rent$&repairs

[phillcraven]

i rent a one bed room flat from an estate agent! have contract with them. when i took the flat it needed alot of work doing to it DAMP , back door, units for kitchen sink and wall and was told it would be done . 10 months later the work has been done all say the decorateing. it took 3 weeks for the work to be done for the damp alone. i had no chose but to stay else where for the time the work was carried out as their was no place for me to move let alone live . on my return to the falt the rent was due so i went asked how much rent did they want and was told the full amount. the work men used my power and water while i was not able to live in the flat. iv asked the agent for the landlords full details and been told i can't have it i even sent a recorded letter asking the same! WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT?

[Nosha123]

do you not have a contract.. our landlords details were in that... it does sound unfair!

[phillcraven]

yes iv got a contract but the agents are saying they are not my landlord and wont give me his details!!!! not getting any where with them

[daffy654]

Go to the land registry site and input your address,it should allow you to download details of the flat owner for a fee of �3.00.

[Twenty20]

In law you're renting from the landlord not the estate agent. The agent is literally that, an agent for the landlord.

By law, an address in the UK for the landlord has to be made available to you within, I think without looking it up, 14 days of your written request. Without a valid UK address for the landlord you don't have to pay rent - although I wouldn't actually advise not paying, but the law says you don't have to. If you did withhold rent you would need to pay it back once the address was forthcoming.

You could possibly find out the name and address of the landlord by visiting the Land Registry website. It costs less than �5 I think.

If the property was uninhabitable while work was being carried out then the landlord is responsible for finding you alternative accommodation. Also, you can't be expected to pay rent whilst not being able to live there.

In your position I would write to the Agent telling them that you intend to pay a proportion of the rent for the month i.e. if you couldn't live there for 3 weeks then you only pay 25% of the rent for that month.

I have to ask the question though, if there was so much wrong with this property, why did you ever move in?

[phillcraven]

The flat was made to look good. the back door could not be opened, within 4 weeks of me moveing in the cream walls were black . i have already replaced the damp damaged carpets{ rotten} at my cost . Iv tried to sort things out but i keep getting the butt passed !!!

[Banali]

How long is your tenancy agreement? You say that 10 months on the work has been done so it sounds as though you have been there almost a year.

I would wait until you are at a point where your deposit covers your remaining rent less:

The rent covering the period you had to move out and stay elsewhere.

Expenses incurred as a result of not being able to stay there

A proportion of the power and water bills covering the period you were forced to move out

The cost of replacing the damaged carpets.

Any other expenses incurred as a result of the disruption.

The agents sound like con artists so I wouldn't worry about them pusuing you through the courts. They probably wouldn't dare.

Take lots of pictures of the damp etc.

[bednobs]

here is my take on things
1) you will be in trouble if you withold the rent
2) was the flat reallly "uninhabitable" throughout the 3 weeks or did you simply choose to stay somewhere else because it was inconvenient to live there while work was going on?
3) you should have negotiated with the agents previosly to moving out, not after the fact. If in their opinion the flat was habitable during the work, they are hardly going to et you off the rent because you chose not to live there.
4) what on earth are you doing replacing things in the flat like carpets? did you ask permission first? those carpets belong to the landlord, not you and while you may feel you are improving the place, it's not your decision to make. if you did get LL's permission why didn't he/she pay?