Tenant information

[sarnieken]

Good morning everyone,

My question relates to a tenant's rights when they are not able to inhabit the property due to flood damage caused by a third party.

What happened was,
The numpty upstairs managed to empty a whole bath load of water through our roof which destroyed our bed, mattress, duvet etc. and soaked the bedroom carpet.

This was a month ago and since then we have been living elsewhere, at cost to ourselves.

At first we stopped paying rent as we clearly couldn't live there and we had to pay to live elsewhere. (We're not made of money)

The Landlord has now said we have to pay the rent and then claim it back which, at the pace they are doing things at the moment, could take ages.

My question is this.
Can we legally refuse to pay rent on a place that we clearly can't inhabit and haven't been able to for a month now.

Any help will be appreciated as we certainly can't afford to be paying for two places while ours is being slowly repaired.
Ta,
k

[daffy654]

I haven't got an answer for you but you may get a better response to this question in the Law section.Good luck.