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.

OP

Contact the coucil's housing, planning and enforcement dept - seek advice via their Duty Officer.
IMO, this is this first port of call for good help and guidance

HTH

There was a gas safety certificate when we moved in (in 2019). That was the only one! I didn’t know until recently it was an annual requirement and I am a busy person who doesn’t have time to monitor my landlord’s compliance with his obligations. We were paying a large amount of rent for a house rented through a market-leading estate agency 🦊 and I assumed legal requirements would be met

So you’re saying it’s a tenants’ job to chase up the landlord on this?

I don’t know the penalty for the landlord- that’s why I’m asking!

I’ve been a tenant before, yes

I find this really odd. If my landlord doesn’t comply with safety standards, it’s my fault?

Sorry to hear this.
I would also check if LL requires a selective license.
As advised above, liaise with Shelter (+ Local Authority regulatory/housing team). LA maybe able to conduct an HHSRS assessment.

It is your right to demand an annual gas safety certificate and an EICR every 5 years now. The latter is a recent development and so is the fire alarm and CO2 on every floor. Lots of fire safety stuff has come in recently.
Which estate agency? If they are listed, they are meant to be doing regular checks themselves if they manage the property.
The thing is you have had no actual loss. And if you are paying that rent you are a professional yourself and you should have demanded that the landlord fulfils his legal obligation. You were also ignorant about the current law. Luckily nothing happened. When you move, make sure it is done next time.

Please note that the majority of homeowners do not check their fuse boxes regularly, do not check their boilers or even fire safety so tenants are meant to be more protected than homeowners in reality. Had you all been kill your landlord would have gone to prison.

And an illegal tenancy means the landlord cannot legally serve s21 so in theory you may be able to refuse to move out, but then you won’t get a reference so you would need to follow legal advice.

If it was a managed tenancy by the estate agent, they should have been arranging all checks as the landlord will be paying them for this service. They should have ensured a gas safety check was carried out every year (with you being given a copy), and you should also have been given evidence of an EICR. The landlord can be fined for not having these done, but I don't think you'd be entitled to compensation or rent being returned. As another poster stated, if you owned the property you wouldn't be having gas safety checks carried out annually either, so theoretically as a tenant you're more protected than an owner.

Safety measures have increased for tenants in recent years.

You do need to check your deposit is protected - they should have issued you with a certificate stating that it is when you moved in.

You are not entitled to a refund for rent. Your landlord could receive a fine for non compliance.

It will not be you who is compensated.

I don’t think it’s daft to wonder but unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.

The landlord can rent you a death trap and it can take years for authorities to insist he fix it, take him to court and fine him.

A court won’t give you any money.

It would be different if it was full of mould and made your kids sick and you could prove actual harm.

Your best bet is going after the deposit protection if he has provided none.

Getting that back x3-4 is the best financial revenge you can get on a slumlord.

And no, it’s not your responsibility to know what a LLs basic safety and legal requirements are as a PP wrongfully suggested.

Even LLs don’t know half the time anyway. I came across my lease the other day and it explicitly says the LL had the chimneys swept and now that’s down to me. Having looked into this in the past I know with no uncertainty that it’s their legal responsibility, even if I don’t use them.

Estate agencies are also responsible for providing poor advice to LLs and not ensuring they are complying with updated laws too.

From a very quick bit of research has safe certification is overseen by the Health and Safety excecutive so you could complain to them but I think if the ll has broken the regulations it would be up to them to fine him but I don’t think this would lead to compensation for you. There’s a mix here of contract law statute law and civil and criminal law so I guess it’s a bit complicated

Thank you KievLoverTwo. This is really helpful.

With regard to our health, it’s difficult to know though isn’t it? Owing to the lack of safety checks, there’s no knowing how long the gas has been leaking. Over the course of four years (since the last certificate expired), of course we’ve had all kinds of ailments/ headaches/tiredness that might have been caused or made worse by gas exposure. We may suffer health problems in the future caused or made worse by this.

Interested in what the estate agent’s responsibilities are as will be writing a fierce letter (of course). Every time I have raised lack of maintenance, etc, they are quick to tell me he they let the property but don’t manage it so I should complain direct to the landlord.

But can they just absolve themselves of responsibility like this because we had no choice over the landlord, the landlord has not managed the property at all in five years (or barely) and negligent landlords don’t pay for property management services, that goes without saying, so these are the properties most at risk of safety problems!

Estate agent is Foxtons

the deposit is protected. Didn’t get a certificate but rang all the schemes and the last one said it is

If the EA isn't the managing agent then it's nothing to do with them.

But that’s the landlord’s choice not to be managed, not my choice. We weren’t given the choice. Does that mean we have less right to a safe home?

I mean obviously he doesn't choose to pay for management services. His choice is to rake up the rent and ignore legal requirements/ asssociated expenses

The only repercussion of lack of safety certificates is if the landlord tries to get a possession order - his application to court would be thrown out until he regularises the situation. You have suffered no loss so compensation is not appropriate.

In answer to someone above, I’m a professional but not a legal professional/ expert in landlord and tenant law

Famous estate agent plus high rent lulled me into a sense of security that basic legal requirements would be complied with!

So it’s okay to ignore these requirements for five years and then regularise only to evict?

Pretty much, yes!

This is your mistake -you assumed

Yes it’s a legal requirement for the land lord to have the inspections done, but why did you not carry out your own due diligence before you signed a contract?

There an element of common sense and personal responsibility in this

Even when the oven was condemned and I had signed “Danger, do not use” notices, his response was to send over the local handyman (not even a gas engineer!) to see if it could be refitted rather than buy a new one

So for sure, I will be more on it next time. But is there no basic legal safety protection for people lacking in common sense?

Unless you have medical evidence to prove that you have been harmed by the lack of a gas safety certificate, you have no legal recourse to try to sue the landlord. Report to the HSE by all means so that they cannot continue to shirk their responsibilities, but you are not going to receive any rent money back.

I mean, what if I was a student/ a vulnerable person/ didn’t know the language? I’m not these things, just a person lacking in common sense who didn’t do due diligence apparently… but what if I were?