What a pointless waste of money.... (Landlord opinions welcome)

[LemonInPlay]

So our oven is included as part of the house we rent.
It's important to note here we could have brought our own freestanding one as it was ours, but the kitchen here has an inbuilt one included in the contract (and no space for a freestanding oven anyway), so we sold our own when we moved in.

About a month and a half ago the oven packed up completely.
We had a look (my Dad is an retired electrician) and the heating element and the thermostat were fucked (wiring actually burnt out in some places).

When I notified the letting agent I was very thorough in the report, including what was wrong, the serial number, make and model of the oven.

So they finally sent someone out last week (their general handyman btw, not an expert) who reckoned it was unlikely to be fixable and he would recommend it being replaced. He took measurements and photos etc.

Different guy turns up this morning, not with a new oven as I had hoped, but with a heating element that I told him from the off wouldn't fit, I could see as soon as he came in the door the wiring for it was in the wrong place.
(Remember I had already given them the make and model, and the previous guy had taken photos/details of it all as well)

Surprise surprise, it doesn't fit, plus new handyman suddenly realises, as we'd already pointed out, that other things are completely buggered on it as well, and it's probably not worth saving.

The amount they have already spent on calling out two different handymen, and the pointless parts that don't fit, must be really close to the cost of a basic new oven (if not over it already)

It's been over 6 weeks since we've had no oven/grill, luckily we have a hob and a toaster, but no microwave as the ridiculous kitchen means there is no space for one and I am fed up with it all.

I know it's not the worse problem on the scale of things, but we pay a fucking fortune in rent for this place, keep it nice, neat and clean, and they can't be arsed to even just fucking replace the oven.

To my AIBU...

AIBU to think that they should just replace the fucking oven and have done with it, seeing as they have already spent that much on pointless call outs for an oven we categorically told them was broken?

YANBU- what a ridiculous waste of time and money

YABU- be grateful you have a hob and wait.

YANBU it's the LL who's now out of pocket for BOTH the oven and the handymen

@GuessWhosBackBackAgain

It's been years since we rented but from my experience landlords never want to spend a penny on anything and are determined to squeeze every bit of profit they can from their tenants. I even had a letting agent once tell me several times that the landlord had expressly said he wasn't going to spend any money on the property even though things were broken and unusable!

Well that's just not true. I don't know how many LL's you've had, but i'm a LL of a lot of properties and we don't take that attitude at all - in fact we are the opposite and we always go above and beyond what is necessary in referring or updating.

Please don't base all LL's on your experience. That is like me saying that all tenants will try and get away with not paying rent and cause a lot of damage because in my experience some have. Some do, but the vast majority do the right thing.

YANBU - Six weeks is too long to wait for a fix/ replacement.

YABU - But you keep slagging off the LL here and it's actually the agent who is probably at fault.
Also agent (or LL) is perfectly entitled and sensible to assess a problem rather than just take what a tenant says as gospel.

I have a tenant who will call me at 5pm on a Friday saying XYZ needs replacing IMMEDIATELY and then when I ask about the problem, it's something they noticed 4 days ago.
Last year they said the oven was broken and they needed a new one, but in fact it needed a new knob and element (total cost = £65 rather than the £700 for the new oven they helpfully suggested they needed as a replacement ).

Also tenants, if they haven't been homeowners themselves, often don't understand how difficult it can be to get trades out to look at things.
That said, I aim to get most things fixed within a week unless it's an emergency of course.

YANBU for wanting money not to be wasted, as ultimately the landlord will want to recoup the expense in higher rent for you or the next tenant.

I suppose I kind of understand why they maybe want there own guy to look at if it was worth fixing, but taking 6 weeks and counting about the whole ordeal is taking the piss. They set the terms of the rent agreement and they said they provided a working oven. They really need to sort this ASAP or agree a rent reduction. YANBU

I love how all these LL threads are full of perfect, giving landlords.

I grew up in rented accommodation and as an adult must have rented from about a dozen different landlords - only ONE was what I would call good, gave notice before they came to see us, replaced things quickly, and gave us our full deposit back and compliments on the state of the flat when we moved out.

So yes I will judge most lls on my own personal experience (as someone upthread said I should not ), which for the most part has not been great.

I had two fantastic landlords who would just get me to sort out problems, pay for the tradespeople myself and take it off the rent. I'd just send them the invoices as proof.

I then had a horrible landlord who caused me nothing but grief. The guttering leaked and it took 2 years to get it sorted - in the end I got someone to give the landlord a quote to get him to act. The damp from the leaky gutter caused black mould and meant the wall needed to be replastered and repainted. The missing roof tiles weren't sorted for months etc. All he did was kept upping up the rent to help repay all the extra work that needed doing because he wouldn't sort out small minor repairs.

It’s probably the estate agents dicking around because they get paid each time someone comes out. Landlord is screwed and so are you.

Fair enough if it was week 1 that they’d tried to fix it (although idiots for not reading your input properly) as not all tenants know what they’re talking about when they say something can’t be fixed - but by week 6 is important to get this sorted so I’d expect them to have ordered a new one by now.

@LemonInPlay

Yeah I am suspicious about the handymen situation anyway......

some of our windows are fucked (either won't open or close properly- luckily all upstairs but still not safe!) and they sent the same guy to diagnose the window problem (NOT a glazier btw!) as they had sent previously to fix a broken loo!!

So I suspect they are chucking all work to a mates firm first.
Added to that all work is passed by the LL first, and they don't want to spend money on ANYTHING at all.

Nice to hear from landlords
Also the same guy they sent to "fix" the oven.

What can I do about it though??

I like this house, we can't afford to move anywhere else anyway.
We ended up here in a random situation basically and I hate feeling like I don't want to kick up too much fuss in case they decide to kick us out.

