UK Landlord Forum / Life

Dear All,

Thankyou for taking the time to read this.

When I moved into the shared accomadation I am currently in, it has 3 bedrooms and me and my husband share a room. I was not given any docuements related to the tenancy, this includes EPC, GAS SAFETY CERTIFICATE, HOW TO RENT GUIDE. I was not aware of these things until later on into my tenancy agreement but I have not been given any of these except the HOW TO RENT GUIDE, which was sent via email with my DEPOSIT PROTECTION CERIFICATE. This was only sent to me when my original tenancy ended and I am in a position where I was financially not stable so I needed to take out a second 6 month tenancy agreement.

Anyway at the beginning of the first tenancy myself and my husband noticed the smell of gas and also we both saw smoke in our room. I told my landlords and I have the Whatsapp Messages I sent the Landlord but not the Landlady as my phone broke and stupidly I had not backed up my text messages.

My landlord said that they would get someone to look at it but this did not happen. My landlady said that she would ask British Gas but I was not happy with the answer she gave, which sounded as if she was trying to fob me of.

In February 2020, the hot water was not working so I told the landlords and they said that British Gas would come out, we had no hot water for 4-5 days. The engineer was poking around in the boiler and said that he couldn't fix it as the advice given in the last Gas Safety Inspection was not followed and my landlords had not put in a flue hatch. He asked to speak to my landlords and when he spoke to the landlady she was very aggressive and said that '' they were getting around to putting in the flue hatch'' but that he had not right to turn off the boiler which he did because he said it was dangerous to use. When I asked when was the last time, the Gas Safety certificate had been done, the engineer said November 2018.

My landlord told me that I could turn the boiler on again as they had a carbon monoxcide detector which I was completely unware of as we had not been told about it and it was inside the boiler cupboard. Someone did come to fit the flue hatch and carry out an inspection, I was able to take a picture of the Gas Safety Certificate as my landlords took it and refused to give us a copy.

I also have picture from thr British Gas docs the engineer left and the engineers name.

I would report this to the council.  I had a relatively similar situation last year and they were very responsive.

First thing first, if you smell gas, open windows and get out, then call the National Gas Emergencies number. Don't just carry on like "oh it's interesting but it's probably nothing"....

I'm assuming you're not a lodger from your post.

No GSC before tenancy start, great, the LL can't evict you using s21 assuming AST.

Make a complaint/report to the council and the HSE about the various gas safety concern over the years if I'll you.

Not the gas safety, but sounds like the LL wasn't in compliance with deposit protection rules. You should be able to sue for a penalty. You may want to wait till you're no longer living there first though. Have up to (approx.) six years from when tenancy first started to do so.