UK Landlord Forum / Life

I know, there is a separate board for tenants.

It's uninhabited, anyway, read first.

It is my last week in this flat and I am so glad I am moving out.

The tenancy agreement signed between the company I worked for and agents. Tied accommodation, fully furnished, all electric, new-built. Company never made a secret who were the agents and if I needed anything I would speak directly to the agents.

There were very few things I needed from them. Rent paid in time and in full.

One thing, I noticed my fridge played up - it took them 10 days to replace. Lost some £60 worth of food plus huge inconvenience.
Second, one of my heaters did not work as of time I moved in - it took them 14 month to repair.
Third, I could not stand my feet freezing on the floor and high bills with all the heating on almost 24/7 - asked the agents if they thought my electric bill was usual for this flat, no comment.

Having 12 degrees Celsius on the floor and hardly 16 at the table level, I looked into construction standards, spoke to health and safety, energy efficiency specialists - discovered the floor composition and heating not compliant. I learned about uValue and all other terminology I would never need to know.

Discovered that the kitchen layout according to council standards in unacceptable.

I requested in writing landlord's details from the agents, first they said it was not going to happen for Data protection bla-bla, however, the manager quickly interfered and agreed to accept a request. Almost committed a criminal offence. Now I am waiting for a reply, 10 days left.

Why do I need the details? Landlord has certain obligations. If s/he knew about substandard conditions, I want to sue him for at least half of my electric bill and compensation. If s/he did not, he can complain to the construction company and have it fixed.

Why is always the tenant that are bad/dodgy on this board? I paid for service, why was I not getting it?

Do you, landlords, always know what your property is like?

Landlords/agents SHOULD make quarterly inspections of their property, so they get an idea of what state the property is in then. I know what condition my properties are in because I do the inspections and I also make sure I attend to any problems my tenants inform me of ASAP.

It's not so much that tenants are ALWAYS dodgy on this forum. The fact is, most of the users here are landlords and they only post when they have problems. This forum is for problem solving.

I'd have no problem if this forum got more attraction from tenants experiencing problems their landlords. But right now, that's not the case, unfortunately.

By law, your letting agent MUST provide you details of your landlord if you request it.

I wish you the best of luck.

Inspections - not necessary, it is not the matter of should, they may, just not to have surprises at an end of a tenancy. What they looked was: if it was clean, no broken furniture, they did not bother if it was cold or I had high bills.

It is an utmost 5 year old Barratts building and looks very good.

So, would you as a landlord want to know that Curry's, building maintenance company, to manage high electric bills in the common areas simply remove fuses from heaters?
Part of rent I paid included, I am sure, exterior cleaning and Curry's instructed the cleaning subcontractors not to wash our windows and not to clean driveways to cut costs.

Do agents have an obligation to inform landlords of any complaints tenants have? I was told that landlord delegated all deciding powers to the agents and they act as a firewall to preserve landlord's sanity.

The agents said all above none of landlord's concern.

Hi Marivanna,

Sorry to hear you have had such an unpleasant experience as a tenant.  Nice property but rubbish service and care.
Regarding heating; one avenue you should have taken up is the heating/insulation being inadequate. Local council have the powers to force landlords to make improvements in this area and you can request an inspection for this purpose.
Quote from the DirectGov website...."A property should be safe and healthy for occupiers, so responsibility should be taken to ensure that the dwelling is capable of providing adequate heating, which ideally means controllable central heating and insulation, with equipment and the fabric of the building in good repair ".
If the local council were told and didn't act upon it then a call to your local MP would probably help move things on swiftly.

Not all landlords are miserly cheapskates out for profit at any expense.  Unfortunately it is the nature of things that you only tend to hear about the bad ones. Many have very good relations with our tenants.  This also applies to Letting Agents. I use a LA for one property and they are excellent, dealing with any problems immediately and efficiently to the tenants benefit. This bearing in mind is at my cost and not the tenants.

I hope your next property tenancy is more enjoyable.