Your opinion / advice, Poll

[Husky]

Ok so the story goes that I am moving house at the end of November into another rental property that is without a doubt amazing; 5 bedrooms, under floor heating, american style fridge freezer, wall mounted tv in the kitchen, etc etc. So I'm a happy chappy!

BUT, I have been kicking about in my current rental in the mean time waiting to find the right place. In that time the place has properly started falling apart. The washing machine broke 10 weeks ago along with some other items that have needed to be fixed for a while that i informed the letting agent/landlord about. So for 10 weeks i have had no washing machine day after day of nagging, promise after promise from the landlord nothign has happened. Its worth mentioning the letting agent has now stopped answering my emails. The time and effort it has cost me between hand washing/laundrette/friends is just rediculous. So the question arises... Do I;

 

A - Just put up with it until the end of nov (im on holiday for the first week anyway) and move into the new place leaving all the problems alone.

 

B - Make a massive push to get the problems resolved, then announce im moving out to really screw the LL over.

 

C - Get the relevant govorning bodies involved and get some heat put on the letting agency. But not concern myself with getting them fixed.

 

D - Take legal action to recover the cost to me of the washing machine and other issues with the property that have been left unresolved.

 

E - Other

 

 

As i say there are numerous other big problems also that need fixed!

[Wasso]

Legal action is going to take an eternity, not only that but the cost also. Unless you are seriously out of pocked I wouldn't bother.

 

If you jump ship without a termination notice period you could be liable, I guess it depends on the security deposit you have left, and whether you want that back or not.

 

I'd walk away from the issues personally, it would of course frustrate me that nothing was ever sorted, but at the end of the day I would look forward to a new property with 5 bedrooms, under floor heating....

 

Can I ask why you need 5 bedrooms?!

[sparky370z]

I would inform the right people that the LL is a joke a not dealing with the issues. Trying to get ure money back is pointless. It would take forever.

 

Tell the letting agent u are taking action against them. See what they do.

 

Is the new place with the same letting agent?

[ZMANALEX]

Rise above it and move on, better things in life to be getting on with instead of getting all stressed over a silly washing machine.

[Vik54]

Not worth your energy John

(i seem to be giving this advice a lot today )

 

Yeah it must be annoying and has cost you a bit but this LL has been atrocious and you'll get nowhere

[Husky]

Rise above it and move on, better things in life to be getting on with instead of getting all stressed over a silly washing machine.

I think your right, Its a silly thing but as you can imagine has bugged the hell out of me. Liike most things, now a solution is on the horizon i've chilled out about it loads, It would just be nice to get the last hit in.

 

On the plus side I'm s**t hot at hand washing clothes now

 

I would inform the right people that the LL is a joke a not dealing with the issues. Trying to get ure money back is pointless. It would take forever.

 

Tell the letting agent u are taking action against them. See what they do.

 

Is the new place with the same letting agent?

 

OK so i went on the letting agents website and found who they are approved by and emailed them with the issues.

 

I think the letting agent are pretty pi**ed off as well in all honesty, they want to resolve the issue themselves but the LL keeps telling them he will do it, preventing them from helping. Its the LL that is at fault but im not saying the letting agency arent at fault as they haven't resolved this and its been forever!

 

Hell no! no way is it with the same agent haha. As well as visiting the letting agent for the new place to see what they are like i met the landlady and asked a million questions, then talked to the people in the other property they let and tey had only good things to say. so i'm damn determined not to make the same mistake

 

If you jump ship without a termination notice period you could be liable, I guess it depends on the security deposit you have left, and whether you want that back or not.

 

I'm still giving a termination notice of a month as thats what im required to do by my tenancy agreement.

 

 

Can I ask why you need 5 bedrooms?!

 

yeah, at the moment i live on my own in a detached 2 bed bungalow, a mate of mine lives in a 2 bed semi on his own. so by pooling our money we have a 5 bed house which means we both have enough space not to feel like students. and as a bonus we get a double garage, roll top bath, huge kitchen, dining room, blah blah. and did i mention its on the fosse way so my drive to work will never be boring now!

[ZMANALEX]

Principles can be costly and a danger to your health

[Tarmac@TarmacSportz]

Congrats dude

 

I will have to pop up and see it..... No car parts in the front room now you have a double garage

 

With regards to the poll, just leave a big dead rotting fish and an open pint of milk under the floor boards....

 

No point going through any heart ache and least you will know you have left him with a nice whiffy pressie for when he is showing potential renters around the property

 

[Husky]

Principles can be costly and a danger to your health

I get burned with this one all the time sound advice indeed.

