Unusable garage in rented property
Discussion
23rdian said:
However that garage is going to remain terrible until it is pulled down. I wouldn't keep scrap in it.
The garage looks to be functional with the exception of the flooding, if water is constantly getting into the garage via a flood, saturating the floor slab then it will remain damp until the cause of the flood is addressed, and this alone will cause the horrendous condensation on the roof. My last garage was concrete wall panels with a fibre cement roof and remained bone dry for years and there is no reason why this one shouldn't be the same if it receives some basic maintenance.For the OP, keep the pressure on the letting Agent and follow the procedures for rectifying any defects which should be detailed in the lease.
Good luck
Wow, has it almost been a year already!! Recent events made me think of this thread and I thought I'd update
The garage issue was never addressed properly or resolved, the flooding and damp issue remains and the garage is still not usable, for the last ten months I continually hassled the agent, only to be promised various things that never materialised, I even addressed the landlord directly but she ignored my communications. With hindsight we should have rejected the property from the outset but the problem with hindsight is that you can only look back...
In addition to the garage we had the following issues with the property:
1. Bathrooom drainage slowing down until we were showering in six inches of dirty water that would sit for hours after we used it in the mornings. Reported on 17/01, issue ignored until 18/03 when the downstairs neighbour came knocking because there was water literally flowing through his light fitting. The first plumber they sent looked like he'd just been let out of prison, and proceeded to rip the bathroom apart without unscrewing anything so all the woodwork was damaged, used our personal hand towels without telling us to mop up the months old water and screwed them up underneath the bath to hide them, and broke the sink pedestal ripping the woodwork out. He failed to fix the cause of the leak, only to mask it by overtightening the fixture. It took until June until the bathroom was back to normal and the leak fixed properly.
2. The extractor hood in the kitchen, because like the rest of the apartment it hadn't been cleaned, began dripping rancid old fat and grease onto anything below it when used. This was reported at the same time as the bathroom, 17/01, and despite repeated queries to the agent nothing was done until June when I threatened the agent with an official complaint along with the drainage and garage issues. The handyman who visited recommended that the pipework be cleaned, the landlord's solution was to purchase some wool like sheeting to simply act as a drip tray between the grilles and the motor unit, again masking the problem rather than fixing it. This has now blocked the extractor meaning it doesn't work, and the dripping fat and grease is slowly but surely seeping through the sheet.
3. The agent and landlord attempted to force us to change the tenancy agreement in March, by sending us a letter beginning "Following discussion with your landlady it has been decided that a change will be made to your tenancy agreement..." - This change basically would have made us liable to replace any of the white goods that we broke, but absolved the landlord of repairing or replacing any of them should they break down. I gave them short thrift and never heard anything more about it.
4. The garage door was of such poor quality that it fell off the mountings and injured me last year but I was able to relocate it, in July this year it fell off again and needed replacing according to the garage door expert who visited and before knowing I was the tenant and not the landlord told the agent "you're not going to let this place with a garage are you, it's terrible". The landlord chose instead to bodge the garage door as best possible, even though she was told it would likely fail and need replacing within the year
5. The property has a brick shed/outbuilding, the wooden door fell of it's hinges on 10/08 and I am still waiting for the agent to give me any indication of when this will be fixed, consistently fobbing me off with such things as the Lettings Manager telling me they need to wait for someone else to come back from leave, then from hospital etc etc before they can do anything. In reality the landlord is resisting any attempt to maintain the property.
6. Numerous smaller issues such as doors that didn't close, plaster falling off the walls that were reported but weren't worth pushing for solutions for as if the landlord wasn't going to fix the huge problems with the garage, drainage, kitchen etc there's no way smaller items would be addressed
In short, the last twelve months has been a nightmare, and after making every attempt to contact the landlord and discuss the issue of the mounting costs we were incurring, only to be ignored at every chance, I'd had enough and in June I refused to pay any more rent until the landlord addressed her obligations. This was an absolute last resort, but it worked, through the agent she offered effectively nothing, and then refused to negotiate. That meant in July I was forced to make an application to the courts for our costs. She submitted a defence statement that was 50% lies and 50% irrelevant content, and we reached a settlement through mediation this week.
