Thank you for your signatures and continued support, in reference to my campaign for "Tenant's Licensing," and a better and more transparent way for Landlord's and Tenant’s to work together in future, with minimal disputes.
In a recent article, two landlord's from Nottinghamshire were fined £3,000 for failing to repair a tenant's boiler, which resulted in no heating and hot water, between August 15th, 2022 and September 6th, 2022, that's 22 days!
This is an unfortunate situation for a all tenant's to go through and totally unacceptable and inexcusable, when you're paying the landlord an agreed rent, but your landlord fails to adhere to their responsibilities in accordance to the terms and conditions of the AST agreement.
In the same way a vehicle owner has emergency breakdown and recovery, all landlord's should have a boiler breakdown cover to protect their tenant's from unforeseen circumstances.
Nothing can be more reassuring than providing "peace of mind," for a tenant, whether they are elderly/vunerable, parents with young children, tenant's with disabilities, professional tenant's, students, asylum seekers, tenant's on Universal Credit, and tenant's with mental health conditions.
Their should be no reason whatsoever or excuse for any tenant to be left without heating or hot water, for more than 1 to 3 days maximum.
Most companies, such as Homeserve and British Gas, offer landlord's boiler protection services and this should be included within the "Renter's reform bill," which I believe should be renamed as the "Landlord's and Tenant’s reform bill."
Again, all these responsibilities come under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and if a landlord fails to repair the boiler, rectify the heating and hot water within a reasonable time scale, then that landlord is in breach and will also be liable to charges/fines, relating to the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
It's for this reason, I'm urging all tenant's to sign this petition, along with landlord's who wish to improve the way a service is provided by a landlord and received by a tenant!
Please note the following, if your landlord fails to respond to your boiler repairs.
- Remind them under Section 11 that they have a responsibility to rectify boiler repairs.
- Provide available days/dates/times which you can grant access for repair engineers appointment.
- Explain the problems you're experiencing and actions you'd like them to take, along with standard of repairs and a full written engineers report that includes diagnostics and replacement parts, along with advisories. Eg, this could be cleaning the "MagnaClean," near boiler or arranging for a "Power Flush," of the heating system using product brands such as "Fernox."
- Provide them with a reasonable deadline to respond.
- Understand and exercise your rights under the "Convenant of Quiet Enjoyment," (meaning, that if you've just finished a night shift, your landlord can just not turn up unannounced with an engineer depriving your sleep for the next 1 to 2 hours). But DO NOT ABUSE these rights!
- If your landlord fails to respond to your requests to repair your boiler, heating and hot water, after several failed attempts, then you should also contact your local council. Each local council has a dedicated support team in regards to "Disrepair, Licensing and Enforcement." It is important that you provide them with sufficient evidence such as emails, photos and letters. The environmental team will then arrange for an inspection visit. Unfortunately, for all the good landlord's out there, if the problem of disrepair, tenant's negligence and failure to respond to the landlord's request to rectify a problem, the council doesn't have a dedicated team, contact number or email address for landlord's, and this has to change!
Please share, comment and sign if you're in support.
Many thanks,
Franklin