Hello,
I’m really hoping someone might be able to help me or give me the benefit of their experience on an issue we’re having with a rental property.
I’ll try and explain everything as briefly and clearly as possible but it might be a long one.
We rented out our family home in September last year and moved to a different town, where we rented a property. We’re a family of 2 adults and 3 children under 2. So we’re landlords and tenants!
Shortly after moving house we identified a number of issues with the house, the conservatory leaked badly, was full of slugs and regularly had black mould which needed cleaning ( I think from condensation). Tiles on the kitchen floor was shattered and they were no longer adhered to the floor so we were told by the handy man that was sent out to replace individual tiles that it would continue to happen until the floor was replaced. One of my crawling twins sliced their leg on a tile. The hot water from the boiler was barely existent. The water case out Luke warm at best, we used to have to boil the kettle to make the babies baths hot enough. We were told by the engineer that did the gas safety check that the boiler was end of life and needed replacing 2 years ago. The shower was electric and also barely produced hot water. It was hanging off the wall and the water pressure was pretty non-existent. I could go on, but these were the major things affecting our quality of life.
Eventually the landlord approved someone to look at the conservatory, the first company wouldn’t touch it said it needed replacing and was end of life with several wholes in places. Second company removed a load of moss from one of the drainage pipes which stopped the leaking when it rained. It hasn’t stopped the slugs or condensation.
After 3 months and more cracked tiles he approved getting some new tiles in the kitchen, not ideal but safe now.
After 4 months of complaining and the letting agent taking a video of the temperature of the hot water from the boiler the landlord agreed to get it replaced. It took a month from him agreeing to it being done during which we had almost no hot water.
We’re chasing him about the shower, a friend of mine has looked at it and is confident the thermostat has gone, it’s a really old shower and you can’t get any consistent heat from it. As yet he hasn’t agreed to have anyone look at it. He can’t seem to understand why the boiler hasn’t improved the shower despite us explaining it’s not run off the boiler and is electric!!
Basically, we are in a 12 months tenancy (our own stupid fault, we thought that was the minimum) and we want to move out. My twins were premature and always have problems with their lungs and the conservatory was meant to be their playroom, but I can’t let them play in there very long and only after I’ve checked everywhere for slugs 🐌.
I’ve asked the letting agent if the landlord will agree to us leaving early and he will but with the stipulations that we pay the fee’s for the new tenants and we pay the rent until the new tenants move in. As landlords I can see this is reasonable as we want to terminate the lease early and I would want these things in place of our tenants wanted to leave early. However, we only want to move as the landlord has been so difficult. He takes weeks to reply to the letting agent about important things, he turns up at the house with minutes notice, he takes months to do things which are quite essential and we’re stuck with a house that isn’t fit for purpose as we can’t use one of the main rooms.
Are we stuck here (because we can’t risk paying rent on two houses) or is there a way through this?
Thanks so much if you’ve read this far!