LL installed new kitchen

[Casperthefriendlygh]

We experienced significant disruption despite the promise of no 'lack of function':

• 3 days no oven, 3 days no hob
• 6 days no dishwasher, 6 days no washing machine
• 9 days no sink, 9 days of high noise
• 14 days of reduced living space due to storage
• This has led to health risks, unlivable conditions, and a breach of the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, with issues like damp, drainage problems, and difficulty maintaining sanitation.

What did you think would happen ? Have you never had work done on a house before ???

@BruFord I think she'll refuse as she did prior

'and the cost per day of rent'

tho you still had full use of the 3 bedrooms, the bathroom and the living room ? despite a few cupboards being stored in the living room.

the new kitchen didn't affect your use of the bathroom - were you unable to go to the toilet ? have a shower / have a bath ?
were you unable to sleep in your bed ?
unable to watch tv or listen to music or read a book in the living room ?

In fact we had a leak in our bathroom and it was three weeks to refit it.

In this case "loss of functionality" means no loss of the ability to cook food by some means (if you had either a hob or an oven at all times this counts as functionality). You have a point with the washing machine and could (on production of receipts) claim back reasonable laundrette costs eg 1 towel load, 1 bedding load, 1 normal load each.

As there was damage from a leak, the landlord was fully entitled to replace the kitchen during your tenancy. Tenancies do not entitle tenants to demand no inconvenience or disruption whatsoever, it just has to be reasonable and proportionate. Which this was.

You sound like the kind of tenants everyone dreads - full of self entitled bluster about their rights without any inkling of what those rights are.

Wind your necks in and chalk this up to being an over reaction which you will blush at in later life.

I'm not a landlord by the way, I also rent. In fact I worked in property for many years before leaving due to the way tenants were treated by companies and landlords generally , and even I think you are being silly OP.

currently having our kitchen renovated, so understand your pain. Not a renter but if I was, I’d ask for £500, or more off!

Physical and mental ill-effects from having a new kitchen fitted??? Grow the fuck up.

@sanityisamyth we were really tense for 2 weeks and it was like being in a submarine, squashed and unpleasant with a builder in our space every day

If you don’t think that your LL will agree to the reduction, I’d ask Shelter or the CAB for advice before withholding any money.

Withholding rent can put you in a shaky position, you definitely don’t want to do anything that could backfire on you.

Oh come on. You weren’t ’disempowered’, you were mildly inconvenienced.

I wonder if an entirely new set of cabinets and new appliances was a proportionate response to a leak though?

Unless the leak was a full bathtub overflowing upstairs for half an hour and the water destroying everything in the kitchen below, I don't think the scope of what this LL did could be classified as "fixing a leak".

Most leaks take a maximum of an hour to fix.

'Health risks'? 🙄

Honestly, apart from not being able to wash dishes for 9 days, nothing else seems that unreasonable.

Most people don't have dishwasher and have to wash by hand, shocking I know. A lot of people manage laundry once a week so again, no major issues there.

Can't remember the last time I used my oven!

@WiserOlderElf Renting is shit! You get 6 monthly inspections with some idiot walking about filming everything on a phone. Then when we complained about the leak we thought they'd just fix the leak not rip out the entire kitchen

Your calculations for loss of amenity are flawed and incorrect. You have 6 rooms at £2900 a month. So the price per day is £95.34. Of those days you had partial loss of cooking facilities for 3 days. So 95.34 x 3 divided by 6 is £47. So that is around what a court would order for disrepair (which this isn't but it's a method of calculating loss). Even if 11 days total loss of use (which it isn't) it is still only £174.

If you then calculate the loss of goodwill from your landlord for continuing along this route, you can see it really isn't worthwhile . . .

Oh give over, what did you think having a new kitchen entailed ??

This wasn't maintenance.

It was grabbing the opportunity to install cabinets the LL had probably sourced cheaply so she wouldn't have to spend money storing them somewhere.

It's stunts like this that put some tenants off reporting small items awry. I bet the OP and her fellow tenants will think twice about reporting a bathroom leak.

I rented for 14 years, I know it’s pitfalls and benefits. 2 weeks having a new kitchen fitted is a minor inconvenience.

@WiserOlderElf OP wasn't in control of the situation. She had no say in whether the kitchen was replaced. Disempowered might not be the exact word to use, but give the girl a break.

Precisely.

Are you ever going to report another leak?

After all, who knows what bathroom fixtures the LL currently has stacked in her home garage and wants to install to improve the value of her rental property?

Honestly people are so dramatic. I don’t know how you get through life if 2 weeks of being inconvenienced causes so much angst.

@mathanxiety Although the tenancy requires it, I'd be reluctant to do so, and this was quite the leak, it was smelling mouldy

Crikey, I hope it's not a new toilet in her garage. Op only has one bathroom . . .

you complained about the leak, or you reported the leak.

all 3 of you work from home in this rented flat ? does that not affect the tenancy - is it a residential or business tenancy
what about Council tax, do you have to pay business rates as well ?

or are you just over dramatising how much you were affected by the ' disruption '

You're being ridiculous. There was a problem which needed fixing and meant ripping the kitchen out. If you were a homeowner you would be just as inconvenienced. It actually sounds as though the landlord has acted quickly to get things resolved. Where else would you suggest the kitchen units were stored? How else would you suggest the problem was fixed? You've got a better kitchen now, one with no leak and a washing machine.

Major work in a house is a pain, but come on! I say this as someone having two rooms knocked together and a new bathroom put in. The mess and disruption is crap, but the end result will be an improvement. I've been working full time including several days a week from home and I've done all the bloody painting.

If there’s any justice in the world she’ll put it on the market and leave you all homeless. What a bunch of ungrateful whinging.