Landlord not fulfilling basic legal requirments

[BadlyBehavedLandlord]

DS moved into a flat with a friend in September. It's his first flat and we don't have experience with renting property either. The flat is rented through a letting agency.

The flat is in ok, but quite poor and worn condition. Carpets threadbare etc. Some cracked windows in the single glazed windows. When they got there, it was full of previous tenants junk and quite dirty. Most of the light bulbs needed replacing. I expect that's par for the course.

They haven't had any notification about their deposit being put into a deposit scheme. No gas certificate or electrical certificate. They did have their boiler serviced a couple of months late after pushing for it. It was months overdue. No inventory. All these things have been asked for, but they just get stonewalled.

Their boiler broke early this week. To the agents credit someone came round the same day to have a look at it. But it is so old that it needs replacing. It is totally unfixable. They have no hot water, heating or ability to shower. Their flat is getting very cold now. They are waiting for the landlord now to approve the quote to replace the boiler and they have no idea when the boiler will be replaced.

What are their rights in this situation? They are worried that if they make a fuss, then they might get evicted, or their landlord will really increase the rent when the contract ends, or that they won't get a good reference from the landlord and find renting difficult next time.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

I suggest that they speak to Shelter, Op. Good luck - having a rubbish landlord is, well, rubbish

That's good advice Motnight I'll suggest it to them.

If the landlord / their agent has not fulfilled the precontract requirements to serve gas and electric certificates, EPC, evidence the deposit is protected and Govt how to rent guide then they don’t need to worry about eviction: any Notice to evict will be invalid.

That said they need to get some heating on! Get them to look at CAB website about landlords obligations to do repairs. They need to have everything in writing from here on, including following up phone calls with a confirmatory email (“further to our earlier conversation I’m writing to confirm you said you would….”

So there’s an agent involved?

they should have provided legal certs

And they should have been provided with these before they moved in

no way would my ds have moved in without sight of gas or electrical cert

I agree.

@BadlyBehavedLandlord - For practical advice on how to deal with the LL, I suggest you ask at LandlordZone. Knowledgeable LLs posting there who are very helpful to tenants as well. Do a search in the Residential Lettings section of the forum as your son's issues sadly are not uncommon.

They need to stop paying the rent. That will encourage the landlord to get it fixed.

OP, I had similar with a useless Landlord who bizarrely, in an outstanding act of stupidity, tried to threaten me after admitting in writing to no gas or electrical certs. A landlord can face a fine of up to £30,000 for no electrical certs www.gov.uk/government/publications/electrical-safety-standards-in-the-private-rented-sector-guidance-for-landlords-tenants-and-local-authorities/guide-for-landlords-electrical-safety-standards-in-the-private-rented-sector

A landlord can face a £6,000 fine or imprisonment for no Gas Safety Certs.

As mentioned above they can't evict or issue a Section 21 without these certificates.

The Landlord has to register the Deposit in the Deposit Tenancy Scheme, here are some contact numbers www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection/if-your-landlord-doesnt-protect-your-deposit

The Landlord may be stonewalling, but that's not in their interests. Although it may not feel like it, you are completely in control and I would report them. These measures are in place to protect tenants safety, with serious repercussions.

Terrible advice. It’s very easy to evict for non payment of rent.

Although I do think it’s the only way some of these cowboys would learn, by hitting their wallets with no rent and huge fines.

Absolutely not - it just gives the landlord an excuse to evict and could lead to legal action to collect arrears. It is never good advice to stop paying rent regardless of how bad the situation is

Wrong advice, it will get them evicted!

Sounds like he is a slum lord. It’s 2nd of the month, if it’s not fixed by end of month and a 100% rent reduction for days with no heating or hot water, they should not pay.
Also as PP says, start action on the certs and deposit issues.
And finally, why have they rented such a shithole with single glazing, dirty etc?
They should be looking to move anyway.

There will be a housing enforcement officer at their local council for private rented properties. It might be worth tracking this person down and getting them out for a visit. Ultimately though, they need to find somewhere better to live.

Thank you, there is some great advice here, that I will pass on. Since I've posted, the landlord has approved the boiler being replaced, so that should be done in the next few days. That doesn't mean that they don't need to address the other issues though.

