Moral dilemma-sort of

Ms Doubtfire1

Ok,
I have a decent list of repairs that need to be carried out in my house, all LL responsibility. I have informed my LL about this 4 weeks ago. He acknowledged and said he'd respond to me within 2-3 weeks. When i didn't hear back after 4 weeks i emailed a reminder.One of his family members came back and said he had taken very ill and he would be dealing with the rental property for the time being.I know from conversation with my LL that this family member is not in great health either. I am really at large as to how long to give them in addition to sort this?

HelgaWard

How about you make contact, and say if you organise and pay for the the repairs yourself can you deduct the cost from the rent?

endacl

They have a responsibility to you as a tenant. The work has to be carried out. If you feel like it, you could offer to arrange it, but you're under no obligation to do so. A month is a long time to be waiting.

Ms Doubtfire1

HelgaWard wrote: »

How about you make contact, and say if you organise and pay for the the repairs yourself can you deduct the cost from the rent?

I have actually offered that in my response but did not receive an answer.

MarkR

Unfortunate as it is, them being ill, there has to be someone to deal with his business affairs. If there isn't someone, he has to arrange it. Perhaps the LL would allow you to get repairs done and billed to him, or taken out of rent?

Ms Doubtfire1

MarkR wrote: »

Unfortunate as it is, them being ill, there has to be someone to deal with his business affairs. If there isn't someone, he has to arrange it. Perhaps the LL would allow you to get repairs done and billed to him, or taken out of rent?

yes i offered that but no response received.

Tigger

If the repairs are urgent I'd offer to organise quotes and see if they wanted me to deal with the hassle get receipts and simply use the rent to pay
If the repairs are t urgent I'd probably ignore it
Land lords are running a small business and need to keep on top of things but is hard when your sick etc

Ms Doubtfire1

Tigger wrote: »

If the repairs are urgent I'd offer to organise quotes and see if they wanted me to deal with the hassle get receipts and simply use the rent to pay
If the repairs are t urgent I'd probably ignore it
Land lords are running a small business and need to keep on top of things but is hard when your sick etc

They are urgent enough.A broken window in the front door panel(storm damage), a leak under the kitchen sink which is causing the wood to rot, electrical faults in the kitchen sockets and a badly closing frontdoor...to start with.

Tigger

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

They are urgent enough.A broken window in the front door panel(storm damage), a leak under the kitchen sink which is causing the wood to rot, electrical faults in the kitchen sockets and a badly closing frontdoor...to start with.

Ok well you need to ring and ask if it's ok if you get quotes or do they want to organise it themselves
Explain that you are willing to help out but that these things need sorting
Problem is that if a landlord isn't a handyman or the tenant isn't then these jobs can wary wildly in price

Speedwell

Electrical faults are a bona fide emergency. You can't f*ck about with that stuff unless you like waking up with your house on fire. If it was me, and my landlord was refusing to fix the electricity AND a water leak in the SAME kitchen, I'd be asking for him to pay for the costs associated with moving out of that deathtrap and finding a new place.

Astrolabe

Even though you haven't received a reply, it's always an option to go ahead and get the most urgent repairs done anyway, and take the money out of the rent. This is especially the case if the property is being damaged due to the issues (rotting wood due to leak, etc). Since landlord and his family seem genuine, and have other things to worry about, I doubt they will object to this. It's possible they would even be relieved / grateful not to have to organise it themselves, given the circumstances. Keep all quotes, estimates, receipts and invoices, to reassure them that you only deducted the actual amount from the rent.

I did this a couple of years back, in a rented flat, with a broken washing machine. There wasn't any particular problem there regarding illness etc, but the landlord was just terrible for not getting back to me. S after several failed attempts to reach him, I got a repairman to fix the washing machine, and deducted it from the rent. I sent the landlord a message explaining what I'd done, and he was fine with it.

Best of luck!

Ms Doubtfire1

I would do that astro but my LL is a direct descendant of scrooge McDuck so getting money out of him is very difficult.Am thinking of involving the Tenancy board

Quandary

Have you had many disagreements with th landlord since your tenancy started? Is your relationship with him/her a positive one? I suppose what I'm getting at is, is it possible he is trying to make life awkward for you in an effort to get you to end the tenancy?

I have heard of some instances before where a landlord will repeatedly come up with excuses to avoid repairs in an effort to get a tenant to leave.

If the landlord or the person acting on their behalf continues to ignore you then it would wise to contact the RTB. Particularly when some of the repairs are electrical faults which really need to be resolved ASAP.

Call me Al

Why don't you just phone him?
It's not as easy to avoid answering a direct question on a phonecall as it is over a text message, when you'd much prefer not to have seen it.

Ms Doubtfire1

for the simple reason that my LL tends to forget anything not put in writing.:mad:

Ms Doubtfire1

Quandary wrote: »

Have you had many disagreements with th landlord since your tenancy started? Is your relationship with him/her a positive one? I suppose what I'm getting at is, is it possible he is trying to make life awkward for you in an effort to get you to end the tenancy?

I have heard of some instances before where a landlord will repeatedly come up with excuses to avoid repairs in an effort to get a tenant to leave.

If the landlord or the person acting on their behalf continues to ignore you then it would wise to contact the RTB. Particularly when some of the repairs are electrical faults which really need to be resolved ASAP.

We have a decent relationship.He gets top rent (more than 75% more than the average going rate in my county), it's just he absolutely hates to pay things himself. But thats an aside.I'm just wondering how much time I should give after the last response which was from his son and I got it late wednesday...