Thanks for the replies. I was getting a bit stressed after having a leak for more than a day! Sorry for being a bit impatient! I spoke to the Citizens Advice and they suggested that I write the LA a letter stating that if there is another leak and I am unable to contact him to gain access I can call the police who will break the door down and then I can get a plumber to either repair or switch off the water supply. The letting agent or landlord would be liable for the cost of repair of the door and for the plumber if this happened! That should get him motivated to deal with it in future! The landlord actually called me after I sent him an email (LA emailed us both and accidentally included LL's email address to me! ) HAHA! He said he just wanted myself and the other neighbours to be happy and may find a new LA. Hopefully this is true but I am still going to be pursuing the legal route as a backup. According to the CAB I can send a letter asking for repairs to be carried out within 10 working days and if not I can have the work done and bill the LL. This is for damage to the outside of the building which affects my property by letting in water etc. All I want out of this is to have my costs for insurance excess and policy increase covered and for the LA / LL to know that there is no point in doing repairs / maintenance on the cheap, which has been happening in the past. I will be sending a list of all the repairs which are to be carried out to the LL (and cutting out dealing with the LA). I'm going to wait for my call recorder to arrive before phoning anyone though! Hopefully this info will help someone else in Scotland deal with a similar problem.

Well thanks a lot guys. I still have a leak here. To think I saved this website from closing down and NOBODY even bothers to reply! Marvellous.

anyone?

The leak has just started up again! I am sure a simple replacement of PTFE in the threads of the radiator would fix it but I can't get a reply from the letting agent. I have heard that if I were to call out an emergency plumber I would have to pay for this? Can anyone advise on this please? Thanks Andrew

Just to be clear I am not a tenant but I own a flat below one which is rented out by a letting agent (in Scotland). The agent is based about 50 miles from here and has just the one property where I am so they are hardly ever round to carry out repairs and when they do it always seems to be done the cheapest way possible! I am concerned now as I have just experienced the 3rd leak coming in from their property. I am in the process of renovating this flat (our first step on the property ladder) but any work I do is being ruined by leaks from above! The first leak happened when we moved in and it was eventually fixed after about 2 weeks of me constantly calling the agent. I did not bother claiming insurance this time as we had just been in for a few days and the damage was not too serious. The second leak happened in December and was allegedly due to the washing machine water inlet tap not being on properly. I asked for insurance details and waited for a few days. After a week or so I sent a letter to the agent (recorded delivery) saying that as I have not received the insurance details I would be making a case in the small claims court. I was soon told that there was no buildings insurance on the property! Is is legal to rent out a property without buildings insurance? I read somewhere that it is mandatory! The kitchen which I was in the process of renovating now needs plasterboard taken off and replaced on one wall and the ceiling and a new floor put in! ...and so I started my FIRST EVER insurance claim! In the interests of keeping a workable relationship with the letting agent and in the hope that they would indeed repair things as they had claimed to I did not pursue the small claims route and instead suggested that the landlord (landlord and agent are 2 different people) pay my policy excess and the premium increase for the next year. They agreed to this. I have now had another leak, this time from a radiator upstairs (in the hall) and leaking into the lounge of my property. I went upstairs to speak to the tennants when I noticed the leak. They were helpful and I get on fine with them. They told me that they had been asking the landlord to fix a leaking radiator in their bathroom for a while now but he had not done it. The fact that he knew about a leak but had not fixed it makes him negligible in my book and this galvanised me into looking at taking legal action. (I have just spend the last 2 months of my spare time doing up my bathroom which is below theirs!) As I could not get through to the letting agent on the phone I used some plumber's mait repair putty on the leaking radiator which eventually stopped it. It sounds like the tenants, even though they have only been there for about a month now, are thinking of leaving already! There is more to this rented out property also like cracks in the walls, pointing falling out and birds living in the spaces where it used to be! I also knew the previous tenant who lived there and they had asked to have the boiler replaced for four months as they were being slowly poisoned by a leak from it! They eventually withheld the rent and moved out! I have already spent a lot of my time renovating this place but it just seems like a waste of time now and I wish we had never bought the place. Is there any way for me to get this letting agent to just spend a bit of money and repair things properly or should I just try to sell up?! I have a good suspicion that they are cutting corners everywhere and the previous tenant informed me that they are not even registered as landlords. If that is the case where do I go to report it? I will be speaking to Citizen's Advice soon about this. Sorry for the long winded post but there is a lot of information to get across and that is not even all of it! Thanks in advance!

Well it got sent back with a letter saying that they could not cancel the contract as the phone had been personalised. Plan B - flog it on ebay and never waste my time with three again. These big companies know they have the upper hand with in-house lawyers to check everything out and they have so many customers they couldn't care less about one or two awkward ones!

This is the letter sent (with phone) within 8 days of receiving the new phone which was not requested: "To whom it may concern, I am returning this phone (Nokia 6120) as I did not ask for it. Indeed when I was called by the salesperson I told them I did not want the phone, or to renew my contract and they said they would send it anyway and I could just return it. I am now having to do so at my own expense! As I did not request this phone or for my contract to be changed or extended I am requesting that you cancel the new contract and resume my old one which expires on 30th January 2008. In any event it is my legal right to cancel the new contract within 14 days. For your information this letter and the phone were sent recorded delivery – I have proof of both postage and receipt. I would also request that any further communication regarding this matter be done by letter, not phone." The phone was barred and then my girlfriend called to see why. They are going to send the 6120 back to her and apparently they cannot cancel the contract. Does anyone know where we stand here? They have already switched over to the new contract even though there was still at least 2 months on the old one. How does the 14 day return work?

