A couple of months ago, I moved into a rented flat with three others (I didn’t know them before I moved in).
Although the flat itself is lovely (high ceilings, spacious, lets in a lot of light) and is in a great location, it’s getting quite run-down. The landlord bought the flat fifteen years ago, and as far as we can tell, he hasn’t done any maintenance work on it since then.
When I moved into the flat a couple of months ago, the landlord promised to replace things at his own expense if they stopped working due to wear and tear.
A few things don’t work well due to wear and tear now, but when we’ve emailed the landlord to ask to repair these things, he either ignores our emails or he will call unexpectedly to respond to our email and become quite aggressive (he called me a few weeks ago and said I’d been contacting him on at least a weekly basis - which is not true- and that he’s ‘not a hotel’, so we can’t expect him to repair these things quickly). He made me cry on the phone. We’ve now become more scared of contacting him.
The break clause of my rental contract is in December, so I’m thinking of moving out to a new flat then with a couple of people from this flat. My worry is that the landlord will give me a bad reference (as he might say that we’ve ‘harrassed’ him for repairs to the house, or something along those lines) and/or that he will take a long time to pay us back our rental deposits. What are my rights if he gives me a bad reference or takes a long time to repay my rental deposit? Could/should I go to Shelter and/or Citizens Advice?