To ask my landlord to knock a bit of money off the rent this month?

[OHforDUCKScake]

My boiler has been breaking for 2 weeks. It finally died a death on Friday evening so no heating or hot water and Ive been heating my house with several and apparently verh expensive heaters.

The plumber is here now and telling me it might be longer because theres a part missing from the part he is fitting. Or something.

Im a bit worried about my fastt rising electric bill to foot all these heaters.

Would I be unreasonable to approach my landlord about this? Hes really nice, his mother is going into a hospice today and he leant me two of the heaters as well so I dont particularly want to get on his bad side.... (Plus, despite him being lovely his with is the most bitter, angry, twsited, insulting woman Ive ever been so unfortunate to come across and I dont want to feel her wrath. Again.)

Plumber keeping you cold then. Dis LL employ him or you?

I wouldnt ask ll for reduction in that situation.

When you say plumber not heating engineer, I do hope he's Gas Safe registered - if not, I believe I'm correct in saying that he's working illegally if he's working with the boiler (as opposed to pipework).

you can ask, but more importantly;

does the landlord know that this guy is the wrong person?
is he gas safe registered? (you can check on the website easily)

the landlord is paying for this non-service and needs to know that there's a problem.

I dont know how I can check, I only know his first name but Im pretty sure he'll be registered my landlord does everything by the book and just so.

And as for the plumber keeping me cold, not the LL, it was the LL that uses him.

Communicate with your LL then. She is not a mind reader and will not know if the plumber is useless or not if you don't tell her. She will be just as keen to get it all properly and legally fixed as you are.

Heart - I see you're back to slating landlords again with your generalisations... Personally I use the same plumber and boiler company for my tenants as I've used in my own home - why wouldn't I?

I hsce to echo hart's experience. Every landlord I've rented from has used cowboy 'mates' working off the books or handymen when a properly qualified tradesman is needed.

I would inwardly groan when they'd say 'someone will be around to look at it in the evening. ' You knew it would be the same berk who came round to 'fix' every prblem with electrical tape and bath sealant.

As a result of his bodges the same problem would reoccur.

Legally, your obligation to pay the rent and the LL's obligation to keep the place in good repair are independent. So you're not legally entitled to pay less rent if there are outstanding repairs, and the LL couldn't refuse to do repairs because you had rent arrears.

However, that's not what you asked. You asked if it would be reasonable to ask. That depends on your relationship, the local market etc. Is he lucky to have you as a good tenant or are you lucky to have him? Is he often using shoddy tradesmen and you want him to realise the consequences, or is he generally very good?

It's a people / relationships question really, not a legal question.

I wouldn't ask for a rent discount but I would give your LL some feedback about the plumber, in a "I know you pride yourself on doing everything just so and giving a good service so I thought you might want to know that the plumber was rather inefficient" sort of way. If you mention that it might have been fixed earlier and saved you both some inconvenience and expense if the plumber had been a bit more on the ball, at worst you might not have to encounter that plumber again for future repairs and at best the LL might offer a discount anyway.