Thanks again Buzby, It turned out the address is actually in Glasgow. One of the Three customer services people was actually helpful and gave us the address. I posted it Special Delivery with a letter explaining that the phone was being returned as it was not ordered and that I wished the contract to be put back to the previous one for the remaining 2 months of the contract and cancelled thereafter. We are about to cancel the direct debit and make the last two payments manually (which costs an extra £3!) Just a waiting game now to see what happens I suppose.

Well, my girlfriend called them and got passed from call centre to call centre. After about 10 minutes I took over and spoke to the poor guy in Mumbai, India who was really just sticking to the party line. I explained that the initial sales person had NOT explained that inserting the sim card into the phone would renew the contract and that I required them to prove that he had. I specifically asked if he was refusing to give me the address for returning the phone to - the reply was that there is no address, but also that the system would only let him send out a return jiffy bag if we agreed that the contract would stand. So - apparently no way for the system to deal with anything other than sales really, how convenient! I suppose I will have to send the phone with a letter back to 3's address which is registered on Companies House. Can anyone confirm that this is the correct address, or supply another for returns? 3G LIMITED 3B LEIGH GREEN BUSINESS PARK THE APPLEDORE ROAD TENTERDEN KENT TN30 7DE Company No. 04303728 Unbelievable the amount of effort required to avoid being ripped off by companies with a turnover in the billions!! Oh, if you are thinking of getting a new phone I wouldn't recommend 3g by the way!!

Thanks for the reply buzby. My girlfriend received a call from 3 earlier this week saying that they could offer her a cheaper contract with a new handset. She told the person that she did not want to rush into it and did not want that handset anyway (she wants a Nokia N95). 2 days later a new Nokia 6120 arrived and she opened the box to see what it was like. If it was like a N95 she would have considered keeping it. Some phones will not let you do anything without a sim card in and this is why she put the new sim card into the phone. (Even though this particular phone works without a sim card). Obviously she now wished that she had not! I think the main problem here is that my girlfriend is Polish, she speaks good English but will sometimes not understand technical knowledge or won't understand some accents etc. I suspect that the sales person may have been looking to reach their target and thought that she would not know how to question the contract and just stick with it. Your advice is very helpful and I will request that they prove she did indeed agree to this contract renewal. I will likely speak to them myself as it is a bit too easy for somebody to be fobbed off when they are not speaking their native language! We will see what happens.

My girlfriend has been on the 3 network for 16 months, her contract ending in January 2008. They just sent her a new phone (Nokia 6120) which she told them she did not want, their response being just to phone up and they will collect it if she doesn't want it. When the phone arrived she opened the box to see what it was like and for some reason put her sim card into the new phone. 3 are now saying that the contract has been renewed as the sim card was put into the new phone which 'personalised' it. Obviously I am a bit annoyed with their dubious business practises! Is what 3 are saying actually true, that she has 'agreed' to a new contract by inserting the sim card? If so is there any way to get out of it? I see there is a 14 day cooling off period for mobile contracts in which customers can cancel their contract if it does not suit them. If she has to resort to this how does the fact that they sent the new phone 2 months before the contract expires affect this? Any advice on this will be greatly appreciated. I am sick of large companies wasting my time and trying to steal my money!! Regards Andrew

...and here it is - Guide Home

Hi all, On 16th November I sent recorded delivery 2 letters claiming back bank charges, one to First Direct and the other to Bank of Scotland. It was a bit longer than 2 weeks before I got the time to write and send the LBA (after being fobbed off naturally!). The LBA letters were sent on 11th December, again to First Direct and BoS. I have still only received fob-off letters from Bank of Scotland telling me that they are keen to deal with my concerns. I have here the cheque from First Direct for the full amount ready to pay into my (BoS) account tomorrow (closed FD one). They are starting to p**s me off now with their delaying tactics, but of course the good thing is that now I can just add on the 8% which adds £30 on to the total claim of £296. I guess I'm just annoyed that they can't even be bothered to take it seriously! Anyway, just thought I would start this thread off to note the progress. Off to read up about the court process. Incidentally I have found a step by step guide on another website (Penalty Charges UK - Fighting your Corner for FREE) which makes the whole process much easier. Apologies to CAG folks, but it saves a lot of time.

Well I sent that letter off, although it did take me quite a while to get the time to deal with it, what with illness and working etc. Received a cheque today for £687.50 In between sending off the letter and receiving the cheque I closed my accounts with FD to avoid the new £10 per month charges! I wish I were in a position to donate some money to CAG for the help but I still have a mountain of debt to get rid of unfortunately.

Excellent, thanks Michael. I will try and get the letter off ASAP. That's one claim (almost) done, 4 still pending! I am actually quite impressed with First Direct offering the full amount. I have been with Bank of Scotland for 25 years and they have sent 2 letters fobbing me off with promises to deal with it as soon as they can. Thanks to everyone who posts on this site! Andrew