notice to quit, landlord at fault please help

[mrsharvey]

hiya my name is Jen, we rented a property from Howards estate agents in June and upon inital inspection of the property we noticed a huge crack in the living room wall. We asked the letting agents to clarify if this crack was structual or just cosmetic. They said that a builder had in fact checked this crack and it was just cosmetic, well i contacted them in december because this crack was getting bigger and more smaller cracks were appearing, a man came to look at the property and confirmed my fears that the house was subsideing, we have now been given our notice to quit because of this, i think this is ridiculas as we would never have moved into the property had we known this, we have two small children under 3 years old and it worries me, also we have a 3 bedroom house and have had to move my youngest out of her room as the damp in there is sooooo bad it was making her ill. I spoke to Howards and they advised me to clean the wall and wait for it to improve which i think is ridiculas, i stated that i am paying for a 3 bedroom house and that i am getting a 2 bedroom house. I did speak with the actual landlord who stated that the damp was my fault as it wasnt that bad when we moved in, the inventory states that the wall has discolouration but its worse than that, the wall is soaking wet and the wall paper is hanging off, the landlord also hinted that he would be withholding my deposit because of the damp, anyone got any advice?? please help

[blacksheep1979]

You may be able to get your agents fees back as you could claim you would not have rented this property if you were accurately informed about the structural problems. As to the damp, get one of the councils inspectors to come look at and register the fact that you have damp. Now you'll have to claim from both landlord and agents and pbviously can only do so with proof - as to the agents, did you get anything in writting that the cracks were only cosmetic?

[demon_x_slash]

AND - take pictures, take pictures, take pictures. I can't say that enough times to people - if you don't have a camera with a date stamp then include that day's newspaper in the shot. If you report all this now, the landlord will find it more difficult to withold your deposit. He is NOT entitled to do so for a problem that he was aware of before the start of your tenancy; this is known as betterment, trying to use your deposit to make the place better than it was when you moved in.
Go to your Housing Officer at the local council - they deal with private renting as well, don't worry - and get someone to come out and make an inspection, as I think blacksheep said. Play heavily on the fact that it is your child's room, and her ill-health, and you should get someone out quickly.
There MAY also be a case for offset if the HO declares that room unsafe to live in - basically there is a slim chance that you can claim back part of your already-paid rent, as you are paying for a three bedroom and due to no fault of your own are down to two. However, this would involve court action; if you're nervous about that sort of thing, it may be best to include it in your action for the deposit if he witholds it, rather than starting one claim for offset and one for witheld deposit. Have a read through some of the other threads on witheld deposits - knoxvillain's one is a particularly good example of digging your heels in against a stubborn landlord, although not resolved yet. Keep us all up to date, and we'll see what else we can do once you've had the inspectors out.

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(take pictures!)

[knoxvillain]

and just in case you didn't get it from demon_x_slash's post, TAKE PHOTOS. I made this mistake with the last property and I regret it. Good luck!