Landlord has left me with just gaffer tape to close ground floor window

[Elizabella]

My studio is ground floor, street facing in London. At around 1pm the spindle in the ancient double glazing handle broke. I immediately texted the LL who said her husband would be round in half an hour. He came at 1.45 and tried to break the handle lock off then said he was going to get more tools. Two hours later he took the entire window out and left me freezing, unable to leave my home and at risk of someone climbing in, saying he was taking the window to the shop to get a handle fixed. One and a half hours later, he turned up with a drug addict friend of his with some story about the shop being closed early due to Covid (despite earlier telling me he had spoken to the shop owner who told him he was open until 5.30pm. The fitted the window frame in minus the lock and handle and gave me a roll of gaffer tape to 'seal' the window. I am female living alone on the street facing ground floor. AIBU to have expected more than this to ensure my safety?

I am under official notice to leave in March 2021 as the LL wants to sell so I don't feel that I would be losing anything if I did report them

@Elizabella if you ring the London Fire Brigade on 020 8555 1200 and explain about the fuse box situation they will do an inspection as a matter of urgency.

Please ring them, they won't be annoyed, fire prevention is a huge part of their job.

1. Take pictures of everything. Make a list of the safety issues, and document everything.
2. Call Fire Brigade as suggested by PP on non-emergency number. Try and obtain a reference number.
3. Call Environmental Health at your local council and get their reference number. Be especially clear about the lack of Gas Safety certification and Electrical Safety Cert / Electrical Installation Certificate - these are very, very serious breaches. If a certificate magically appears, make sure you check the reference number for the certificate and the engineer against the online register (I did this once and found out I had a fake but realistic certificate).
4. Call Shelter (housing charity) and explain your situation, they may be able to offer more detailed advice.
5. Book an appointment to see your local MP or councillor - they can assist with putting pressure on the local council to take action against the rogue landlord.
6. Take notes in every conversation, and make a timeline of all contacts with LL and the agencies above.

This is serious - they are taking money and putting lives at risk. The electrics alone are a very serious concern. On the positive side, if they have not protected your deposit and given you the certificate within a certain time period of your tenancy starting, you can go for 3x the amount as compensation.

Don't let these arseholes get away with it, they deserve everything that is coming to them.

These bastard landlords should be prosecuted. I think that anyone who wants to be a landlord should be licensed and their properties inspected at random (with the tenants ok) to ensure they are safe and maintained. The licence fee would pay for the inspectors.

MyOwnSummer Thank you for that excellent advice. I am no electrician but having looked at other people's fuse boxes/electric cupboards they don't look anything like this (see attached photos) In particular that exposed looped wire concerns me greatly!

Not only that but one of the rooms upstair has no power to all the sockets in the room and the tenant is having to use an extension cord that runs from the hallway under his door to power everything in his room. There are no smoke alarms or fire doors in the property.

I would be really grateful if anyone knows an electrician if they could show them this photo as I could be wrong but I thought a green wire is the grounding wire? I don't know anyone.

Is this a house of multi occupancy? Are there 3 or more separate households?

If this is so the house must be registered as an HMO by the local council. It sounds like it would not pass the stringent safety checks that are demanded for registration. Please contact your environmental health department and housing department ASAP.

@sallyedmondson

Is this a house of multi occupancy? Are there 3 or more separate households?

If this is so the house must be registered as an HMO by the local council. It sounds like it would not pass the stringent safety checks that are demanded for registration. Please contact your environmental health department and housing department ASAP.

Yes. It is an old Victorian villa divided into studio flats downstairs and 3 rooms upstairs with shared bathroom/kitchen

So HMO rules apply. Also, depending on where you live then there might be a Landlord licensing scheme. I was a LL for 2 years and the borough I was in actually did run a scheme as per @LeaveMyDamnJam suggests.

Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Croydon, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Newham, Redbridge, Southwark, Tower Hamlets & Waltham Forest all have landlord licensing schemes. Good news for you if you are in one of those areas, there will be a dedicated team that you can contact directly.

To check the electrics - try posting those pictures on reddit - r/askanelectrician and specify that you are in the UK. You get mainly Americans on there but they would still know if it was safe or not, but a UK electrician would know which of our laws and regs are specifically being broken.

