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?

We would be able to get call timings from my dp's phone records. But don't know if the time the call was made will tie in with their records because every call has involved waiting on hold/waiting for call to be answered for about 20 mins...

All this HAs cant find plumbers/heating engineers is bullshit. They dont try because they only want to use their sub contractors (the company they have given the contract to.) They should be ringing round trying to find someone especially when its an elderly tenant or young kids. But they have a nice cheapie contract with the company they have chosen so they ONLY want to use them.

Being in receipt of HB has fuck all to do with it so i dont know why a PP mentioned that. It doesnt give access to a plumber Service charges are paid as part of the rent and some of these HAs have millions in surplus in the bank. So not being able to send someone out over the weekend is bullshit. Use some of those millions to employ more plumbers and stop sticking to the ppl you have given the contract to especially when they cant or WONT fulfil their obligations.

Ive seen an HA tweet lecturing tenants on healthy eating while simultaneously leaving tenants without a cooker for WEEKS because a gas cooker has failed a safety check.

They will be able to search for your dp's phone no OP as long as you have the approximate time. It just helps if you are making a compensation claim for you to have all the times and facts to hand.

HA tenants and private ones too live in fear of something going wrong because we know that THIS AND worse is what its going to be like.

I remember one of the private flats DH and I had. The bedroom wall literally wept, it was so damp. Letting Agent tried to say it was condensation and told us off for using a tumble drier despite the fact we didn't actually own a tumble drier, for not heating it even though we had the heating on (I've never skimped on heating, if I'm cold then it goes on) and for not ventilating even though I can't sleep with the window closed so it was open every night. We were getting slugs and green mould growing around it and all sorts. It was vile but they clung to the excuse that it was us causing the problem through condensation. Eventually got environmental health out, they took one look and diagnosed a problem with the cavity wall and the foundations, ordered the agent to have them corrected. Sure enough, as soon as they were corrected the problems went away.

We also had a landlord who would randomly let himself in "to do jobs" at fucking 6am and would go weeks and weeks without collecting his rent then suddenly show up at the door wanting it all there and then. It was kept to one side so we had it but he'd then say he was going to be too busy to collect so was going to need the next month in advance.

The letting agent who left us with no window in the hallway for two months in winter. One of their other tenants broke it, thinking it was his window, he was drunk and had forgotten his keys. They recouped the money for the repair from him but then tried to increase our rent by £100 a month to cover the costs of "multiple repairs" and because they didn't realise that the yard outside was part of our tenancy so we needed to pay extra for a flat with outside space

If he had known you didnt have a tumble drier he would have said it was your fault for not having one.

When Liberty Gas dont show for gas safety checks or repairs a tenant is automatically sent a text message saying that LG couldnt get access.

So gaslighting is a common technique they fall back on.

Dp offered previously when trying to arrange an appointment that we could lead keys at the HA office (literally across the road from our flat) for the engineer to let himself in, to be told that they are not allowed on property without someone else there.

Neither of us can take a day off work for this but really have tried to be accommodating as we possibly can.

We own our house and have had no heating or hot water for ten days. I called everyone I could find and nobody could come out sooner than a week. We're now waiting for parts. It's horrible but it may genuinely be hard to get someone out, depending where you live.

Turning up then leaving is really bad though

Thats what LG told another tenant.
So this sounds like them.

One of you NEEDS to be there to keep an eye on them OP Ive mentioned them on the thread and the fb link is a thread of tenant reviews.

Please read them!

Your housing association won't be able to do the work unless there is an adult in the property. For insurance reasons they won't be able to hold the keys for you in their office. Similarly HAs do not hold spare keys to homes.

The thing is, you're not exactly prioritising this, are you? You have to wait in for tradespeople.

I hear you, glorious. Engineer waiting for sodding parts. Luckily I have 2 cats to snuggle up to, and they each other when I'm not here. Thing is, I know roughly the amount the part costs, and will take about half an hour to install, and have been quoted a few £££s for it. I wonder if heating engineers hike their prices up this time of year, because they're busier? Making it -almost fucking impossible more troublesome to find one...

Now the bloody oven's breathed it's last, and I don't want to get it replaced (in-built) because I plan on having the kitchen done in the new year, which will include having a new boiler installed. (existing one ancient)

I've ordered one of those mini student teeny ovens to tide me over.

Fields, the OP has already explained this. She asked the HA if they could come after 4pm and they agreed to this so no one was home until 4pm. She also explained that if the HA had said no to her request then she would have waited in. How is that not prioritising?

Tarla"A landlord must repair heating within one day"? Sorry that's utter Rubbish. What happens if a new boiler is needed? They can hardly diagnose that, order a new one and fit it in 1 day can they?

The LL must take reasonable steps to address the problem within a acceptable amount of time (there are no set timescales).

I.e. If the heating went a week ago I would have expected someone to have been out to see it, but if a part was required and put on order then that might take a while to arrive.

Has the HA taken reasonable steps to get the heating working again? Has anyone been round to look at it? What have they suggested you do while the heating is off?

If they had told us we needed to wait in a full 24 hours etc etc then yes it would be a lot of hassle but we would have to suck it up and do it.

But they have not told us that. They agreed to our requests of time windows over the phone.

If you were expecting a parcel to be delivered on Tuesday you wouldn't wait in all day Monday for it....

They've had the part needed since Thursday. The issue is trying to find a window where the engineer is available.

Probably they do, rubbish. Sorry that you're suffering too and also about the oven. Ours exploded right before we sold our old house (grr) and I think our new one us on the blink too...

Surely an HA this size has more than just one engineer available. Perhaps they should splash some of their surplus on employing more engineers.

They are a HUGE HA the biggest in the country.

Ladies and gentlemen.... I now have heating!!!

Engineer came out today about 10am, the first thing he said when he arrived (without any hint of it being a joke...) was....

'Its a bit cold in here isn't it.'

DP really had to refrain himself but still couldn't help with the response of 'you don't fucking say...'

We got to keep the two little useless fan heaters, and I plan on chasing up trying to get some money from my electricity bill for the fan heaters. But our flat is now warm!!

Excellent news