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Hello! Thought I might put the feelers out here and see if anyone has been in/witnessed a similar situation in the past and could offer some advice.
Me and my wife started a tenancy back in September 2015. When we went for the viewing if was determined the garden (one of the main draws of the property) would be renovated as it was in a pretty severe state of disrepair - with rotten decking, a collapsing brickwork "water feature", dirty pond and overgrown greenery - either before we moved in, or very shortly after.
It was on this good faith we signed the tenancy agreement on the 17th September, again being told (to us as well my wife's parents - our guarantors) that the garden will be ready for the last spell of half decent weather . We we're then delayed moving in for 4 days as they couldn't arrange a cleaner to prepare the property and since then the delays have just become more numerous and frustrating.
When the weather turned cold we found it impossible to spend any time on the ground floor as, no matter how high or how long we had the heating on, it was just too cold to bear. When we raised this concern during our first inspection in December, along with a reminder that the garden was still in an unusable and unsafe condition, we we're essentially dismissed with "well, underfloor heating isn't really all that effective anyway". Fast forward to February and still unable to use the garden and ground floor and we decide to send a letter direct to the landlord (and the lettings agents) raising these concerns, along with the revelation that all the hardwired fire alarms are out of their service life (expired 2013) or completely broken. We received the token apologetic response from the agency (nothing from the landlord), as well as confirmation that a gas engineer is being arranged to look at the heating situation and the landlord is looking at getting quotes for the garden works. It turned out the pump that supplies the water flow to the underfloor heating (the only source on the ground floor) had in fact failed and in the words of the engineer himself was "too bloody hot to even touch".... Considering the lack of working fire alarms this was obviously not great news to us.
The pump was eventually replaced at the end of February, by which point the worst of the cold weather had passed anyways, but the garden and fire alarms had still not been touched. Repeated reminders we're sent, both in-between all this and after, only to be met with typical "sorry, we are awaiting confirmation from the landlord" or "The landlord are waiting for another quote" responses (seriously, we have a pile of emails an inch thick of this).
This saga continued all the way through to the spring, not at all contributing to the stress we we're already facing considering we got married on the 2nd April. Throughout all this we continued to pay the full amount of rent every month, though never had full use of the property, so we took a slightly harder stance and demanded a date for garden work to commence and some form of compensation. This was flatly refused at first, but eventually the landlord agreed a £300 "good will gesture", promised the garden would be ready for the summer and would look into getting the fire alarms replaced.
After another delay in getting an acceptable quote the gardeners did eventually turn up. They made a start by clearing as much as they could in one morning, left the garden looking like a building site, and a pile of rotten decking in one of our car parking spaces and subsequently disappeared for over a week. Yet more emails we're sent, yet more apologies were made, and yet again we were left with a garden we couldn't use. The gardeners turned up for round 2 shortly after, cleared most of the rubbish into a skip (that they parked in that parking space they took up previously), broke a plug into one of the kitchen sockets, made a start on the patio then left... For another 2 weeks (leaving the skip, of course). During this time the contractor arranged by the landlord to remedy the fire alarm situation cancelled DURING their arranged time-slot 3 times (twice of which someone had to take time off work to cover).
For us this was pretty much all we could stand, especially considering we were still paying the full rental amount, so 3 weeks ago we offered the landlord a quick and easy solution to simply end the tenancy early (considering we pay a month in advance it would be at 10 months, rather than 12). The agency passed this onto landlord, but not before reminding us of our "contractual obligations" (seemingly forgetting their own...) and suggesting they had full right to decline our request.
After having to send more emails to chase up a response they eventually came back with conditions they would be happy with - continue to pay rent up till new tenants are found, allow them access for viewings etc, all of which we were happy to do. What we did not agree with was the condition that WE pay all fee's for the relisting of the property and associated costs. Considering how patient we had been for the past 9 months, and this was something they would surely have to do in a months time anyway, this seemed like a colossal insult. We offered a reply agreeing to all terms bar that one and was again insulted to receive a very short, very disingenuous reply stating only "the landlord does not agree with your terms and as such the date for the end of your tenancy remains 16th September 2016", with the added gem of "We will contact you nearer the time regarding inventory check" - insinuating no further communication will be taking place until then?? Considering the gardeners have not shown up since we put this motion into action, and the fire alarms are still not working, we can only assume they also intend no further work will take place until then too??
Now the question is, do we flat out refuse to continue to pay, wait for them to take us to court and counter-claim (on safety grounds)? Or do we contact environmental health and the housing ombudsman and give them as much trouble as they have given us?
