no heating and hot water for 5 weeks

[Missy*]

This is my first post here so, first, hello to you all.

Judging by other posts, I am at the right place to ask for advice.

We have recently moved into the 2 bedroom property which is fully furnished with all the necessary amenities. However, 2 weeks after moving in our boiler completely stopped working (this was on the 2nd December 2007). It was diagnosed that the whole boiler needs replacing. Landlord has been trying to help this situation ever since but managed only to book people to replace the boiler on the 7th of January 2008. This work is going to take 2 - 3 days.

This means that all in all we will be without heating and hot water more over 5 weeks. To make matters worse, I am 35 weeks (8 months) pregnant and it is impossible for me to do any kind of bathing/showering by myself. Having no heating and hot water is just unbearable at the best of times, let alone now when I am half mobile.

Considering all this, I asked the landlord to reduce our rent for these 6 weeks but he emailed me saying that according to our tenency agreement, he is obliged to keep the property in tenantable condition which he says he is doing. He also asked us to pay the full rent.

Can someone please give us some advice on this? Our next rent is due on the 1st of January and we want to know what our options and possibilites are. It can not be that we are living in tenentable conditions.

Thanks in advance

[binkhus]

as far as i know your landlord is obliged to provide hot water . and should reduce the rent. tell him you are going to contact cab and chas housing who will if need be be able to draft legal letters and help. it may just make him rethink his decision not to at least reduce rent.
with no hot water the property would not be considered habitable in a court of law i would say.

[Missy*]

Thank you very much for that. I will contact my local CAB on Monday and will see what they can do.
Our rent is due at the beginning of Jan. Do you happen to know can we just 'not pay the full amount' or is this illegal? At this stage, we really want our rent reduced but at the same time we don't want to make any wrong moves.

Thank you

[binkhus]

personally i would pay the full rent so you have done nothing wrong, but get straight onto your landlord, tell him he has a legal obligation to provide hot water, (i only know this because i was told by a housing assossiation that the trickle of hot water in their house was all they legally had to provide and so long as there is even a trickle of warm water coming out of the tap they have filled their obligation to me!) you may be able to come to some sort of arrangement if he knows you mean buisness

[Missy*]

Thanks a lot binkus. We shall 'mean business', from now on..
However we will seek help of CAB and CHAS Housing too.
Cheers.

[demon_x_slash]

You need to contact your local Council's Environmental Health & Housing office ASAP as in its current condition the property is considered not fit for habitation. They will force your landlord to co-operate on the maintenance front if the problem doesn't get sorted.

Deducting part of the rent is known as your right of offset - you are entitled to do this if you can quantify your problem (did you have to use an electric heater to warm the place? Did you have to pay to shower somewhere else? Boiling kettles for washing up, etc.?) but beware that this is the fastest route to souring relations with your landlord.

[Missy*]

Thanks guys.

I've just emailed our landlord taking all your advice in consideration. Hopefully, he will act accordingly.

If anyone has any more advice, do share with us please.

Thanks

[Bigmac versus]

Missy its not unusual when the boiler needs replaced due to condition and age of but what was wrong with the old one, couldnt a temp repair be carried out on it until the replacement gets fitted, unless it requies a part and is now obsolete, whats the name of the boiler and I will check if parts are still available.

[Missy*]

I have just checked the make of the boiler and it is IMI range Powermax 135. We had 2 separate companies looking at it (one being British Gas) and they both said that the boiler is too old and noone makes parts for it anymore. Even the manufacturer said it themselves.

As for what was wrong with the boiler, we can not tell you in detail but we were told that something exploded inside (don't laugh at my amateur explanation!)

Thanks again

[crash3903]

Missy - EDIT

The EDIT info that is referred to - I know they are pretty good at fixing what you have.

EDIT

Once that is done and you are warm with hot water, tell your landlord that you are deducting the cost of the repairs off your rent as he has to provide a habitable property which he hasn't with no boiler - The experts in this field on here may have a better view but this is my own personal one. Whats he going to do - Take a woman to court who is 8 months pregnant unable to bathe and turn her heating on? - me thinks not

Where do you live? I may know someone that can help

Just me 2 cents

Good luck

Mark

[Bigmac versus]

Will check and get back to you on that.

[Joa]

Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 explains the landlord's main obligation to repair and keep in good condition the installations for space heating and heating water.
You are entitled to reduce your rent providing that LL has been unreasonable in his efforts to fulfill his obligations or did not attempt to help. I would not advise to withhold part of the rent for entire 5 weeks. This is because, as you have posted, the LL did try to arrange for repairs. Maybe the delay is not his fault. Unfortunately at Christmas time the call-outs can be very expensive- it would be worth checking if what he says is correct (that there is nobody available earlier then January)- it doesn't seem right....maybe he is trying to avoid the expensive time of the year for repairs?
Make few calls, get few estimates, discuss this with the landlord. Tell him that you are thinking about getting some legal advice regarding rent reduction as the timeframe for fixing things is not reasonable.
Returning to the issue of rent reduction: even if you establish that LL did behave properly in trying to fulfill his Section 11 duties, the fact remains that you were without vital amenities. So you still would be entitled to rent reduction, although not on such a scale as if the LL ignored your plight.
The crucial issue here would be of reasonability; what would have happened if this was your own home? How fast would you have expected to deal with this? One week? Few days? Reduce the rent for the remainder of the time, i.e. if you owned this house and had a repair done within one week, then reduce the rent for the extra weeks that you were without the boiler. Remember; some will not consider hot water or heating of such an importance; because you can also heat water in the pan or use electric heaters. By the way, use of electric heaters increases you electricity bill- reimburse yourself by adding this to the reduction amount.
And finally; good relationship with the landlord should be your priority too, so keep it in mind before you take any action. Tell him maybe that you could have done this and that but you preferred to resolve things amicably (show him how much you suffered to be his friend, ).
Good luck!