Hi all. Been a good tenant for 10 years now, but have the worst Landlord ever. He has many properties, and trades as a business. We are down to get a new boiler in 2 weeks time, but the old one sprung a leak a couple of weeks ago. It was manageable, and we still had hot water and heating. Unfortunately, the water has got into the electrics and if the boiler is turned on, all the electricity in the house blows. They sent a man out this morning who does all the gas safety checks for them, and without even opening up the boiler, he told us that it is beyond repair, and we will have to try and get the new boiler fitted quicker. This cannot happen, so now they are expecting us to go without heating and hot water until 3rd of March. We have kids, so this can't happen. I really think the old boiler can be fixed, but they just don't want to pay for it, when we will be getting a new one in 9 or ten days.

I am going to ring them and tell them this is not acceptable, but I don't know where I stand regarding the law.

Please help.

Thanks in advance.

I can't really answer this for you but your loacl councils Environment Health Team may be able to assist. As the electric blows, this may be classed as hazardous to health and they may force the landlord to act quicker

I don't think that it is only a question of law here. I think that there is a pressing practical aspect as well.

You have a faulty boiler. If the landlord decides to make a repair – which may not be a very good quality repair, he may also decide that as it is presently working, he will cancel the installation of a new boiler. We are on the verge of coming out of winter and so it may not be until next winter that you suddenly discover that your old boiler packs up. Frankly, for nine days I would try to figure out a way to sit it out and wait for the new boiler to be installed.

In terms of heating, I would examine the possibility of getting in some cheap electric heaters and running those to bridge the gap. In terms of hot water, I'm not too sure what to suggest other than to see if there is a local swimming pool where you could get showers.

It's a very bad position to be in, but given the timescale which has been proposed by the landlord, and given the fact that your landlord is extremely difficult, I can't really see that you could start to take any kind of action that would get the matter sorted out much more quickly than the end of the nine days.

In terms of your rights, of course you could bring in your own repairer to carry out a repair – but you could be left with the same situation as above. If you did have your own repair carried out, then it would be very wise to get your own gas safety inspection carried out as well to confirm that the job you have commissioned has been done correctly so that there is no comeback from an angry landlord at a later date.

You would then have to approach your landlord for reimbursement and I'm sure that you appreciate that that won't be easy. You may also dispute the amount of money that you have paid. That will lead to further trouble.

Of course you can get on the phone as you have suggested and try to insist that an immediate repair or immediate replacement is carried out – I would suggest the replacement because once again you don't want to get saddled with some dodgy boiler which has had some dodgy repair carried out on it. You could threaten to withhold the rent until it is done – but then the landlord might retaliate and withhold the replacement, so I wouldn't start going down that road until everything is in place. Then you could think about retaliating by withholding some rent.

I think you are a very difficult position – the real problem being the very short time – nine days – before the installation of the new boiler. Of course, if this nine day deadline is breached and it doesn't happen then you are going to be in serious problems but in that case I think I would start getting hold of local authority – but maybe you should be doing that anyway is suggest above.

Sorry, no real answers here. Just a mumbo-jumbo of discussion and a few ideas

The Landlord won't delay the installation of the new boiler as we are getting it on the Home Warmth scheme as we get Working Tax Credits. It's costing the Landlord nothing. I myself, would just sit it out, but the wife and kids are a completely different matter :/ We have asked the Landlord on at least 100 occasions (no exaggerating either) to repair things. ie. Back wall fell down 2 years ago, but they just keep promising and promising to get these things fixed, but don't turn up. We don't want to move, but if we did, they would have to get all these repairs done anyway before they could let the property again. We have damp coming through the front wall into the main bedroom, but they still haven't fixed this. I would just tell them were to shove their house as the amount we have paid in rent over the last ten years could have bought the house 2 times over. but Mrs SOD'EM likes it here, and couldn't put up with a move right now. The worse thing is, It's as if it's all my fault the way the Wife is treating me.

My understanding is that a landlord would be allowed "reasonable time" to fix the issue. It might be decided that given that a new boiler is scheduled that that is reasonable.

When I think of "reasonable" I ask myself what a householder would do. A householder may decide to put up with 9 days of cold to avoid wasting money on an expensive or impossible repair.

I do appreciate that this is on the top of a lot of other issues.

I think "reasonable" would also depend on all of the circumstances of the case. If the new installation is intended to replace a boiler which is dodgy but limping along, then nine days might well be reasonable. If we are dealing with a boiler which is completely broken, in winter, with the family including young children, then I think we have to take a different view of what is reasonable.

The problem is that you have to see what is practicable as well and I think that's where the problem is here. I have no doubt that in the circumstances it is unreasonable for the landlord to expect the OP to wait nine days. The problem is how to bring pressure to bear on a reluctant landlord to put his tenants interests first and to bring the installation forward, as he probably could do if he had some goodwill.

Sorry about your predicament... I'd say it's unlawful to leave people without heating. How can the landlord blag himself a free boiler if he's not the one on benefits? Does that mean the boiler belongs to you, the tenant, due to your working tax credits... and what happens if you move out... can you take it with you?

I've just had a boiler fitted free under the Govt's Green Deal ... took 5 days from their first phone call to fit it!

NCS Property Maintenance... Herts. TB

Another option might be to see if the installer can fit it earlier given that circumstances have changed.