In addition to our own issues with the garages, the owner of another property with the garage next to ours has been in the process of getting new tenants in, he has categorically told the agent he uses to describe the property and NOT having a usable garage due to the condition they're in and the likelihood of comeback from tenants
Now comes the fun part, in the interim I discovered that our landlord has failed to protect our £1200 deposit in accordance with the law, and as such we are able to apply to the court for the immediate return of our deposit, and the court "must" award us damages of between one and three times the deposit amount. On top of that the Section 21 notice she had issued to us for the end of the tenancy is not legally valid. We have served our letter before action this week and are awaiting her response now. I should mention that any damages we are awarded by the court will cover the costs she has forced us to incur with the majority being donated to several housing charities that have helped us through the worst year of our lives together, we're not doing this for our own gain, only to penalise her.
In short, she has picked the wrong tenants to try and screw over, and will now be suffering the consequences of her stupidity and stubbornness...
The garage issue was never addressed properly or resolved, the flooding and damp issue remains and the garage is still not usable, for the last ten months I continually hassled the agent, only to be promised various things that never materialised, I even addressed the landlord directly but she ignored my communications. With hindsight we should have rejected the property from the outset but the problem with hindsight is that you can only look back...
In addition to the garage we had the following issues with the property:
1. Bathrooom drainage slowing down until we were showering in six inches of dirty water that would sit for hours after we used it in the mornings. Reported on 17/01, issue ignored until 18/03 when the downstairs neighbour came knocking because there was water literally flowing through his light fitting. The first plumber they sent looked like he'd just been let out of prison, and proceeded to rip the bathroom apart without unscrewing anything so all the woodwork was damaged, used our personal hand towels without telling us to mop up the months old water and screwed them up underneath the bath to hide them, and broke the sink pedestal ripping the woodwork out. He failed to fix the cause of the leak, only to mask it by overtightening the fixture. It took until June until the bathroom was back to normal and the leak fixed properly.
2. The extractor hood in the kitchen, because like the rest of the apartment it hadn't been cleaned, began dripping rancid old fat and grease onto anything below it when used. This was reported at the same time as the bathroom, 17/01, and despite repeated queries to the agent nothing was done until June when I threatened the agent with an official complaint along with the drainage and garage issues. The handyman who visited recommended that the pipework be cleaned, the landlord's solution was to purchase some wool like sheeting to simply act as a drip tray between the grilles and the motor unit, again masking the problem rather than fixing it. This has now blocked the extractor meaning it doesn't work, and the dripping fat and grease is slowly but surely seeping through the sheet.
3. The agent and landlord attempted to force us to change the tenancy agreement in March, by sending us a letter beginning "Following discussion with your landlady it has been decided that a change will be made to your tenancy agreement..." - This change basically would have made us liable to replace any of the white goods that we broke, but absolved the landlord of repairing or replacing any of them should they break down. I gave them short thrift and never heard anything more about it.
4. The garage door was of such poor quality that it fell off the mountings and injured me last year but I was able to relocate it, in July this year it fell off again and needed replacing according to the garage door expert who visited and before knowing I was the tenant and not the landlord told the agent "you're not going to let this place with a garage are you, it's terrible". The landlord chose instead to bodge the garage door as best possible, even though she was told it would likely fail and need replacing within the year
5. The property has a brick shed/outbuilding, the wooden door fell of it's hinges on 10/08 and I am still waiting for the agent to give me any indication of when this will be fixed, consistently fobbing me off with such things as the Lettings Manager telling me they need to wait for someone else to come back from leave, then from hospital etc etc before they can do anything. In reality the landlord is resisting any attempt to maintain the property.
6. Numerous smaller issues such as doors that didn't close, plaster falling off the walls that were reported but weren't worth pushing for solutions for as if the landlord wasn't going to fix the huge problems with the garage, drainage, kitchen etc there's no way smaller items would be addressed
In short, the last twelve months has been a nightmare, and after making every attempt to contact the landlord and discuss the issue of the mounting costs we were incurring, only to be ignored at every chance, I'd had enough and in June I refused to pay any more rent until the landlord addressed her obligations. This was an absolute last resort, but it worked, through the agent she offered effectively nothing, and then refused to negotiate. That meant in July I was forced to make an application to the courts for our costs. She submitted a defence statement that was 50% lies and 50% irrelevant content, and we reached a settlement through mediation this week.
