Can I ask my landlord to cover SomeCost lost from a leak?

[HOWDO99]

Not sure if this is is in the right section but thought I'd ask here!

I rent a property from a private landlord. The landlord lives overseas and so any issues/inspections etc. are dealt with through a letting agent.

I get an annual gas inspection and in 2024 a gas leak was found during that annual inspection. The leak was detected in a boxed in pipe that leads to the dining room heater (central gas with wall mounted bog standard heaters). The guy said he was lucky that he found it as he was close to telling the agent that floors would need to be removed to locate it etc.

I said I had never smelt gas in that area (or any area of the house for that matter) and he said I wouldn't have been able to, but the leak was serious enough that my gas had to be turned off at the mains for 48 hours to be fixed etc. The agent had let the landlord know the details etc.

Obviously I have no idea how long this leak had been going on and my energy supplier has steadily ramped up charges for everything over the years, but of course the leak will have contributed to the amount outstanding for my energy bills. I've never asked the landlord to contribute anything as I don't know if I legally can or should?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

How are you going to prove how big the gas leak was and for how long?

You have no idea how long the leak has been going on.
You have no idea how much gas was lost.
You haven’t noticed a massive spike in your bills so it couldn’t be that much and you cannot pinpoint when it was.

This is just one of those things.

I think its reasonable to ask for the equivalent of 2 days rent as compensation if you were without a gas supply for that length of time. Adding an extra day's rent for gas that was paid for but escaping and not used is also reasonable.
Write to the agent with a request, no harm in doing that - but you might just be ignored. If you dont ask you dont get thats for sure.

I’d definitely ask the letting agent. If the leak was serious and you had no way of knowing about it, it’s reasonable to ask whether the landlord would consider contributing towards any extra gas costs.
Keep your old bills and the repair paperwork, and make the request politely in writing. There’s no harm in asking, and hopefully they’ll be reasonable about it.

Unfortunately I think you will need to swallow the cost.

I rent through a private landlord, and I have had two (relatively small) water leaks since being there, and I just put it down to bad luck and paid the bill for the excess water lost. I also had to pay for emergency heating oil just before last Christmas because the sensor had broken and hadn't alerted me that it was getting low. That did cost me a few hundred.

The landlords have sent plumbers around to deal with the leaks and they replaced the oil sensor, so I am grateful they are good landlords.

We had a gas leak and the engineer said for it to make any noticeable effect on our bill, we’d likely have been blown sky high well before then.

Two years later? This happened in 2024?

Have you looked at your usage in the years preceding - can you see a clear increase in consumption when compared? If it was checked in 2023, the longest it could have been an issue for was 12 months and that's assuming it failed straight after the inspection.

I think your chances are slim to none and are likely to be seen in a negative light.

What on earth is going on that you're thinking about this still?