomorrow because myself and my partner work so we would need to make arrangements. She then just totally flew off the handle. She made several snide comments and was totally unprofessional.

Just to clarify that conversation was very one sided, I wasn't arguing back to pour fuel on the fire. I just asked what was going on and then proceeded it with why weren't we informed. Her reaction was totally over the top and completely out of proportion.

I have now decided I want to move out. You are right, we never should have moved in. I love the house but its just not worth dealing with these crazy people. Some of the original issues are still not sorted too, we just decided to drop it because they are minor.

My problem now is how to move forward. We payed one months rent for a deposit and I don't think we will get it back even tho the house is now in better condition than when we moved in. I'm just assuming that based on how unprofessional they have been so far. The landlord lives in the UK too so if we had to go down the PRTB route we would be unlikely to get anywhere.

Can we legally get out of the lease at this point? How much notice would we have to give.

I'm considering not paying next months rent and then moving out, pretty much letting our deposit cover the months rent. Could we get away with this? How much notice does the landlord have to give to evict us for failure to pay rent? Especially given that we are less than 6 months in the house.

foggy_lad

You should complain to the prtb. That is what they are there for. Even though the landlord is in the UK they are still responsible and can still be brought to court and fined.