No heating No hot water

[jacko428]

Hi all,

 

I need some advice to try and advise my daughter on what to do about not having any heating or hot water in her private rented house for a week.

 

She has been in touch with her landlady and asked for it to be sorted out only to be told that the plumber is on holiday for 2 weeks,her reply to that was that is not my problem I need my heating sorting out as I have a 6 yearl old son to think about. A so called plumber turned up on Tuesday and had not got a clue as to how to sort the problem out he took the boiler manual away and asked the landlady 2 days later to contact the company who installed the boiler to come out and fix it.Needless to say she did not bother,my daughter contacted her again and asked what she is doing about it only to be told that she could not get a plumber until Monday 15th March.She said to the landlady that that was not acceptable and I will get an emergency plumber out and deduct the cost from the rent to which the landlady replied you will not.The only form of heating my daughter has at the moment is an electric 3 bar fire in the front room which is very expensive,the rest of the house is very cold.

 

What are her options bearing in mind that her landlady does not seem to care.

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Have you considered urgently contacting your local Environmental Health Department, IMHO this is your daughters only hope of getting the ball rolling.

 

Andy

[jacko428]

Have you considered urgently contacting your local Environmental Health Department, IMHO this is your daughters only hope of getting the ball rolling.

 

Andy

 

Andy,thanks for your reply nobody available at Environmental Health at weekends.Come Monday she will have been without heating and hot water for 9 days.

 

Ian

[Steve__M]

Your landlady is lawfully responsible for maintaining the heating, and should sort problems in a reasonable time.

 

There has been some discussion on this forum about what "reasonable" means, but this does not sound reasonable. At minimum, additional heaters should be provided.

 

The only real pressure you can put on is financial pressure, but this does put you at risk of losing the house and/or a claim for the money. If you were prepared to do this, you would probably start by delivering a letter this weekend stating that if the problem is not sorted by Monday you will call in an emergency plumber and take it out of the rent, and demanding extra heaters in the meantime.

[ashmk]

Tell your Landlady you have no choice but to contact Enviromental health. I told my LL this and the next day work begun. Sometimes its enougth to get things moving.