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.

The reference thing really is a red herring. I’m a landlord and the references I give and receive are literally “I confirm X and Y lived at ….. from A to B” - there’s never any commentary on what they are like as tenants (in the same way job references are entirely devoid of information due to concerns about libel). Far more important is the employer reference/ confirmation of salary

A landlord that doesn’t protect the deposit and stalls on essential repairs is unlikely to bother give a reference.

however, non payment is still a bad idea.

Normally if there’s an agent I’d suggest they ask them about a property for next year, but they sound pretty poor if they’ve taken on such a poor property.

the lack of an inventory is no bad thing for them with a shit ll - he has no proof of anything.

They should query the missing deposit information - in writing - ASAP though. Just as a first step say that it hasn’t arrived and obviously is a legal requirement so to keep them all right the details are needed.