No heating or hot water for over a week??

[MsMarvel]

Can a landlord do this?? Freezing cold, children in the house. What can I do to fix this?

A lot of HAs wont come out over a weekend even if there is water running down the walls. Ive talked about these issues a lot on here OP. Do a search on my username.

There is no point me even attempting to write long posts atm. #talktalkhack.

The contracter..............i bet i can guess the company name in 3 goes.

Last year an HA tenant was flooded out after their dodgy workmen plumbed a bath in wrongly.

Her kids Xmas presents were destroyed. HA refused to replace.

Good luck getting it sorted tomorrow.

Last year our boiler broke and needed replaced. British gas couldn't get us booked in for 5 days. We are homeowners. I'm always amazed when people expect private landlords to arrange things within a day.

This isnt a private landlord Its an HA. Some of these HAs are huge..

Reality Two years ago i watched a desperate tenant on twitter tweet about the ongoing saga of getting her boiler replaced. She had emphesema and her hair started falling out with the stress. It conked out on 3rd Dec and was replaced in late Feb.

I watched in horror as the whole thing unfolded on twitter. They flooded her bedroom on one of the EIGHTEEN appointments it took to get the boiler replaced and then tried to say it was already wet before. This is not uncommon Ive seen it happen again and again and again. And a homeowner can sack a crap contracter and pick and choose who they want . A tenant cant. They have to put up with who the HA chooses This tenant was told on the 15th appointment that if Liberty Gas fucked up again she could have someone else They fucked up again So to punish the tenant for holding them at their word they said "well you can have another contracter but you will have to wait another month.

I cant see a homeowner agreeing to or having to put up with that.

And she had to continue with letting LG continue the job.

Yes its frustrating having to wait for whoever they want to send, rather than booking someone ourselves. The HA begins with an S... Pretty massive but we are actually told they only have 1 plumber working in our city... Total BS, or he must be a pretty busy guy.

Get in touch with your MP, especially if they belong to a party which isn't currently in government. Decent housing is becoming a very big deal politically so you might as well use it too your advantage.

Been there too OP. I was on a training course I had to attend on the other side of the city. So missed the second engineer who didn't need to come and cut me off for safety reasons (it'd already been cleared by the first engineer literally first thing in the morning). Fuming was not the word.

The engineers here have started to contact you now, so if you're not home they'll ring to say they're outside, and will generally wait for you if you're only five minutes away. If not they can move on to the next job and come back to you after.

How old are your DCs? I hope you get it sorted soon.

Reality, lots of these repairs fall under health and safety laws and form part of the tenancy agreement. A landlord, whether they are a private landlord or a housing association or the council, has a duty of care to make sure the property they are renting out is fit for human habitation and not hazardous in any way. The law (Housing Act 1985) gives a specific list of what fit for habitation means and this includes having heating and hot water. This is why certain repairs must be completed within a specified timescale because leaving a property/tenants without is a breach of the Housing Act and a breach of the tenancy agreement.

I'm sorry you had to wait five days to have your boiler foxed it that isn't the fault of the OP and being a homeowner doesn't give you priority.

I'm sorry you had to wait five days to have your boiler foxed it that isn't the fault of the OP and being a homeowner doesn't give you priority. Good god no that's not what I meant, I just meant that sometimes these companies are busy. I didn't mind waiting, we just muddled along, December is a crazy time for plumbing.

I understand things from the health and safety POV, I was just saying I feel a bit for landlords sometimes because tenants expect instant action but landlords can't always provide that because people are booked up.

I also realise that lots of landlords are on a pisstake. But sometimes, just sometimes, maybe it's a genuine wait.

No worries Reality, I came across as harsher than I intended

Thanks, I probably got too defensive also..

No I didn't mean you were defensive 😂 I mean I was also :/

This is the position with regarding to emergency repairs with the HA that I work for:

In the summer months a non working gas boiler has to be fixed within five days. Come October the 1st it becomes an emergency. When a tenant calls to report it (open 24/7 so can ring up at any time) we run through some questions - if it's a card meter is there actually money on the card and gas going through. If it's a modern boiler we talk through the process of topping up the water pressure, as this is often a problem and is something the tenant can do themselves to get the boiler working again.

If it's nothing obvious like above, we advise the tenant that we are instructing an engineer to attend. We raise the order and give the tenant the order number. We make it clear that because it's an emergency the engineer will come at any time within the next 24 hours. No appointment can be booked for a definite time because the engineers fit emergencies in around their regular appointments. We check that the tenant understands that there must be an adult in the house for the next 24 hours and that the tenant knows that they won't get a call before the engineer attends.

If the engineer attends and nobody answers the door it will not be considered an emergency for a second visit and will be within the next five days.

Other emergency repairs include uncontainable leaks, floods, sewerage back ups.

Hello op, I was left with no working boiler for 6 weeks from September. I spoke to the citizens advice and they told me my housing association had to provide me with portable heaters and pay for the costs of running them. I got the heaters, 1 for each room but didn't bother chasing up the cost of running them. X

They are one of the biggest HAs in the country The 1 plumber excuse dosnt wash.......................which is what they also want for their tenants it seems.

www.facebook.com/pages/Liberty-Gas/381603068598221?fref=ts

Did you manage to speak to anyone today OP?

Not had a chance, been out of the house all day, and dp is too stressed to deal with it any more. I think he's been defeated for the weekend. If its not sorted on Monday then will do something about it.

Even homeowners need to be present on their property if they want an urgent repair done. You can't whinge about repairs taking a week if you demand that they only be there at a certain timeframe. Emergency repairs mean they fit you in ASAP around other appointments and you need to either let them access your house without you there, or be onsite. It's just life, and if you want repairs done, you need to put up with sitting around the house when you should be off doing other things.

Midnite she told them the times and it was mutually agreed.

An earlier post from OP.

MsMarvel Fri 02-Dec-16 22:30:16
I understand that it can't always work around our schedule. But when someone on the phone has agreed to our request that its after a certain time, then I expect that to be followed.

If they had said on the phone that it would not be possible to work around that, we could have tried to organise having someone to let them in, but as far as we were aware, it was not going to be needed.