Heading towards year 2 exams (uni 2017)

[brizzlemint]

Starting uni 2017 continued.
Tales of radiators, errant boilers, tomatoes and potato mashers...oh and university students.

Can you get a refund if the landlord acts promptly to make a repair?

@goodbyestranger, yes, it would be good to get warning on busy timings!
The landlord is talking about 20-30%

That sounds reasonable, 20-30%. Hopefully landlord can get it done at a not too critical time for your DD and her flatmates.

It looks like terrible weather up there in Durham - that's a shame for the freshers (and parents - lugging boxes). DS not going back until Tuesday (good timing - BBC says full sun in DH1 on Wednesday).

Just lost a post twice! Arrgh.

I think she should let them off a months rent. If she did not have tenants she would be doing the work in a void. Works and workmen will be disruptive. Plastering is really dusty. She is not meeting thr terms of the tenancy so they would be within their rights to refuse to pay.

They should try it and see what her counter offer is.

Pity its not the second half of the year, as DD would be on placement so with a room spare in Bristol.

I will PM my phone number. (BTM and I know each other from the elderly parents board, wuite a bonding place.)

It was lovely this afternoon in Durham, but looks like torrential rain as we move him in tomorrow!

@NMS, thanks - that's what I was thinking! It's a male landlord- poss the same one your DD had last year?

Goodbye stranger basically if a landlord does not deliver the property described in the lease they cannot demand the rent. Things like heating need to be addressed within a reasonable time, ie a day or two (and I would normally lend a storage heater) but these are major works and that part of the flat is presumably uninhabitable. I certainly would give tenants a rent holiday if I were expecting them to live in a building site. Tanking is a big job.

@NMS thank you!

It is essentially a negotiation. There is plenty of scope for a resolution as they want to stay and the landlord wants them to stay.

London prof tenants would be demanding alternative accommodation by now. And if he had full landlord insurance (many dont, including me) its the sort of thing insurance would pay for.

So no rent during building work is relatively cheap.

Are any of the parents surveyors or solicitors. I think this is one of the instances where a parent might step in, and talk to the landlord, with the locus of being a guarantor. Alternatively if it is a registered HMO they could talk, or threaten to talk to, the Council HMO officer as parts of the property are clearly not fit for habitation. DDs last year landlord used a management company. The junior staff were young and inexperienced, but the manager was an old property hand and stepped in at one point to remind the landlord of his obligations.

The fact that the landlord is offering 20-30% suggests he accepts he should pay something. All landlords are tight (including me, you dont make money unless you watch the pennies) and I would expect that if he met resistance he would go higher. He needs to get the work done to protect his property, so needs their cooperation.

If they can be assertive whilst maintaining good relations it will be a positive life lesson. But basically why it will be a lot easier for someone used to negotiation to take it on.

@NMS thank you - I will send on to DD. I dont think any agents are lawyers, but I'll ask her - there may be someone to help.

BTM, what a mess for your poor daughter and her flatmates. Let's hope the builders don't unearth work that drags on beyond the 3 week estimate.You've had a hectic weekend with that and your trip to Durham.

Hope all those who have travelled this weekend have had smooth journeys and drop offs.

You've had.

@latedecember1963, I think the sitting room will be out of bounds for much longer - I doubt the work will start immediately and these things always take longer anyway. Horrid start for their final year.

One further thought. Workmen will be using their electricity, which if damp is involved could mean dehumidifiers or commercial heaters. Workmen will also expect to use their loo and make cups of builders tea in their kitchen.

Perhaps worth a quick look round to see if there are any suitable properties on the market, and then ask for their contract to be cancelled. Or as above, a stern talk with the landlord, perhaps enlisting the help of a confident and assertive parent, if there is one. I dont know if there is any University orSU help available. If it is HMO it might be worth a call to the Council.

@horsemad shes loving doing x Ray's and starting with her own patients.

Is your dd looking anywhere else for his masters.

Hope the house issues resolve themselves soon @Needmoresleep, it's the last thing she needs at the start if the year.

@BTM Imean re. The house!

Thanks again NMS. I think one of the other dads was there when the landlord came round yesterday and was involved. Good point about electricity tea and loo.

We are helping DD formulate an email, but I think she is going to try to get help from the uni tomorrow.

Does your DD do placements at different surgeries, or is she just at one location RedHelenB?

DS will probably try and stay where he is for his Masters if he does it.

Shes at the dental hospital for now but I think they do go to other dental practices at some point.

BTM, landlord should also agree working hours. Council considerate builder schemes usually allow work from 8.00am plus Saturday mornings. Not necessarily compatible with student hours.

It sounds a nightmare. They probably have no option, but they need to be compensated properly.

These medical students starting to work on real people is a bit scary 🤣. I still think of my DD as a child and the thought that she'll hopefully be helping other people soon is amazing to me. Obviously I know she's not a child and when I was 20, I knew EVERYTHING.

We went to visit her today and we had a lovely chat and a pizza (and fixed her shower and washing machine).

I'm glad my dd doesn't need stuff mending in her house, I'm rubbish at stuff like that!

Lol, we had to fix the base of DS's new bed together but that was it. Another of the parents sorted the TV out for them.

One of my son's friends got the boarding on their Bristol windows removed quickly so at least they can open bed room windows but the builders still ahve a sheet over so you can see nthing but the sheet. He says they are not currently working. I did say scaffolding is very expensive to hire so I doubt they will be idle for long and that even if they say it is roof works it is possible they are doing outside painting too whilst the scaffolding is up as it makes sense. Everything else about the flat is brilliant he says including apparently a huge kitchen better than ours to cook in which has a kitchen island that he loves so that all sounds fine. Lectures start next week.

Good luck to the medical students being let loose on patients. My father's older brother read medicine at Durham starting 1936 ( fees alone were in today's terms £9k - amazingly similar to today) . By the time my father was 18 his father was retired and could only afford a 3 year degree so my father did a 3 year physics BSc. Then he got married to my mother who was working as a teacher and I think some post war grants came out so he started all over again on a 5 year medicine degree at Durham/Newcastle - Durham medical school was at Newcastle) and was doing exams until he was 30 as he specialised after qualifying.

He lost a lot of his hair in his 20s which he said worked quite well as people thought he was a much older doctor than he was and he had that 3 year advantage over others anyway as he'd done the first physics degree. He had to live in the hospital for a year but he had married when he was 24 so he had tales of having to sneak my mother into his room at the hospital.

DH is taking DD back early tomorrow morning so they've been loading the car. It's a VW golf estate so a reasonable load carrier, but she's having to leave behind the larger of her cacti and the half dozen small spider plants which she'd promised her friends - they would have constituted the last straw. Bike carrier as well, of course.