Should my land lord pay for replacements

[SomethingProfound]

On Thursday my housemate and I were robbed, they entered the property through the back door.

We were never given a key for the back door. It is a sliding door where you push a little lever down to lock it, however the lever on the other side had not been fully removed enabling the robbers access.

We did not realise that you could gain access from outside otherwise we would have insisted this be rectified.

As a result of the break in we lost both our laptops.

I feel that as the door was never fully secured and keys were not given to us we should be reimbursed for our losses.

Do I have a legal leg to stand on?

I doubt it. Funnily enough our sliding door doesn't lock either as we were never given the key. Our LL won't change the locks so we have to wedge a golf club in it.

Savoy I'm pretty sure your landlord HAS to change that for you!

He won't and they can chuck you out with 120 days notice if they want so we are just using the golf club.

Your rights
As a tenant, you have the right to:

live in a property that’s safe and in a good state of repair
have your deposit returned when the tenancy ends - and in some circumstances have it protected
challenge excessively high charges
know who your landlord is
live in the property undisturbed
see an Energy Performance Certificate for the property
be protected from unfair eviction and unfair rent
have a written agreement if you have a fixed-term tenancy of more than 3 years

Taken from direct gov, sounds like your being taken the Royal piss out of!

Your rights
As a tenant, you have the right to:

live in a property that’s safe and in a good state of repair
have your deposit returned when the tenancy ends - and in some circumstances have it protected
challenge excessively high charges
know who your landlord is
live in the property undisturbed
see an Energy Performance Certificate for the property
be protected from unfair eviction and unfair rent
have a written agreement if you have a fixed-term tenancy of more than 3 years

Taken from direct gov, sounds like your being taken the Royal piss out of!

Insurance ? Perhaps ll also wasn't aware it was secure form the inside ? you can get lockable bolts to fit internally on a sliding door and maybe you should ask for an assessment by community police officer.

Will your insurance even cover you if the door wasn't locked (for whatever reason)?

Not sure what your LL is legally obliged to do (as presumably you agreed to lease the property based on a viewing and inventory, so could/should have seen the iffy lock?), but the points you quoted earlier should give you some right to push for him to fix this (the door and the laptops)?

The door has been fixed. He is very good at sorting out problems.

I was never given an inventory, I actually moved out for a few months as it was to far from my placement location but moved back in for the new university term, as he hadn't managed to re let the house. I think as I had been a tenant for so long before both myself and him have been a little lax.

No insurance as the laptop was only a week or so old and I hadn't added to my gadget insurance yet. (Lesson learnt )

No insurance as the laptop was only a week or so old and I hadn't added to my gadget insurance yet. (Lesson learnt)

Yep, contents insurance is your responsibility.

As is checking the security of your home.

I'm not unsympathetic, but if you were insured and they refused to pay out then you might have a stronger argument.

If you bought it on a credit card, you might have theft loss coverage for 30 days.

Unexpected, yes insurance is my responsibility everything expensive shall now be insured from day 1.

As for securing the house I thought it was. however the lock hadn't been fitted properly the external lever which is normally removed had just been snapped off. Meaning that the door could be unlocked from the outside, if I had noticed this it would of been rectified, but I suppose the LL didn't notice either.

After thinking it all through and perhaps more to the point I like living here and want to continue living here pursuing this might make getting a new tenancy agreement in the summer tricky, and I don't want to cut my nose off to spite my face.

Flatbread i paid by debit card so no luck there I'm afraid.

Moral of the story insure everything!

And don't assume it's secure double and triple check!

Thank you for your responses though. Gave me a bit of much needed perspective.

I think LLs do have an obligation to provide an intrinsically secure property:
Guidance p33

I think you could theoretically take him to small claims.

I bet if you had been insured, the insurers would either not pay (very likely) or would sue the landlord.

That's what I suspected comfy, that he should have provided a door that was secure and lockable.

Not sure a new laptop is worth the hassle of alienating my landlord doubt he will let me renew my tenancy agreement if I take him to the small claims court.

Well yes!