We have now been without a working boiler for 3 weeks (tomorrow). We live in a small terrace me, dp and dd (21 months) been here 3.5 years.
So we first started contacting landlord on Mon 3rd, couldn't get hold of him. Eventually the next day we rang the letting agent (house os only let NOT managed throguh them) They said he was on holiday but as it was an emergency they would get someone out to us within 24hrs. Thurs 6th plumbing company came did a full diagnosis 'it's fucked' and then perpared a quote, LL was present for this aswell just turned up returned from his holiday apparently.
So then he starts saying that he doesn't actually own the property at all and he just acts as a 'representative' for some guy in Austrailia, for this reason, as he has to put the quotes to this guy and wait to hear back yadda yadda we could be looking at up to a 3 week wait (this conversation is Thursday 6th). It all sounded a bit far fetched but I said ok (regret not making more of a fuss now).
We hear nothing and no response to our queries until Tues 18th when he puts a note through our door saying British Gas are coming to do a quote this thurs afternoon so one of us will have to be in. I had to take unpaid leave from work to be there and everything.
Again, he turns up to chat to the engineer guy. This time he says something about the guy who owns the house actually being his brother and this time it's not Australia it's Hong Kong. So he is still stalling. Say's he wants to get one more quote to compare and then decide who to go with. This is really unreasonable as we have a 1 year old who we cannot bath in our own house!!!
Spoke to my Dad who said this whole thing sounds ridiculous and he prompted me to pay £3 to check the land registry to see who owns the house. Unsurprisingly it actually is our LL and his wife who have been owners since 1998.
So basically he is completely mugging us off right?
Where do we stand legally on this? We want to get it sorted asap obviously as living without heating and hot water is miserable. We do actually have an electric shower but it is like a dribble so hardly effective.
Is there an official amount of time that this MUST be completed in? Also am I right thinking this is a completely urgent problem?
What now?
THANKS