Landlord/renting advice

Bailo · April 8, 2015

Right chaps, to cut a very long story short, my wife is working back in Birmingham during the week and is renting a flat (company is paying for it). We looked around a few and plumped for one in an excellent location for her work, though with a few (minor) issues such as not being very clean, a wardrobe door not working and no curtains in the bedroom.

The letting agent who showed us around promised the flat would be clean and noted down these issues, promising to get them fixed. However, as soon as she signed for it, they started making out they were only an "introductory service" and so had no obligation to fix any issues - we had to take that up with the landlord.

Took it up with the landlord, who is intransigent at best, volatile at worst. Has responded to a few emails from my wife with a distinctly anti-woman theme and basically has left it all up to her to sort out. There was no cleaning of the flat and he's claiming she rented it on a "as seen" basis, which is not the case given the letting agents promises. She's got a company in to quote for a blind to be fitted in the bedroom and has been OK'd to deduct the cost from her rent, but the landlord is dragging his heels on giving her the final OK to go ahead and book the company. She's been sleeping in the lounge on a mattress as the bedroom is so light and open without blinds.

Now the boiler is on the blink, sometimes heating and sometimes not. She's got a company out to fix it once (element broken) but it's still not consistently hot. To add to that, the fridge is now at 15C, the oven doesn't get hot enough to cook anything and the washer/dryer starts doing something for 5 seconds then stops and does nothing. She doesn't have the time to arrange for all of these to get fixed.

Sounds like a s***hole, which it isn't, but we expect better for £725pm. What legal standing do we have? I'm going to contact CAB but I know that the law doesn't look kindly on tenants withholding rent. What can we expect to be in a working condition and what kind of timeframe should repairs be made?

Cheers!

Nathan Explosion · April 8, 2015