Thanks in advance!
Me and my wife started a tenancy back in September 2015. When we went for the viewing if was determined the garden (one of the main draws of the property) would be renovated as it was in a pretty severe state of disrepair - with rotten decking, a collapsing brickwork "water feature", dirty pond and overgrown greenery - either before we moved in, or very shortly after.
It was on this good faith we signed the tenancy agreement on the 17th September, again being told (to us as well my wife's parents - our guarantors) that the garden will be ready for the last spell of half decent weather . We we're then delayed moving in for 4 days as they couldn't arrange a cleaner to prepare the property and since then the delays have just become more numerous and frustrating.
When the weather turned cold we found it impossible to spend any time on the ground floor as, no matter how high or how long we had the heating on, it was just too cold to bear. When we raised this concern during our first inspection in December, along with a reminder that the garden was still in an unusable and unsafe condition, we we're essentially dismissed with "well, underfloor heating isn't really all that effective anyway". Fast forward to February and still unable to use the garden and ground floor and we decide to send a letter direct to the landlord (and the lettings agents) raising these concerns, along with the revelation that all the hardwired fire alarms are out of their service life (expired 2013) or completely broken. We received the token apologetic response from the agency (nothing from the landlord), as well as confirmation that a gas engineer is being arranged to look at the heating situation and the landlord is looking at getting quotes for the garden works. It turned out the pump that supplies the water flow to the underfloor heating (the only source on the ground floor) had in fact failed and in the words of the engineer himself was "too bloody hot to even touch".... Considering the lack of working fire alarms this was obviously not great news to us.
The pump was eventually replaced at the end of February, by which point the worst of the cold weather had passed anyways, but the garden and fire alarms had still not been touched. Repeated reminders we're sent, both in-between all this and after, only to be met with typical "sorry, we are awaiting confirmation from the landlord" or "The landlord are waiting for another quote" responses (seriously, we have a pile of emails an inch thick of this).
This saga continued all the way through to the spring, not at all contributing to the stress we we're already facing considering we got married on the 2nd April. Throughout all this we continued to pay the full amount of rent every month, though never had full use of the property, so we took a slightly harder stance and demanded a date for garden work to commence and some form of compensation. This was flatly refused at first, but eventually the landlord agreed a £300 "good will gesture", promised the garden would be ready for the summer and would look into getting the fire alarms replaced.
After another delay in getting an acceptable quote the gardeners did eventually turn up. They made a start by clearing as much as they could in one morning, left the garden looking like a building site, and a pile of rotten decking in one of our car parking spaces and subsequently disappeared for over a week. Yet more emails we're sent, yet more apologies were made, and yet again we were left with a garden we couldn't use. The gardeners turned up for round 2 shortly after, cleared most of the rubbish into a skip (that they parked in that parking space they took up previously), broke a plug into one of the kitchen sockets, made a start on the patio then left... For another 2 weeks (leaving the skip, of course). During this time the contractor arranged by the landlord to remedy the fire alarm situation cancelled DURING their arranged time-slot 3 times (twice of which someone had to take time off work to cover).
For us this was pretty much all we could stand, especially considering we were still paying the full rental amount, so 3 weeks ago we offered the landlord a quick and easy solution to simply end the tenancy early (considering we pay a month in advance it would be at 10 months, rather than 12). The agency passed this onto landlord, but not before reminding us of our "contractual obligations" (seemingly forgetting their own...) and suggesting they had full right to decline our request.
After having to send more emails to chase up a response they eventually came back with conditions they would be happy with - continue to pay rent up till new tenants are found, allow them access for viewings etc, all of which we were happy to do. What we did not agree with was the condition that WE pay all fee's for the relisting of the property and associated costs. Considering how patient we had been for the past 9 months, and this was something they would surely have to do in a months time anyway, this seemed like a colossal insult. We offered a reply agreeing to all terms bar that one and was again insulted to receive a very short, very disingenuous reply stating only "the landlord does not agree with your terms and as such the date for the end of your tenancy remains 16th September 2016", with the added gem of "We will contact you nearer the time regarding inventory check" - insinuating no further communication will be taking place until then?? Considering the gardeners have not shown up since we put this motion into action, and the fire alarms are still not working, we can only assume they also intend no further work will take place until then too??
Now the question is, do we flat out refuse to continue to pay, wait for them to take us to court and counter-claim (on safety grounds)? Or do we contact environmental health and the housing ombudsman and give them as much trouble as they have given us?
Thanks in advance!
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