I hate the precariousness of this all.

AND I WANT AN OVEN!!

Phew..

Many management companies have guys on retainer to go out and fix things fairly quickly . That is why you may be seeing the same ones . When I was a LL i authorised repairs to a limit of whatever pounds but anything over that they had to check with me. You are right - that is far too long without an oven .

@GreySkyClouds

It’s probably the estate agents dicking around because they get paid each time someone comes out. Landlord is screwed and so are you.

Our letting agent is like this. They have a general handyman who comes around for all issues, makes an ‘ooooh that’s not good’ noise and then inevitably recommends we need a plumber/electrician/competent person to come out. LL then has this call out cost deducted as well as the actual tradesperson visit.

Admittedly it’s better than when we had a private LL who wouldn’t spend a penny on anything and tried to fix the dishwasher with electrical tape. He used to watch repair tutorials on YouTube and try to fix everything himself.

Landlord here, I would have just replaced it, 6 weeks is madness, I would have ordered one straight away. Mine broke in the first lockdown and took about 2 weeks to be delivered! It was a nightmare so no way would I let one of my tenants go 6 weeks without proper cooking facilities!!

My landlord is like this but now they bodged it for so long that it’s now caused huge expensive issues for them for small bits being broken for so long.

As someone who has private rented for a vast amount of years I have found the only thing that gets the job hurried on is constantly emailing the letting agent again and again or they always drag their feet. In our old house the bathroom was mouldy (tbh the whole house was mouldy it needed knocking down) and the floor end ceiling were rotting away and then our water stopped working and I literally had to harass them and demand a rent reduction to get something done.

6 weeks with no oven is madness. I'd be inclined at this stage to seek advice on your contract and rights with a view to telling them you'll buy a new one and deduct it from the rent.
I rented for many years and the penny pinching I experienced was crazy. Sure it's a business to the landlord, but the amount of bodge jobs, corner cutting and fixing up of knackered things is such false economy and they don't seem able to see it.

I’m a landlord. With things like ovens, unless it’s very new or an easy fix, the best thing is to replace it. They cost next to nothing and the tenant has a lovely, new clean oven.

If your ll is using the agent, they charge an arm and a leg. This is perhaps why they’ve asked for a fix. Either that or they’re complete numpties. My agents manage my properties but have been instructed to use people I’ve approved where possible so that they’re not creaming off the top. The difference in price can be stark. I paid £500 for a new loo to be changed the same day as it was reported and 1.2 k for a new bath fitted the following day. Both times the guy I normally use wasn’t available and he would have charged half for the loo and less than half for the bath.

@Cpl1586407
I think perhaps you’re failing to realise that the lls on here generally are relatively comfortably off and want their tenants to have a good standard of living. It isn’t actually worth my while financially to gut properties, which is why a lot of lls don’t. I can spend 15k plus on a house and the increase in rental income I can expect is is £150 a month. With the agent’s cut and loss of income between tenancies, it takes me 7, almost 8 years to recoup that money (revamp is tax deductible otherwise if would be more than 10). This is why a lot of lls just put the cash in their pockets. Not many slum landlords on mumsnet and if anyone is one, they’re hardly going to admit it, they’d be slaughtered.

I’ve also been a tenant in various countries and each time the lls faffed and messed around. Tried to save money. Sometimes it was quite infuriating, other times dh and I found it funny. We learned lessons, such as when we moved in a property and the repair guy was given 4 months to complete external painting work (which we hadn’t requested) but there was some internal maintenance and promised to complete the works in 1 month. He had to sign a declaration to complete all works in 4 months and when we chased him, he got shitty with me because his contract said 4 months. Arsehole. I’ve been a tenant for 13 years in my adult life so I suppose this is why I’m very keen on keeping my tenants happy.

Unless it's stated in your tenancy agreement the LL is under no obligation to fix it at all.

If it was provided at the start of the tenancy, then it's the landlord's obligation to replace or repair it.

@Slippy78

Unless it's stated in your tenancy agreement the LL is under no obligation to fix it at all.

It’s literally in the first part of the OP...

Landlords too often provide white goods because it appeals to new tenants and then try and wriggle out of maintenance or replacement.

It’s a totally false economy as well as poorly fitted appliances are one of the biggest risks to a property. That’s one of the reasons I always provide a cooker and washing machine.

As a landlord I sometimes will ask a workman (I have a regular one I use, not a friend, a well recommended local company) to do a fix first. However I have two occasions when I don't do a fix and go straight to replace; one is if my tenants have no heating in the winter (If it's the middle of summer then I obviously do get the company to see if they can repair the boiler) and the other is if they have no oven. I use a letting agent and they have my authority to organise to replace a boiler or an oven if they are unable to contact me for authority to proceed with the replacement. I have good tenants who have been there for several years, they don't take the piss and neither do I.

Your landlord is being unreasonable.

It’s literally in the first part of the OP...
No it isn't. Being included in the tenancy agreement isn't the same as the LL being responsible to fix it.

I'm a landlord and you've every right to be annoyed.

I've found repairing old appliances is generally not cost effective as pretty soon after a repair something else usually goes wrong.

I tend to provide the more basic of appliances that are fine and functional but without the fancy extras or £££ for a top brand. It means replacing for new makes more sense when they start to reach the end of their reliable life.

I wonder if your landlord is being told exactly what you've said by the agents or just being told they'll send a handyman to repair without being told the extent of the problem. My experience of a lot of agents isn't very good.

@Slippy78

It’s literally in the first part of the OP... No it isn't. Being included in the tenancy agreement isn't the same as the LL being responsible to fix it.

It is. It’s stated in the contract that the LL provides it as it’s a built in oven. That includes repairs.