To think if the landlord can afford private school they can afford to fix the damp in this flat?

[weatherall]

Or maybe they're getting a bursary and not declaring the rental income.

I've just found out that LL's child is being sent to £10k private school next term.

I had previously had a bit of sympathy for her as she bought this flat at top of the market and is most def in negative equity now. Depending on deposit the rent we pay probably isn't much more than her repayment mortgage and la fees.

Structural work needs done eg damp proofing. We have been waiting months and have resigned ourselves to moving as it isn't going to happen. DP has asthma so we can't risk his health from another winter in this damp hole.

But now that her DC is going private I think, well she can afford to get the work done and is just being a s*** landlord.

The other possibility is that she is getting a bursary and possibly not declaring this income.

I assume ainbu to be p ed off.

Wwyd?

Kick up a stink with the la?

Stop paying rent? I'm not going to do this, I think it would be unreasonable.

Report her to the school?

there's a lot of rich people in Poland. There are a lot of people from Poland in relationships with people in the UK who could afford private school fees.

Or it could just be she has a higher income than you thought. Push her again to get the work done. Can you talk to Shelter about your options?

Talk to the council's environmental health department.

Missed this: "So if the rent the LL gets is the same as the mortgage payment going out, where does she get the money from to pay for the repairs?
And don't say 'then she should sell the house' because she is in negative equity so can't!"

She has contracted to provide accommodation and has certain legal responsibilities. If she can't afford to fulfil those responsibilities, she can't afford to be a LL. If she is in that much negative equity that she can;t afford to sell at so much of a loss, then she is legally bankrupt. Aren;t there laws about other kinds of businesses, trading while insolvent?!

How is it acceptable for a tenant to be in breach of their contract to withhold rent until essential repairs are carried out (whilst still in their fixed term agreement) and a LL can carry on taking rent money for substandard properties?

A LL can get a bad tenant out of a property with the help of a court.
A good tenant can't fight to get repairs done and stay in the home they are paying for. They are told to suck it up and move. At great emotional and financial cost.

Tenants rights in this country are good?

Depends, if you're running an un-vented tumble dryer? If not then start with the school.

squoosh agree with all you have said,you have saved me much typing

op,id be bloody mad to

hope you manage to sort it

OH GOD NOT THE UNVENTED TUMBLE DRYER.

Sqoosh and Plu, spot on. If a person can't afford the maintenance on a rental property they should sell it. Losing money is sometimes the consequence of going into business.

The trouble is when people don't treat it like a business...

One can have sympathy for "accidental landlords" who are obeying all their obligations, even though they are just breaking even, or losing money, having calculated that this is better than crystallising the loss.

However, the people who let their property and don't perform their maintenance/ safety/ reporting/ inspecting duties seriously and legally are not actually running a business. They are just faking it, in order to get someone to subsidise their underperforming, possibly dead, investment. That has serious human consequences, when it's housing we're talking about.

Part of the damp/ mould problem has been caused by the faulty windows that have been fitted.

They don't have vents. We can't leave then open when we are out during the day as it's ground floor.

We told the la about the damp when we first moved in so 9 months ago. They said they told the ll but she ignored request.

It's bad enough that we don't want to live here, with DP having asthma but I doubt it's bad enough for environmental health to care.

There's another structural problem which is a safety risk but it'd be to identifying for me to say here.

I am aware of tenants' rights.

I know there's nothing I can do about the ll issue.

I probably should have mentioned it at all.

My moral dilemma really is should I report possible bursary fraud?

The fact that the piq is my ll really isn't relevant.

Forget the bursary issue, get environmental health involved.

Op, you've said yourself that your rental barely covers the mortgage. I'm sure "no second home" means "no owning more than one property for personal use" - having a buy to let property with a rental stream would count in income, with costs offset against income. And if she is renting or living with a partner/friend, her name may only be on the deeds if one property.

I don't expect your personal situation would improve if she discovered you had contacted the school.

And yes, she's being a crap LL - but I assume if her DD didn't take up the private school place for a term/year and the money was spent on damp etc, then her Dd might not get a place later in her school career, she might be unsettled by a move etc. Most people don't know the ins and outs of their LL kids' schooling. Focus on the channels that might get the LL to fix the problem eg EHO.

And if you contact school and they say (which they shouldn't) "X doesn't have a bursary" but they go on to tell your LL about the call?

" but I assume if her DD didn't take up the private school place for a term/year and the money was spent on damp etc, then her Dd might not get a place later in her school career, "

This isn't the OP's responsibility to shoulder in any way, shape or form. Rent money needs to spent on the maintaining the property first before any profits are skimmed off for the LL's lifestyle costs.

assuming "la" is "letting agent", not "local authority" or some other body

Why not the local authority? They have responsibility for enforcing the tolerable standard for houses. Don't know off the top of my head what the English legislation is but in Scotland it's in the 1987 and 2006 Housing Acts.

Even

Sorry, even our apartment which has good ventilation will get damp problems in some rooms if we never open the windows (bathrooms mainly). This doesn't sound like it's a structural problem at all.

I would quite like a tripadvisor/checkatrade site for landlords. And I'm speaking as somebody who used to be one.

Agreed, and a database on prospective tenants is a good idea too (agents have blacklists here in Australia but no centralized system).

The LL's child gong to a private school is neither here nor there and nothing to do with your damp problem, and your trying to tie it all in together says more about you than anyone else.

There are proper channels to go through in order to get your problem sorted out, and bitching about the childs school isn't one of them.

Mimi, landlords are already able to do reference and financial checks to ascertain their tenants' backgrounds. Landlords - running a business - are not subject to the same checks and are not required to provide the information, so there's a power imbalance.

The way I see it is that the repair work is essential. The ll has known about it for at least almost a year. She refused to pay for it.

My previous stance was understanding as I assume she is an accidental ll with not much spare cash. (Maybe she does- maybe she had a big deposit and makes a killing off our rent).

Now that I have found out she has a spare £10k kicking about I'm not so sympathetic as she obviously can afford to do the work and is just being a rouge ll.

So that it why I think the 2 issues are connected.

I'm actually surprised that so few mners are bothered about the potential bursary fraud. (Going by the way benefit fraud is discussed on other threads)

Forget about your LL's private life, it's not helping or contributing anything. Just focus on getting your LL to deal with the damp problem.

Weatherall. Have you contacted the environmental health department at the council?

If she has a bursary due to financial need, and you say that the rent you are paying barely covers the mortgage, then she probably has declared it and is still in need. Perhaps her daughter is an academic or sporting superstar (as so many from Eastern Europe are) and has earned her own scholarship to the school.

If you are going to get hung up on the way your ll chooses to allocate her funds and make assumptions then I think you should look for alternative accommodation asap, especially given the damp/asthma issue. Frankly it is no more your business than it would be in reverse, such as if you said you couldn't afford a rent rise but then appeared to spend on what she perceived as a lower priority expenses.

Bursary 'fraud' (of which I'm not convinced applies anyway) has bugger all to do with benefit fraud.
One is a private institution & another is the public purse.
You really need to let go of the kids education stick & concentrate on the issues that affect you tangibly & directly - the state of your property & the work needed to identify the causes & rectify problems.
Exactly why is it damp & has mold?
What is your LL going to do about it?
Contacting LL & agent formally & then with no reaction calling environmental health & looking at your realistic options for recourse (CAB & Shelter are helpful for this)
Then taking steps about your life.
Getting bitter & vindictive about other things outside of your direct circle won't help you in anyway - use that energy & anger productively into finding an actual solution to your predicament. I suspect leaving isn't the worst idea even if it's difficult.