whole house being rewired

[ocpwr]

We rent and have been in the house for 12 years now and feel we are pretty good tenants, always paid our rent on time etc.

We have just been told that our whole house needs to be rewired.
The problem is that my husband works from home so he's going to be quite disrupted plus with 6 kids in the house and a lot of belongings accumulated over time that is going to need putting away its going to be a bit of a nightmare.
So my question is are we being unreasonable to ask for some sort of reduction in rent during that time or compensation. At the end of the day this is for his benefit not ours, we have been told that the electrics are safe but the new guidelines in place means for some reason they have not passed inspection so it all needs doing sometime soon.
Our landlord doesn't like to spend money on the place so i cant see him liking this request from us so just wanted to see other peoples views.

Yes I would ask. When we did ours, it was done much quicker because we moved out for a few days - it means they don't have to waste 30 minutes at the start and end of each day putting floorboards back, etc. There was a team of them that came in and absolutely blitzed it, I think it took them about 3/4 days?

I would suggest something like that - could it be done over the August bank holiday, for example, combined with a few days away for you, in return for a rent reduction?

Don't forget there'll probably be replastering etc to be done afterwards as well.

The landlord is legally obliged to do any electrical work that doesn't pass inspection. It's his responsibility to make sure that his tenants are safe. The work has to be done, no wriggle room. You can ask if you can have a rent reduction for the duration of the work, but a full rewire costs thousands, so I doubt he'll want to be even more out of pocket. His alternative, if you won't allow the work, is to give you notice to vacate the property.

Could you look at costs for a) storage and b) an air BnB or shared office space for the period? You could then use that as a basis for the reduction in rent, that would also solve your problems.

For example if it's going to take a fortnight and you can rent somewhere for £1000 and storage is £100, you could either ask for that much or 50% (I'm completely pulling figures out of thin air here!) Or does the landlord have other properties you can relocate to?

Who decorated the property?

Is it going to need redecorating?

Is the landlord also going to fully redecorate? Because it'll need doing throughout after a full rewire.

If it needs a rewire it’ll be for safety compliance reasons, not just for lls benefit. He won’t be getting it done for the sake of it as it’s an intrusive messy job. There are new regs coming in for elec on rentals so sounds like it’s failed, and badly if needs a rewire.

With mine we had to end the tenancy as non-compliant and have thr tennant move out. They were given the option of moving back after the work was done, but no guaranteed timescale as did it know if would need new floors etc

In my case rewire was done in a week, then replastering, and decoration over another week. We didn’t need new floors thankfully

Though moving out temporarily would be an upheaval for you, it might be better than living through it as you’ll have no electric, floorboards up, dust etc

I'd ask for temporary relocation. With either you paying the relocation but stopping rent, or you continue to pay rent and the ll pays for the relocation.

Redecoration afterward should be done at their expense.

Oh forgot to add - no rent was expected whilst tennant moved out obviously but we didn’t pay for relocation either

All decoration / deep cleaning etc was paid for by me as part of the works

You cannot live in a house during a full rewire. The floors are up, the walls get knocked through, plastering will need to be redone. Dirt gets EVERYWHERE. You and your belongings will need to be out of the house and all furniture pulled to the middle of rooms and covered. So sorry, what a pain!

Yes I'm with Cookies on this! I would not be attempting to stay in a house during a full rewire. I would be expecting the LL to fund alternative accommodation for you while this is done. A full rewire mid tenancy though is definitely not his choice/benefit - it clearly needs doing.

I’m a landlord and have just today been told my place ideally needs to be rewired because, due to its age, it doesnt have a CPC. But the electrician has said an equally (EICR) compliant alternative is to ‘replace metallic fittings for double insulated versions, replace light switches for versions covering metallic screws and labelling the fuseboard for future reference ‘ So you might suggest to your landlord that they establish whether there are alternatives to bring the installation up to standard.