To think that criminals should not be allowed to be landlords

[Fernie3]

We rent our house, its a fairly decent house in a not too bad area so we pay a fair amount for it.
Since we have moved in we have discovered shocking levels of negligence on behalf of the landlord. The two best....there was a water leak in the kitchen so we pulled out the washing machine etc to find that the whole kitchen had been wired into one BROKEN plug...there is an extension lead plugged into that and the another extension lead plugged into that one that runs all the appliances in the kitchen....off one extensions lead which was soaked when the pipe ( which was also botched together) burst. He has obviously fitted the kitchen himself and by the looks of it whilst drunk?!
Then about a week ago the boiler started making a weird buzzing noise, gas man came and said that the buzzing noise was electricity arcing round in the boiler as it was very badly maintained and broken.

We now have no heating or hot water and every time we use any of our kitchen appliances ( including cooker) we are risking being electrocuted.

Now we have called up and companied to the agency who to be fair ARE telling the landlord that he has to fix these things but he isn't doing it ( took 8 weeks for him to fix a cheap shower he is never going to rewire the kitchen or replace the boiler) .

The thing is since we have moved in we have found out that he has only just been released from prison and that his wife is still in prison.....so really breach of contract is the least of their worries. We cant move as we spent all our money moving in and we are stuck in a death trap..

Criminals should not be landlords....aibu?

I don't think his criminal past has anything to do with the fact that he is a shit landlord tbh.

Did you look the place over before you moved in? Did the agency know about the state of repair? I don't think it actually matters that he's just come out of prison... bad landlords are bad landlords.

YABU - criminals can go on to do many things & shouldn't all be tarred with the same brush.

Your landlord sounds like a total WANKER & WANKERS should def not be allowed to be landlords, unfortunately many are.

What a bugger of a situation for you - maybe CAB can help? Or someone will be along in a minute with some constructive advice.

We did look over it it looks lovely until you start looking behind things. I thought being a criminal especially with fraud type offended ( not going into the exact offence!) would be relaveny because it shows disregard for contracts etc - he doesn't care about breaking the contract at all which law abiding people might?

Try and stop thinking about the fact that your LL is(was) a criminal. That may have nothing to do with the fact that he is also a LL.

What does your contract say? YOu deal with your agent and not the landlord. It is their job to ensure that both of you uphold any contracts that you signed.

I suggest you contact the citizen's advice bureau. I am pretty certain that you can legally walk away from a property if the landlord has not got a gas certificate. Certainly renting out a property without a gas certificate is a criminal offence. The agency is also breaking the law.

A property has to be safe. Our flat has an electrical safety certificate although that only has be updated every five years. The gas certificate has to be done every year. These basic rights over rule any contract.

Tennants are powerful people. It is very hard to enforce a contract to make a tenant pay up if the tenant has left, even when the landlord has met their legal responsiblities.

I would really have thought that the agents at least, would have had to have seen all the paperwork documents re gas and electric safety checks before you were let the property.

Reallytired we cant leave the house as we have no money left to pay the depsit and first months rent on another one. There is a gas safety certificate that was dine before we moved in but the gas man who came this time said thar he is surprised it passed as when he opened it up parts fell out . Didn't see any electricity checks? Is this a legal requirement?
We have spoken to the agency who have agreed that work needs doing but they cant do it until the landlord approves it which he hasn't.

I would with hold the rent until it gets fixed. He is in breach of contract and as you have no money it is the only thing you can do.

Take photos of everything and write down everything that has happened such as what the gasman said.
You could call in environmental health and get them to take a look. We had a house fire caused by an ill-repaired exterior fuse box. Environmental health were round the next day (they got the report from the fire brigade) and told the agent exactly what the Landlord needed to do.

You can't withold the rent without getting yourself in more shit - it seems the law is stacked on the side of the landlord. You need to contact someone at the council and explain the problems and they can take action for you. (We're about to have to do that for the second time, our house is infested with dry rot, black mould and most recently mice, and the only way we can get any action is to get the council involved. It's very tedious.)

It's a ballache but look into moving out, these people don't change!

Don't know if this is the proper legal advice but can't you stop paying rent till this is sorted?

At the very worst you could then save your rent money for a new place? It would take a while for him to kick you out, I assume. (Well, that's assuming he did so legally, which may not be a valid assumption in your case!)

