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I'm having a very stressful time right now with my letting agent. I will try to keep this brief and get straight to the facts.
Reported disrepair in flat within 5 days of moving in, 7 months ago.
Agent fobs us off for 7 months. We were chasing on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis for this to be done but he just ignores us. He did come to the flat once and said he will be sorting the issues out back in around April.
Council say he is dealing with the repairs, they refuse to give me any further info and close my case off. No evidence must have been provided from his side because he's not spoken to us for over a month (Last email i have provided further down). Refuse to help me any further. Not once during our tenancy have we ever had a repair even booked or communicated with us.
Also had a case open with the HSE about gas safety cert at the same time. Council asked me for evidence of it not being provided on out tenants portal, which I provided, then they seem to have dropped it. They won't deal with this any further and I still after 2 months of it expiring don't have one.
This came about because he forgot to renew the gas safety cert (2 weeks past renewal date), I reminded him then he came onto the property without our consent the next day and apparently got it checked. The boiler is not configurable and we have to turn it off all the time otherwise it's running full blast 24/7, there's a maintenance and error symbol on the front so we can't do anything with it, we have no evidence of ever being informed of this fault but nobody seems to care about it except us. Our gas bills were huge for the first 4 months of living here because of this.
This is the lovely email we received back from him after we reported him to the HSE and council.
https://imgur.com/a/Etn5PvA
Everything he's saying there is complete rubbish .I called the boiler engineer on his business number that I got from Google, if he would have told me he's having dinner with his family I would have called back later.....or just don't answer the phone. It's just an attempt to make us look bad i think.
He's also saying the repairs are now our issue, after saying he will report them to the landlord 4 months ago.
So we have the below problems;
No repairs for 7 months
No Gas safety Certificate provided
Boiler is not working correctly
Refusing to give landlords details
Entering the property without our consent
I have written evidence to back up all of this above.
But nobody seems to care. I went through all of the proper channels, council, hse etc. to try to get this sorted but he must be lying to them to get out of it, or the person dealing with my case just doesn't care.
This is the response I got back from the local council after they cancelled my appointment 10 minutes before they were supposed to show up and do an inspection.
>
Apologises for the short notice in contacting you to cancel today’s appointment.
This is because after reviewing your case and Licensing officers speaking with the managing agents we are satisfied that they are actively engaging and willing to resolve repair issues if reported and access is freely given.
Furthermore I do not consider the disrepair issues you have raised with us to be a major hazard and cannot be assessed under the HHSRS measures harms and the severity of the risk.
Therefore none of the minor repairs listed below would qualify an HHSRS hazard assessment rating.
- Oven is not secure
- Joined kitchen and living room - Nails sticking out of the flooring
- Curtain bar hanging from wall
- Windows difficult to open
- Door handles & stoppers broken
Your disrepair case has been closed no further action required. However if further help or advice is required please do not hesitate to contact.
>
They are saying they are satisfied that he is actively engaging in getting the repairs done which is absolutely unbelievable. I sent them email evidence of him ignoring us for 7 months and they say that!
I know I can report him to the property ombudsman but they said I have to make a formal complaint, and i'm very worried about them issuing a Section 21 so I don't want to go down that route as the missus will be having an operation making her unable to walk for a month soon so I am holding off on the formal complaint for now.
I even managed to get the landlords details from the land registry and write him a letter with all of the evidence but he hasn't replied for over 2 weeks so i'm starting to lose faith in that now too.
This is starting to have quite a serious affect on my mental health, i'm spending ages reporting all of this and fighting it and it amounts to nothing. I've already missed out on a hefty payrise because I had to push my exams back because I was dealing with all of this so any advice on what I do now is massively appreciated.
I know I said I was keeping it brief but this was about the best I could do so sorry for the long read.
Is anyone able to give me some advice on what I can do next?
Reported disrepair in flat within 5 days of moving in, 7 months ago.
Agent fobs us off for 7 months. We were chasing on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis for this to be done but he just ignores us. He did come to the flat once and said he will be sorting the issues out back in around April.
Council say he is dealing with the repairs, they refuse to give me any further info and close my case off. No evidence must have been provided from his side because he's not spoken to us for over a month (Last email i have provided further down). Refuse to help me any further. Not once during our tenancy have we ever had a repair even booked or communicated with us.
Also had a case open with the HSE about gas safety cert at the same time. Council asked me for evidence of it not being provided on out tenants portal, which I provided, then they seem to have dropped it. They won't deal with this any further and I still after 2 months of it expiring don't have one.
This came about because he forgot to renew the gas safety cert (2 weeks past renewal date), I reminded him then he came onto the property without our consent the next day and apparently got it checked. The boiler is not configurable and we have to turn it off all the time otherwise it's running full blast 24/7, there's a maintenance and error symbol on the front so we can't do anything with it, we have no evidence of ever being informed of this fault but nobody seems to care about it except us. Our gas bills were huge for the first 4 months of living here because of this.
This is the lovely email we received back from him after we reported him to the HSE and council.
https://imgur.com/a/Etn5PvA
Everything he's saying there is complete rubbish .I called the boiler engineer on his business number that I got from Google, if he would have told me he's having dinner with his family I would have called back later.....or just don't answer the phone. It's just an attempt to make us look bad i think.
He's also saying the repairs are now our issue, after saying he will report them to the landlord 4 months ago.
So we have the below problems;
No repairs for 7 months
No Gas safety Certificate provided
Boiler is not working correctly
Refusing to give landlords details
Entering the property without our consent
I have written evidence to back up all of this above.
But nobody seems to care. I went through all of the proper channels, council, hse etc. to try to get this sorted but he must be lying to them to get out of it, or the person dealing with my case just doesn't care.
This is the response I got back from the local council after they cancelled my appointment 10 minutes before they were supposed to show up and do an inspection.
>
Apologises for the short notice in contacting you to cancel today’s appointment.
This is because after reviewing your case and Licensing officers speaking with the managing agents we are satisfied that they are actively engaging and willing to resolve repair issues if reported and access is freely given.
Furthermore I do not consider the disrepair issues you have raised with us to be a major hazard and cannot be assessed under the HHSRS measures harms and the severity of the risk.
Therefore none of the minor repairs listed below would qualify an HHSRS hazard assessment rating.
- Oven is not secure
- Joined kitchen and living room - Nails sticking out of the flooring
- Curtain bar hanging from wall
- Windows difficult to open
- Door handles & stoppers broken
Your disrepair case has been closed no further action required. However if further help or advice is required please do not hesitate to contact.
>
They are saying they are satisfied that he is actively engaging in getting the repairs done which is absolutely unbelievable. I sent them email evidence of him ignoring us for 7 months and they say that!
I know I can report him to the property ombudsman but they said I have to make a formal complaint, and i'm very worried about them issuing a Section 21 so I don't want to go down that route as the missus will be having an operation making her unable to walk for a month soon so I am holding off on the formal complaint for now.
I even managed to get the landlords details from the land registry and write him a letter with all of the evidence but he hasn't replied for over 2 weeks so i'm starting to lose faith in that now too.
This is starting to have quite a serious affect on my mental health, i'm spending ages reporting all of this and fighting it and it amounts to nothing. I've already missed out on a hefty payrise because I had to push my exams back because I was dealing with all of this so any advice on what I do now is massively appreciated.
I know I said I was keeping it brief but this was about the best I could do so sorry for the long read.
Is anyone able to give me some advice on what I can do next?