They do need to find somewhere else at the end of this tenancy. Where they live, the market is really overheated and getting a property is really difficult. They applied for so many places, but by the time they got to view the later in the day, the places had already gone, or it went to bidding wars. I don't think they are looking forward to the next round.

Boiler replaced in next few days?! No chance I’m afraid

Good luck Op. It is horrendous where we live concerning the rental market.

This is the worst advice you can give to a tenant.

Why? If you have a good, engaged landlord then I agree.
If you have a slumlord, who won’t repair or maintain the property, then only money talks.
Evictions take at least 6 months, more likely 9 months.
There is nothing to fear. This landlord, who has not supplied the gas Cert nor deposit protection scheme, is very much likely the later.
They need taking to the cleaners.

The arrears that arise due to non payment of rent will lead to a CCJ which will make renting somewhere else incredibly difficult if not impossible let alone applying for a mortgage or any kind of credit. That is why it is terrible advice

The fact you don’t know confirms that you really should not be giving such advice

I’m surprised that the letting agent has allowed the property to be let out in this condition and not supplied the paperwork and placed their deposit in the holding scheme. It’s their reputation at stake here.
I am an experienced landlord and have an excellent letting agency who manage my properties - I know that they will not let out a property to tenants that is in a poor state. I have been lucky in the fact that 99.9% of all my previous tenants have left my properties in a good clean condition the exact way they found them. I had one tenant who left rubbish and old furniture behind but luckily we had reclaimed the costs of removing this through their deposit.
LL’s are required by law to place their tenants deposit in a Deposit scheme?

Just to say do NOT encourage them to do non-payment of rent. It will lead to all sorts of difficulties and when they move the next place will want references etc for starters.

The landlord has clearly reacted quickly to the boiler breaking down so this is actually very encouraging!

Re the deposit and gas certificate, that is quite possibly down to the letting agent and not the landlord. Chances are it's their agent being useless - if the landlord's happy to shell out a couple of grand for a boiler they're going to be happy to pay £50 for a certificate. I'd recommend they phone and email once a week, the EA will eventually do it. Young people often just email but if you phone then confirm by email you can pin down some expectations.

It's appalling what some standards are, but if a property is pretty dingy to start with (as it was when they viewed it), rightly or wrongly you've gotta match your expectations with that, and I'd not be trusting the EA or landlord of a place like that to start with. Learn a lesson is all you can do, really.

Also just to say no inventory works in the tenants favour so don't push for it!

It means the landlord cannot prove any damage to property/ etc occurred within their tenancy so it is much much more difficult for the LL to take anything off their deposit when they leave.

The idea of the risk to the reference is a bit of a false path. If the landlord has not protected the deposit, DS will likely have to raise a claim about this to a tribunal or court (depending on where you are) in order to regain the deposit (and additional compensation for the lack of protection). At that point, will you say 'oh no, write those hundreds of pounds off, or else your greedy landlord might not give a reference'?

They should absolutely press on this because no boiler makes for an uninhabitable flat. It's an urgent repair.

@Precipice yes agree boiler an urgent repair, and it is actually getting urgently fixed so that element is fine!

And yes I think you are probably right, reference is probably not top of the list of concerns. I do feel (perhaps wrongly!) if the landlord is installing a new boiler, chances are they will manage to sort other stuff too - just really really should have done it better.

Would genuinely lay quite a lot of blame with the letting agent here - they are normally the ones to lodge the deposits on behalf of the landlord.

However, let's not catastrophize yet - just because the deposit hasn't been lodged with a scheme doesn't mean it isn't recoverable at the end in a relatively straightforward way.

I worked at a letting agent for a few months a couple of years ago. They were independent (just three employees) but rapidly expanding and basically took on more than they could chew. It was the agency's job to register the deposit and they failed to do it in the legal timeframe because they were just super useless and inefficient at that point growing too fast. And basically, because they forgot to do it, it sat unregistered for about 6 months. The tenant made a big fuss (quite rightly) and the agency gave them 50% of the deposit as a compensation payout to keep it out of the courts. So - there was a lot of stress for the tenant because they couldn't trust they'd get their deposit back for a while, but they did end up making on it in the end :)