House let without gas/ electrical safety certificates

[Babaretceleste]

Hi everyone

I rent an expensive house in London with my family (two kids), which is being sold by my landlord with us in situ as tenants. As part of the exchange process, a gas safety check was conducted. A “dangerous” leak was discovered and the gas supply cut off until new piping was installed and the gas rerouted. Our gas oven was also condemned as dangerous and disconnected.

It turns out, now I’ve looked into legal requirements and what has/ hasn’t been done, that my landlord hasn’t done a gas safety check for 5 years! He should have done so annually. Nor has he done an electricity safety check. None of the legally required certificates exist so the tenancy has been illegal for 5 years!

Do we have a claim against the landlord for rent repayment/ damages?

Do we have a claim against the (leading) estate agent which let us the property and continued to gather the rent/ charge commission without checking these certificates existed/ were being renewed.

Many thanks for any advice. I am truly speechless with horror at what might have happened/ the health implications for my family.

I'd post this over on Legal. So, there's no gas safety, there's no EICR report. Did they give you a 'how to rent' leaflet? And is your property in a deposit protection scheme and did your LL/agency inform you of which scheme it had been placed in within 30 days of the lease start date? Those are the current legal requirements and have been for at least the last five years, as far as I'm aware.

Specifically regarding the last point, if your deposit is not protected, your landlord could be forced to give you the entire deposit back AND THEN up to x3 the value of your deposit on top for not protecting it. It's taken very seriously, you don't need to go to court, and it's somewhat automated.

(there are three deposit schemes, if you don't know if it is protected and want to check online, make sure you check all three of them)

I too am horrified for you. Bloody shitlords get on my nerves. In our last rental that had gas, the idiot engineer left the test cap off after he'd done his check and almost killed us.

Then didn't apologise when he returned to sort something else out.

Many thanks for this. How do I move my post to Legal? Could Mumsnet HQ do this for me?

I don’t know whether we received the leaflet and whether the deposit is protected - will look into those. The gas and electrical safety seems more fundamental!

Yes, no gas safety check or EICR report

Following intently as this is similar to the reason I’m desperate to get out of my slumlord rental from hell.

I think you tag @mnhq to get threads moved, not entirely sure.

Also, you should call Citizens Advice. The easiest time to reach them from experience is 8.01am.

Has your slumlord also not carried out safety checks?

@mnhq - could this be moved to Legal or posted there as well?

Might be worth contacting Shelter about this -I’d be more concerned that my deposit was protected at this point, rather than thinking about compensation when you haven’t suffered an actual loss at this point

Report your own post via the report button at the bottom of the post.

A new page opens and you explain there what you need doing.

@Babaretceleste that isn’t the half of it.

Contact the deposit schemes as a matter of urgency they usually respond within 24 hours. Also contact shelter.

It is illegal and I think landlord gets fined up to £6k, potential prison term.
they can’t withhold your deposit and if it wasn’t in a protection scheme, you are entitled to 3x the deposit back (if memory serves)
it also means no legal tenancy exists so you can just leave the property without notice.
id contact shelter, citizens advice on how to proceed,.

But if there’s no legal tenancy (and never has been) why have we been paying over 35K a year in rent for the past five years? Surely he owes some of that money back?

No, I don’t think he would owe you any already paid rent back.

By illegal tenancy, I mean that since he broke the tenancy by not doing the safety checks, you are now free to break the tenancy yourself and leave without notice with there being no penalty to you. As in you would not be liable for any penalties for breaking a tenancy early or without notice.

We've now moved this to Legal Matters, as requested, @Babaretceleste Hope this helps.

Shelter - yes. That's who I meant to say, not Citizen's Advice, who are a bit more generalist.

Shelter are all over bad landlords.

Why on earth do you think you are entitled to free rent?

It's a legal tenancy if you signed a contract. What does your contract say about them providing you an annual cert?

I don't think you'd be entitled to anything but he should definitely be reported.

If the tenancy is illegal (as I was advised above) and the landlord wasn’t fulfilling any of his legal requirements, then I thought maybe I was entitled to some rent repayment. We’ve paid all rent and kept up our side of the agreement. He, meanwhile, has failed to comply with his responsibilities and endangered us all in the process (“dangerous” gas leak, unsafe electricity). Surely not so daft to wonder if can reclaim some rent?

House was condemned; oven was condemned. No gas supply (or hot water) for four days; still don’t have an oven a week later

LL was fulfilling all but a few of the legal requirements.
A court when looking at restitution would have to look at damages.
Yes safety was not up to standard, but you haven’t suffered any damages as a result.

Yes, we signed a tenancy agreement but did that assuming the house was safe and habitable and that all legal requirements would be complied with going forward to ensure it remained safe and habitable

Was the house condemned? Usually when it is judged unsafe the gas engineer calls the council to get you emergency rehoused in coordination with the LL- who would pay for the accomodation.

As I said, you are free to leave the property without giving notice under these circumstances. You can leave, turn in your keys and would not owe any rent past the day you hand the keys in.

Yes, but the penalty for no gas safety check isnt a full refund of past years of rent. Your renting booklet from the Gov would have told you to ask for copy of the safety checks at move in- did you read it?

Thanks but they’re pretty fundamental legal requirements aren’t they (ensuring safety)? He’s actually not fulfilled other requirements either - maintenance, carbon monoxide alarm in every room with a gas appliance, working smoke alarm - but it’s the lack of safety checks which makes my blood boil

@IbisDancer OP mentioned they didn’t get the renting book. I didn’t either.

Surely part of the responsibility is on you, why did you not know these were requirements when renting the property? Have you not been a tenant before?