 

 

 

 

Tarmac; I cant see anyone stepping through the front door to view it tbh, he will ask for way too much for it. he was a lucky b'tard finding me as it suited what i wanted at the time (if only i'd known the pain!) I cant wait to shift stuff to the garage and have the zed all tucked away The top room is maybe going to be cinema room

[Tarmac@TarmacSportz]

thats great news mate -well pleased for ya

[Husky]

thats great news mate -well pleased for ya

cheers man

[wide]

you should tell the letting agent your reducing the amount of rent your giving them, by the amount you feel is sufficient to the issues you've had, untill the jobs are done, they'll soon take action! this is sound advice for anyone renting. if you have a problem that isnt getting sorted in a timely fashion threaten financial penalties, theres nothing like getting less money to get a landlord or letting agent to get them moving, trust me im a past master!!! thus ends your education grasshopper!!!

hope this helps. matt

[sasha@lazytrips]

I was in a similar position to you once and what I did was serve the notice well in advance of when you're moving, then figure out how much you have left to pay, deduce your deposit, deduce costs incurred as a result of them failing to adhere to the contract (ie. maintain the property) and pay the difference. Present them with your calculation neatly typed up and tell them that if they are unhappy with the outcome, you are happy for them to file for court proceedings as you have copious amounts of evidence of the landlord not abiding by the contract and you have no confidence in them returning your deposit as per the contract which is why you have taken such drastic mitigating actions.

 

When I did that, the letting agents knew they were in the wrong and that was that.

[andlid]

Other; writing PM

[Husky]

the issue is, because the place we found is available now and it works out well to move in straight away this means i only have the last rent to play with. and my deposit is worth 1.5 times that. I had to resolve various problems myself in the past and charge it back to them but he still never shifted his arse. the washing machine is an integrated one so not so easy for me to drop 400 quid on one plus install.

[Wasso]

So by pooling our money we have a 5 bed house which means we both have enough space not to feel like students. and as a bonus we get a double garage, roll top bath, huge kitchen, dining room, blah blah. and did i mention its on the fosse way so my drive to work will never be boring now!

 

This worries me John.... please tell me this "mate" is female

[Husky]

haha, the roll top is mine mate, he has is own bathroom, poor phrasing on my part there

[Wasso]

Phew!!

 

Gota say it sounds like a nice place.... do you get a butler to go with the property??

[Husky]

no but get a gardner

[Ebized]

Sounds like you really have something to look forward to, dont look back - life is to short

 

With just Alex's and my advice that experience of life is over 120 years on our own

[sasha@lazytrips]

the issue is, because the place we found is available now and it works out well to move in straight away this means i only have the last rent to play with. and my deposit is worth 1.5 times that. I had to resolve various problems myself in the past and charge it back to them but he still never shifted his arse. the washing machine is an integrated one so not so easy for me to drop 400 quid on one plus install.

 

This makes it a lot more complicated. I guess if you're definitely leaving, your best bet to save yourself as much headache as possible is to go to the letting agents, file your notice and firmly request for your deposit back on the grounds that all the deterioration in the property has been down to their mismanagement. Your best outcome without going through a lot of unnecessary pain is to get your deposit back.

 

My gut feel though, given how helpful they have been, is that you will not see that and if you get that steer when you go speak to them, then simply withhold your last payment and thereby forego half a months' worth of deposit :S

[Tarmac@TarmacSportz]

Sounds like you really have something to look forward to, dont look back - life is to short

 

With just Alex's and my advice that experience of life is over 120 years on our own

 

[nixy]

Knowing some of the problems you've had in the past and what you are dealing with I would just say get the hell out of there and don't look back! Put a few unmentionables down your dodgy loo first though..........

[Ricey]

NO NO NO!!!! Going off quietly into the sunset is exactly the reason this country is going to @*!# and butt reaming tossweasels like your landlord are allowed to collect rent on a property!.......if you had failed to pay your rent do you think he would sit their scratching his sack umming and arring??!!? No - he'd be round there with his 6 biggest mates holding you by one leg and shaking you upside down.

 

Similarly if you complain you've got to ensure you;

a) Don't expect any results from your actions.

Are really doing it to stand up to this kind of kack as opposed to financial reasons

c) Will not incur any stress as a result of fighting it (i.e doing it for fun company annoying purposes)

 

All I would do it write a letter to the director/owner of the letting agents advising of their failings. Give 30 days to reply then send a copy of the letter to ARLA or NEAB (whomever they are registered with)........then forget about it - in a couple of months you may see a result.

 

Another sweet way of getting results (only works with bigger companies though) when a company does you over is to go on www.reuters.com - search the company and find out who the directing board are.

 

Then you need to find out how their emails are structured - so for example I want to know how Admirals emails are structures I search '@admiral.co.uk' in google........some PR officer or another will have their address floating around and shebang - you now know the email addresses of the entire directing board

 

Send your complaint on to the entire directing board and you'll have a full response within 7 days (obviously don't do this before you've tried the normal complaints proceedure).

 

I've done this with tonnes of companies who've done me a mischief and had almost instant results.

 

A quote from my email to the directing board of Admiral -

".....Its simply stunning (to the point where I'm nearly impressed) that you can be this bad.............you would literally have to train people to be this incompetent - human beings are not born this ignorant or useless.".

 

Even if the director doesn't take a direct interest he'll have to forward the email to a minion........said minion then shats themselves because a complaint has gone direct to the top........in this case it took 48 hours for a full written response after 8 weeks of waiting

 

Wow this is my longest post thus far!.........and probably most pointless.

[andlid]

LOL that's in class with my rambling posts....haha