Is this right>?

[crashlanding21]

Good Morning CAG forum!

 

After a successful stint on here reclaiming bank charges, I thought I would ask for the advice of the users once again regarding my current renting situation.

 

6 months ago I moved house from one private landlord to another. The reason I moved 3 miles up the road was to have the benefit of a garage for my 'toys' or one big 'toy'!

 

After a look around the house etc we decided to take it! we are paying shy of £600 pcm through a letting agent who are acting as the middle man. I know £580pcm is mortgage territory however a deposit was our issue! Anyhoo, after paying a deposit and a months rent up front we moved in over a weekend. after settling in we found out that our landlord forgot to put our keys for the garage and kitchen door in the envelope. We also found out the they are situated about half a mile up the road as landlords of a pub! within 20 mins of mentioning the garage and kitchen (side access tot he drive) keys someone young lad turned up on a bike with the garage key only. being giddy and having my trailer and kart arriving later that day, I moved fast to make sure thegarage was tip top. It is a concrete garage seperate to the house set back in the large garden. I opened thegasrage and decided whilst it was nice to sweep and hose out the garage from all the webs and leaves in there! After hosing the garage and door i went to tilt the garage door to drain off wter but i heard a cracking followed by the crashing down of the door which if i didnt move as fast as i did i would have got a head full of door.

 

After a conversation with the letting agency they apologised lots and lots and said they would get on it to the landlord to come round and sort it.

 

After a week we hadn't heard anything about the garage so I chased this up again and they said they will get one it. 5 weeks had passed before a builder came around to assess the garage. 5 WEEKS! I had over £4k worth of equipment in thegarge which was being shelters from a garage door propped up and covered by a tarpauling sheet. luckily the area is nice and also two sets of gates protected anything. we now have a new shiney door. but we found an old crack in the kitchen sink drainer which had previously been resealed, this had shown its face again and everything under the sink gets wet!

 

Upon confirming that they had completed the door, i once again chased for the keys for the kitchen side access door. 'ill get on it' they said.

 

As the months passed and the cold was due, I had continually called the letting agency and even popped in to the office demanding that this key is sorted as it is also a health and safety risk due to there being no escape from the kitchen if need be.

 

November arrived after many persistant calls and November brought winds. when we moved in we were shown a new alarm systems that was fitted but an engineer would call round. This was an item which we honestly forgot about however its one more thing to ad to the list of promises. the automn stormhappend to blow off our alarm box on the side of the house which in turn activated the tamper alarm and sounded the bell outside. we had no code to disarm this and it was 10pm on a friday night. risking the sound of an internal tamper alarm i removed the outer casing and continued to dismantle the back up battery and the individual bells afinally removing the fuse. luckily i had someones contat number from the letting agenst who came back to me 30 mins later with the code they thought it was. Still no engineer to sort it. The day after, a nice hot bath was due! after draining the water it decicded to leak from the drain from the abth and drip into the living room! doesnt explain how we both felt. This however was fixed within 24 hours......bizzare!

 

Its now January 2011, 6 months since we moved in and signed a contract which they also signed. NO KEY for the door, no alarm.

 

On my last visit to the letting agents I explained that how different it would have been if I refused to pay rent. Oh they laughed....now I am at that stage to present them with a letter and explain that we are refusing to pay rent until the issuse are sorted. I would be reaching my contract if I didnt pay but they are breaching it when they do not respond to the agency.

 

where do Is tand with this and what advice would someone help me with.

 

thank you for your time and sorry I waffled on but I had to rant at someone!

 

All help is grately received,

 

Graham

[NewSAHD]

Sorry about this, but it's late, and I think what I gather from your post all you need do is email the Agent and say

 

"Hi Bob, we've been renting now for six months and have just renewed our AST.

 

We've had our ups and downs whilst waiting on repairs and the like, but we like it here and you seem happy enough with us to have recently renewed our tenancy. Two queries still remain though, which to all intents date back to when we first moved in.

 

On reflection a relatively quick way to resolve these seem to me to be:

 

a) Key to kitchen side door

 

This is a worry, as it could well be needed as an exit in the event of a fire, as discussed. The key has never materialised though, so please can your contractor now provide a key, or change the lock and provide a new set.

 

Alternatively, the lock is (NAME THE TYPE - LEVER/YALE/ETC) and B&Q sell a similar lock for £x. I propose to puchase this lock, fit it myself (or have a competant DIY friend do so) and deduct the cost from next months rent. I can drop a spare key off to you when I am next in your office.

 

Please can you confirn you are agreeable to this, so that this worry can now be resolved.

 

b) Alarm

 

The alarm is, perhaps, a little less straightforward to resolve, but may we pursue this on a similar basis to the above?

 

In this instance, however, we will instruct a suitably qualified local contractor to investigate and repair and deduct that cost from the rent. NAME OF SUCH A COMPANY have indicated over the 'phone that the cost could be in the region of £x, again, please advise.

 

That said, I fully appreciate you may wish to maintain links with the current contractor, so perhaps you could confirm your intentions here too.

 

Thanks again, look forward to hearing from you shortly"

 

Does that cover it ?

Edited January 5, 2011 by NewSAHD
typos etc

[callumsgran]

Sounds good to me, i would also suggest they give you a refund on the unusable garage (for the months it was unsecured)

I think £50 a month would be fair