In addition to our own issues with the garages, the owner of another property with the garage next to ours has been in the process of getting new tenants in, he has categorically told the agent he uses to describe the property and NOT having a usable garage due to the condition they're in and the likelihood of comeback from tenants
Now comes the fun part, in the interim I discovered that our landlord has failed to protect our £1200 deposit in accordance with the law, and as such we are able to apply to the court for the immediate return of our deposit, and the court "must" award us damages of between one and three times the deposit amount. On top of that the Section 21 notice she had issued to us for the end of the tenancy is not legally valid. We have served our letter before action this week and are awaiting her response now. I should mention that any damages we are awarded by the court will cover the costs she has forced us to incur with the majority being donated to several housing charities that have helped us through the worst year of our lives together, we're not doing this for our own gain, only to penalise her.
In short, she has picked the wrong tenants to try and screw over, and will now be suffering the consequences of her stupidity and stubbornness...
the_lone_wolf said:
Now comes the fun part, in the interim I discovered that our landlord has failed to protect our £1200 deposit in accordance with the law, and as such we are able to apply to the court for the immediate return of our deposit, and the court "must" award us damages of between one and three times the deposit amount. On top of that the Section 21 notice she had issued to us for the end of the tenancy is not legally valid. We have served our letter before action this week and are awaiting her response now. I should mention that any damages we are awarded by the court will cover the costs she has forced us to incur with the majority being donated to several housing charities that have helped us through the worst year of our lives together, we're not doing this for our own gain, only to penalise her.
In short, she has picked the wrong tenants to try and screw over, and will now be suffering the consequences of her stupidity and stubbornness...
It all sounds like a nightmare and good on you for not just suffering in silence. In short, she has picked the wrong tenants to try and screw over, and will now be suffering the consequences of her stupidity and stubbornness...
Just to pick up on this bit though, I thought it was the agent's job to protect the deposit, not the landlord?
StuTheGrouch said:
Just to pick up on this bit though, I thought it was the agent's job to protect the deposit, not the landlord?
The agent is able to actually carry out the process on behalf of the landlord, but it is the landlord who is specified in the law as responsible for making sure the rules are adhered to and ultimately must pay any penalty 
Jimmyarm, thanks for that - we're actually moving abroad when we are able and will be purchasing rather than renting thank goodness, not as a direct result of this but I'm sure subconsciously it can't help
the_lone_wolf said:
StuTheGrouch said:
Just to pick up on this bit though, I thought it was the agent's job to protect the deposit, not the landlord?
The agent is able to actually carry out the process on behalf of the landlord, but it is the landlord who is specified in the law as responsible for making sure the rules are adhered to and ultimately must pay any penalty paintman said:
When are you moving?
I'd have been out of there asap - at the end of the initial six month tenancy.But I'd also have taken some responsibility, and when the shower started to block two months after moving in, I'd have cleaned the drain myself. I'd also have cleaned the cooker hood myself, rather than complaining after two months and for the next eight months. I'd also have noticed the state of the garage door when viewing the place - but I don't think I'd be daft enough to risk storing £40k of professional kit in what sounds like a very ropy and insecure lockup...
TooMany2cvs said:
I'd have been out of there asap - at the end of the initial six month tenancy.
But I'd also have taken some responsibility, and when the shower started to block two months after moving in, I'd have cleaned the drain myself. I'd also have cleaned the cooker hood myself, rather than complaining after two months and for the next eight months. I'd also have noticed the state of the garage door when viewing the place - but I don't think I'd be daft enough to risk storing £40k of professional kit in what sounds like a very ropy and insecure lockup...
But I'd also have taken some responsibility, and when the shower started to block two months after moving in, I'd have cleaned the drain myself. I'd also have cleaned the cooker hood myself, rather than complaining after two months and for the next eight months. I'd also have noticed the state of the garage door when viewing the place - but I don't think I'd be daft enough to risk storing £40k of professional kit in what sounds like a very ropy and insecure lockup...
Edited by Hamish Finn on Sunday 27th September 10:26
Here we go...
