Can I claim money from my landlady?

Reply to the comment left by "Monty Bodkin" at "18/12/2014 - 10:34":

Hi Monty

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I am always sympathetic to landlords, often dealing with tenants who do not report repairs. However, parental duties must always come first and how on earth someone with a newborn could be living in a property without heating and hot water for 35 days(!) is beyond me. Common sense says she should, when the worker who came out, was unable to repair it, then speak to the local authority. She is obviously quite happy, thinking she will get a nice sum of money out of this. I quite agree with Monty - no requirement to provide a cooker. BUT - if a cooker is provided as part of the tenancy, then it should be put into the state it was when the tenancy commenced. A tenant may accept a tenancy on the basis that they have no cooker.

Am I missing something here? Someone not paid rent and now seeks c.................n!

If your home is in a state of disrepair, you should notify your landlord or letting agent as soon as possible. Great tips~!

It is interesting that Rachael has not replied and told us the extent of the rent arrears. It is also very telling that she writes 'Also my rent unfortunately fell into arrears,' as though this was some kind of thing that happened to her, an act of God, rather than her actively breaching her tenancy agreement. She is very interested in knowing what her rights are but is paying scant attention to her responsibilities.
However, as someone said, the landlady might be willing to knock a bit off the arrears, by mutual agreement. It would be stupid to go down any kind of formal route. I suspect that the amount of rent arrears exceeds any possible compensation due.
It is also important to know exactly what the landlady tried to do to sort the problem. We have had situations where it has taken maybe two weeks to organise a replacement boiler. Eg. problem reported 5pm on a Sunday, we have plumber around at 6pm Sunday, he orders a new circuit board, fits it on Wednesday, it doesn't work, he rings an electrician to come around (can't remember why - I'm technically challenged), the electrician can't come till Saturday. He orders a part, brings it around the following Tuesday, it doesn't work. Decision made to order a new boiler, and plumber can't fix it till following Monday (also has to wait for it to come in stock). As we know, sometimes it is very hard in the real world to get workpeople around as quickly as we would like as they can be very busy.
And if the tenant, for example, said it wasn't convenient to come around on a particular day, they may have to wait several more days for the plumber to have a big enough slot (and this delay would not be the landlady's fault).
The point of this is to say that I don't think two weeks is unreasonable and so it is only the bit on top of this that might be seen as excessive (and there may be mitigating circumstances). If it did take 35 days, then perhaps 20 days of compensation in the form of something being taken off the rent arrears would be about right. Someone would have to think up a formula for what a house is worth when you have the roof over your head, electric light, cold water (crucially you can flush the loos), can boil a kettle etc. Had the landlady brought around a few portable heaters and paid the extra on the electricity bill that would have helped, but we assume she didn't. I'm assuming Rachael did manage to boil up some hot water on the cooker, which I presume was working at the time the boiler wasn't (otherwise why is her electricity bill higher?), so at least she could bath the baby etc.
And although it's a shame the landlady isn't fixing the cooker, it is galling as a landlord when a tenant owes you money and wants you to spend lots on the house. I'd suggest Rachael pay someone to fix the cooker and say she will give the landlady the receipt for this and she can take it off the arrears. Most landlords would willingly agree to that. Or does she want her to do the work while Rachael doesn't pay the rent arrears?
I also don't think it's the fault of the landlady that the family of tenants is large and there are young members in it. If that became an argument for greater compensation etc. then maybe we landlords would decide not to house families, but only single, childless people, for our own protection.

Reply to the comment left by "Rosalind " at "20/12/2014 - 09:10":

I had a very interesting discussion last night with a no-win-no-fee lawyer who specialises in claims of this nature. He had read this thread fully.

His view was that no firm such as his own would touch a case like this, because any awards would probably get swallowed up by the counter-claim for the rent arrears. He also explained that most tenants think they are entitled for far more compensation then they are in reality. For example, unless the tenant could prove that her health had suffered (which apparently be very difficult and expensive to achieve) then the quantum for any claim would most likely be limited to any increase in electricity costs that could be PROVEN!

As landlords, we tend to look upon these no-win-no-fee operators as ambulance chasing vultures. However, having spoken to the principal of such a firm at length last night it was a real eye opener. I have tried to persuade him to "come out" and comment here more often (he has posted anonymously 6 times) but he's a bit reluctant and fearful of being attacked which is a real shame because I think we could all learn a lot from him. Obviously we wouldn't want him to use this website to tout for business but I have explained that in the most extreme cases, where mediation fails, that I do refer some tenants to solicitors where I think the landlord deserves it.

What are members thoughts on this please?
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Unfortunately Mark there are lawyers out there only too willing to take on Legal Aid work regardless of the whether there is any substance in the claim.

The Landlord (I speak from experience) then ends up paying his own legal costs.

Reply to the comment left by "Adrian Jones" at "20/12/2014 - 11:53":

Not any more, there have been plenty of legal aid cuts of late.

For most tenants, it's no-win-no-fee or pay for your own representation.

Very few, if any, no-win-no-fee lawyers will take on a tenants case if they are in arrears. If they are unaware of arrears when they take cases on, rest assurred they will drop them like a stone when they find out about the arrears.
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Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "20/12/2014 - 12:24":

I know there were a lot of angry lawyers who specialised in Legal Aid work demonstrating against the cuts.

Do you know if part of the cuts has resulted in outlawing "hopeless cases"?

Reply to the comment left by "Adrian Jones" at "20/12/2014 - 12:41":

Yes, for certain the cuts have hit this very hard indeed 🙂
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