Hi All, I don't know how to handle this one, to give a brief summary: We live in a council property which we pay our rent in full in month as both my wife and I work. Our kitchen is now 11 years or so old, there is a refurbishment program in place to bring all properties up to date. We have spoken to the contractor who is doing the works on behalf of the council and they are stating that we are on the list to be completed but not till 2018!! We have complained and had an inspector round who recommended some remedial works such as new wall mounted cupboards etc, we explained that we don't even have sufficient plumbing for our washing machine which has flooded the kitchen more than once. The inspector(s) have refused to budge, even the engineer who turned up to do the works stated that the remedial works were a waste of time. To add insult to injury while the engineer we were chatting to about the kitchen was standing outside another property was approached by the contractors to get a new kitchen, the property in question was refurbished two years ago after the previous tenants left which included a new kitchen. Despite the protest of the tenant they did not need one, they are getting one anyway!! I have written to my MP who has tried to help but the council simply will not budge. Short of chaining myself to the local council offices in protest is there anything I can do?

Hi there if anyone could help me I would be very gratefull. Basically me and my fiancee rented out a property in September last year for a period of 12 months, when we wieved the property it was lovelly and it was smelling nice. After we got the keys problems had started. I have bad chest problems and there is a loads of mould and damp in the flat which is 22sq meters studio flat and anywhere you move you get mould and damp. I've contacted the agency via e-mail with photos of mouldy clothes (which we got after month of living there) walls (behind massive tv unit, fridge, washing mashine, cooker) and many other places ( total of round 8 e-mails from Sept till Dec 2011). In mean time our bed was soaking wet and matress started getting mouldy as well. In a property there is a dehumifyer which we use nearly every day and it produces pint of water a day, we dry our clothes in tumbledryer, I open windows for at least 30 minutes a day, I do "general" cleaning of everything including matress bed frame inside cuboards and undernethe bath every single week as it kind of helps my breathing for a day or two. The humidity in the house is way above average ( 70 - 80 % and suppose to be 30 to 50 %) and the story could go on and on and on ... We wanted to terminate contract at start of December but we have been told that we would have to pay the re-advertising fees and that our landrod knew about the mould before ... nobody said nothing to us ... We decided to stay and live with the mould We've made an application for a council flat back in June (before we moved in to the studio) and now last week we've got a council flat offer (based on my health issues) that we've accepted. We suppose to move to the new property mid of February and I do not know what to say to agency people. On top of that loads of people that we spoke to about ending agreement before set date said that we will be lucky if we could go through cancellation without any BIG problems. PLEASE HELP ME AS I NEED TO CALL AGENCY ON MONDAY !! Thank you very much for reading and replying.

I live in a Council property and am starting a business. I want to avoid opening paying business rates and planning permission issues so I'm using another address ie one of these Virtual Office packages that offer a Mailbox and mail forwarding service. I'm prohibited from using my Council home as a base for business and face eviction if they think I'm running a business from there. Will using a Virtual Office be sufficient to avoid complications?