If you review the rainfall from last year (and I have) at the closest three stations to the property there was less than half the rain in the four weeks leading up to the date I saw the garage in September than in June or July, and around 80-90% less than in October, November, December etc when normal levels of rainfall were present.
TooMany2cvs said:
I'd have been out of there asap - at the end of the initial six month tenancy.
AST was twelve months as mentioned in the original post, we only discovered this on the day we were supposed to be moving in but were sat in the agents office because they'd screwed up and not sorted the paperwork beforehandTooMany2cvs said:
But I'd also have taken some responsibility, and when the shower started to block two months after moving in, I'd have cleaned the drain myself.
We tried every reasonable method of unblocking it, and ran two courses of industrial drain cleaner that normally consumers cannot purchase, all of which had no effect, before mentioning it to the agent. By the time they'd finally got round to sorting it it had got so bad that the only way to unblock the drain was to dismantle the bathroom. and physically remove itTooMany2cvs said:
...I'd also have cleaned the cooker hood myself, rather than complaining after two months and for the next eight months.
The issue only manifested after two months because it had been superficially cleaned to hide the problem before we moved it. To do the job properly would have required removal of the entire unit and dismantling to clean, plus steam cleaning the pipework that leads into the walls of the property - you certainly wouldn't have done this...TooMany2cvs said:
I'd also have noticed the state of the garage door when viewing the place
For the third or fourth time now, THE GARAGE WAS DRY ON BOTH OCCASIONS WHEN WE VIEWED THE PROPERTY - I'm not stupid enough to look at a garage full of water and say "You know what, I'll sign the contract and then just have twelve months of hassle trying to get them to sort this out so we can live in this moderately attractive apartment"If you review the rainfall from last year (and I have) at the closest three stations to the property there was less than half the rain in the four weeks leading up to the date I saw the garage in September than in June or July, and around 80-90% less than in October, November, December etc when normal levels of rainfall were present.
the_lone_wolf said:
AST was twelve months as mentioned in the original post, we only discovered this on the day we were supposed to be moving in
So on the day you were moving in, you still hadn't actually seen or signed a tenancy?the_lone_wolf said:
For the third or fourth time now, THE GARAGE WAS DRY ON BOTH OCCASIONS WHEN WE VIEWED THE PROPERTY - I'm not stupid enough to look at a garage full of water and say "You know what, I'll sign the contract and then just have twelve months of hassle trying to get them to sort this out so we can live in this moderately attractive apartment"
I was talking about the insecurity and poor quality of the door that fell off, not about the moisture.TooMany2cvs said:
So on the day you were moving in, you still hadn't actually seen or signed a tenancy?
Nope, won't be making that mistake again... 
TooMany2cvs said:
the_lone_wolf said:
For the third or fourth time now, THE GARAGE WAS DRY ON BOTH OCCASIONS WHEN WE VIEWED THE PROPERTY - I'm not stupid enough to look at a garage full of water and say "You know what, I'll sign the contract and then just have twelve months of hassle trying to get them to sort this out so we can live in this moderately attractive apartment"
I was talking about the insecurity and poor quality of the door that fell off, not about the moisture.johnfm said:
This is why "Armchair landlords' need taxing out of existence.
I don't know if taxing is the answer is it? The law is already quite weighty behind the rights of tenants (and rightly so)As I see it the law is working, our landlord has failed to do the right thing, and she has been punished once and will be punished again
I think good landlords like our previous ones aren't subject to such legal measures and can continue to rent happily, but bad landlords such as our current one will soon realise they have to actually do the right thing, especially with increasing amounts of legislation protecting tenants (the majority of whom will not be as switch on as we were) being introduced...
northwest monkey said:
OP - I'm a landlord, and personally I say good for you. The jobs you list are pretty simple ones to be honest and are purely down to laziness & lack of maintenance. Hope you get yourselves sorted
Thanks... We will get sorted, we'll be glad to put the whole episode behind us and move on with our lives overseas in the near futureI have a lot of sympathy with landlords where the tenants are bad, but in this case the landlord has made her bed by refusing to maintain the property via simple measures and ensure she was following the law regarding the deposit, and the rental market can do without bad landlords and tenants
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