From what you've described. . . is it possible that the gas certificate was faked? I mean, if the gas engineer is surprised it passed?

Nevertheless, YABVU. Not allowing "criminals" to be landlords would be impossible. . . I put that in quotation marks because he has served his time and paid his debt to society. Not allowing people to enter into private contracts would be a huge additional punishment. Unprecedented as far as I know -- it would be on par with reinstituting debtors' prison in my view.

Even though YABU about criminals being LL, YANBU to be very put out!

Very on your behalf.

I am a landlady and let through an agent. The property has to have a gas safety certificate and all electricals are PAC tested every year. The agent arranges this but honestly, if I refused I wouldn't be allowed on their books. Your agent is being pretty spineless and your landlord beggars belief.

You should definitely not be expected to stay in an unsafe property and agree that you should contact either the citizens advice bureau or Environmental Health cause it is not legal to rent a property like that. If they won't fix it asap then you should be able to get your deposit back (it is not help by the landlord any more but by a neutral 3rd party organisation whose name I can't remember).

Actually, I agree with you. I remember how awful it was when we discovered that our landlord was holidaying at her majesty's pleasure, rather than abroad. Given that the judge in the court case described him as 'high up the supply chain' on a drugs charge, and given that he had grassed up other people to get a shorter sentence (don't know if that had worked), we lived in terror of retaliation on his house. Not to mention the fact that he had absolutely terrorised the neighbours when he had lived in the house.

And when the central heating was buggered, we were too scared to chase him to have it mended.

At the end of our tenancy, we did a moonlit flit, leaving my DH's work address as a forwarding address.

At the very least, I think there should be a duty of disclosure on the part of the landlord.

Jeee i know since we have moved in neighbours have described how the police raided the house and battered in the doors etc it makes you feel a little insecure to say the least! Disclosure would be good had we known we never would have moved here in the first place.

Have they paid your deposit to one of these approved holding agencies & notified you? If they don't notify you within 14 days you may have a legal way out with all your money back.

Shelter may be of some help to you

Wb I might call the deposit protection place to see where we stand with that if we could get that back before moving it would at least make it a little more affordable if it came to that, having to move our first would be impossible at the moment!

contact th environmental health team of your council

If you are in England (sorry, big assumption there!) have a look at this site to see what your rights are.

tenant rights

Especially the section on Environmental Health problems, badly fitted electrial points are listed there.

As well as environmental health, your local council's housing department may have a private sector advice team to give advice to private tenants.

The one for my local council states:

"We provide advice and information for tenants renting private accommodation. This includes advising on the minimum standards of accommodation they should expect from their landlord and how we can support both them and the landlord in achieving them."

I think you are right though, when you say that breach of contract is probably the least of your landlord's worries.

However much you like the place where you are, for your own peace of mind I would start lookiing for somewhere else & working out how you can move on with the least amount of expense & disruption to yourself.

IME bad landlords don't change into good ones, and trying to force a bad one to act responsibly is more trouble than it's worth.

Looking back on situations I've had, my main regret is not cutting my losses sooner rather than later - when its your home it's always tempting to try & hang on, but it often isn't worth the stress.

"You can't withold the rent without getting yourself in more shit - it seems the law is stacked on the side of the landlord. "

That is not true. Try being a landlord with a bad tenant.

There is little a landlord can do about rent being withheld until the tenant is 60 days or more overdue. Even then it is incredibly expensive to evict someone as it has to go to court.

The worse that can happen to a tenant is to get a county court judgement and even that only lasts five years. It is not a trival matter getting a ocunty court judgement against someone.

If you are taken to court you need to turn up and defend yourself. If you are forced to pay money then you can suggest terms that are reasonable like paying your ex landlord a £1 a week if you are destitute. However from your post I think your landlord would not be sucessful at getting money out of you.

Contact shelter and see what they say.

you can withold rent, but you need to give the landlord a chance to fix the problems withing a reasonable timeframe first. and informing your ll about it.

Yes put everything in writing.

And remember - there are good landlords and agents out there! Don't put up with this because you think all landlords are this useless.

God, he sounds like our landlord. He hasn't given you (and the letting agents) a non existent address in London by any chance has he?

I'm pretty sure that if you can't get full enjoyment out of your property (ie, no hot water/heating, can't use kitchen) then you have every right to withold rent. Worth looking at your tenancy agreement to check.