For your MP / council licensing team / Shelter I advise organising your evidence as follows - index all your supporting documents e.g. emails and pictures, and create two main documents -

1. A timeline of all key events - start of tenancy, date deposit paid, date issue with wiring first noticed/reported etc etc, with ref number of each item of evidence
2. A list of all current safety issues with the property, again with reference numbers of the pictures / evidence of each item

If you manage to get a meeting with your local MP / council / shelter, it will help you enormously if you have all your evidence organised like this as you won't get long to make your case, and if they decide to follow up on your behalf you'll be making their job a lot easier.

Thank you MyOwnSummer for all that helpful advice.I am in Haringey so need t check if they have an HMO scheme. I feel really aggrieved as I am a model tenant without blowing my own trumpet. Always paid rent, no arrears, never late, keep the place clean and tidy, good relations with others in the house and with neighbours either side. I don't bug my LL over silly things (in fact, the less I have to do with them the better as far as I am concerned!) bit living here has been so stressful.

www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/housing-and-land/improving-private-rented-sector/advice-renters/does-my-rental-home-need-property-licence

That link above should work for all London Local authorities OP, hope that helps

Check if your deposit is in one of the schemes, as if not you can sue for 3 x deposit value.

You've nothing to loose by reporting her. At the very least you should all have fire alarms.

It's a criminal offence for the landlord not to protect your deposit. They can be heavily fined for it and you can be compensated. How long have you been there and did you receive the How to Rent guide when you moved in?

the LL's husband didn't turn up at 8.45 this morning as promised. I waited until 11.30 then sent her a polite if curt text asking when he was coming as I hadn't heard from her or him. I didn't get any response but he came at around 12:30 and took the window off its hinges again an disappeared. So now sitting for the second day in a row with literally no window (I could lean out and shake hands with a passer-by!). I have no idea when he will be back. I can't go out. I can't sit to concentrate on anything. Luckily it is quite warm out but once it gets t around 4pm the temp will drop sharply. I can't even pop for a pee without being super worried someone might climb in!

Hi wowfudge, I wasn't given half the documentation when I moved in in late 2016. My deposit hasn't been protected, I checked with mydeposit, TDS and DPS plus all the permutations of spellings of my name and it comes up with no results for me at this address

Hi selflove, TurquoiseDragon and notapizzaeater thank you for your support and advice. If this isn't fixed today without a reasonable excuse such as they have had to order the handle in specially, then I am going to kick up a stink. She wants me out anyway as she claims to want to sell the house. She gave me notice last year and I was looking but then DM had an almost fatal heart attack and the time dragged on and she did nothing whilst I was away caring for DM (I am the only family). She then re-issued the notice this September and I picked her up on the fact that she hadn't given me enough notice (she put 2 months). I explained that at the start of covid the govt had extended it to 3 months but then after August it was 6 months and she got really nasty saying she didn't have to give me anything as her original notice from last year stands. I politely explained that as she hadn't taken any action, that last year's notice was invalid and she would have to issue fresh notice and included the legal pages from Shelter for her to look at. She wrote back and basically insulted me. She isn't a nice person. I am. That (and the fact I suffer very badly from anxiety) is what has stopped me from taking it further but I think I will. I am already under notice to leave (although I think this is voided by the fact she hasn't protected my deposit). She is what is commonly known as a 'rogue' LL

Has it been sorted ?

not that you would want to stay in this shithole (and no surprise that it is London) but you won't be legally evicted. With all the legals missing it will be laughed out of court when it gets there in around a year's time.

There are allegedly enforcement measures against landlords this bad but in practice very little happens. The electrics that you posted are the least of your worries.

but with a landlord that bad I wouldn't put it past her to take more illegal measures. If you are able to, find somewhere else and go as soon as possible. She clearly doesn't care what laws she breaks so I think trying to get anything fixed is a waste of time.

get out, get safe (start with the gov.uk how to rent guide and make sure you don't rent from another crook, knowledge is power) and then you can sue for lack of deposit protection.

FWIW the previous section 21 (if that's what you got) is out of validity, she can't issue a new one with all the legals missing and the covid-19 rules mean it can't be issued anyway.

I am a landlord and people like this thieving and threatening tenants make me very, very angry. She knows there is no enforcement.

They sound like utter scumbags. Please do report them for all the above. I think they can be prosecuted for not putting the deposit in a protection scheme. Can't you get out sooner?

Do you still have the insulting written response you mentioned in your update? If so, show that and the pictures of the electrics to the council/Shelter, also the fact that your deposit not secured.

Please please report to shelter and the council

Yes, if your deposit isn't protected the s21 notice is invalid.

Please please report to shelter and the council

Totally agree.

Is it sorted now op?