Five months ago I took out a six month rental agreement on a flat. Five months in and I'm generally happy with the flat and the owner's agent appears happy with me. However, as the weather has become colder the water heating combi boiler has been malfunctioning (it runs out of hot water after a couple of minutes when it should be providing a constant flow). The manufacturer suggests checking and replacing a couple of components, but this has to be done by a qualified engineer, and I wonder who is responsible for the cost of this - the owner or the tenant? With the agreement renewal due in February, this might be a good (or bad!) time to ask.
Thanks.
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As this is an essential item to maintain a reasonable standard of living, i.e. provision of hot water, it is the landlord's responsibility. Unless, which is unlikely, there is specific clause in the tenancy agreement to say otherwise. Either way, it should actually be on your agreement if you have a look through it.
Agreed, it does say so in the agreement and my landlord's agent is very helpful. The problem is that the boiler *does* provide hot water. The sink tap supply is perfectly adequate. The problem is it doesn't provide *enough* hot water, for example, to fill a bath, and is running very inefficiently running up gas bills for me! Techies tell me there are parts to be replaced by a suitably qualified engineer. Who pays when it's "sort of" working? Borderline stuff?
Thanks for the help...
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I'd still say it is the landlord. The boiler is at fault and it is his responsibility to ensure it is in working condition. It might give you *some* water now, but in a couple of weeks it might not. And if the same one provides your heating and it does decide to go pop entirely anytime soon, you'll be very cold!
your landlord will have to repair this for you, or risk you leaving and have to repair it for the next tenant, possibly after a month or so empty with no rent.
Ask for the repair - if he's a good landlord he will want to know, and will want to fix it. If he's not a good landlord, and doesnt fix it, it may be time to move on.
(BTW - I am a landlord and i instruct my agent not to bother asking me about repairs which cost less than £100, just to do them).
Thanks Anne and Richard - I'll call the letting agent and have a word about this. She's a very reasonable person, and I think would be happy if I stayed (there have been problems with previous tenants, and I've already been "approved" by the neighbours!). On grounds of both water supply and cost (it's ridiculously expensive to run at the moment) I think she'll agree to a repair, and it's nice to know where I stand. Not being familiar with the rented market, I wanted to check....
Thanks, Jim
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As others have said, and as you've since confirmed by looking at your agreement, this is the landlord's responsibility.
A couple of minor points.
When you say "the manufacturer suggests" do you just mean you've looked at the instruction manual, or have you actually called someone? You shouldn't have really done anything yourself, since it could be deemed "interfering" with the installation. You should have been onto the landlord (or agent) at the first sign of trouble. Also, gas appliances need to be safety checked annually for the landlord by a dog with royal connections.
The agreement renewal is only "due in February" if you have already given (or been given) notice to quit. Generally rental agreements these days, even though they may say they're for 6 months, don't actually end after 6 months unless at least 2 months before they expire notice is given. Otherwise they automatically extend for a month at a time.
.............................................................................................................. This sounds like a heat exchange problem - parts alone can cost over 300! Eric
I haven't touched it (other than by using the controls to check what was happening) - afaik the law says that DIY gas installations are no longer an acceptable way to kill yourself. The appliance is checked each year, I'm told. I did email the manufacturer to see if they could advise on whether I was not using the appliance properly or if it was a known type of fault. They came back with the latter.
Really! I didn't know that and will immediately check my agreement! I certainly haven't been asked to leave and don't expect to be.
Cheers, Jim
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I think you've misread that bit, JB. The third bullet point in the Landlord's Responsibilities section implies both maintenance and checks must be carried out, and it's the landlord who has to make sure it gets done. Mind you, the wording is a bit woolly and it can be construed to mean only that *when* maintenance and checks are carried out, then they must be done by a dog. Since checks have their own bullet point (the second) to say they're mandatory and since there is no equivalent bullet point covering maintenance (i.e. servicing), it *could* be taken to mean that servicing is optional. This is all a bit subtle, though, since gas boilers (unlike their oil-fired cousins) don't generally need servicing as such, i.e. a service basically consists of a check, so once you've done the mandatory check, you've already done a service.
The second last bullet point, which mentions management contracts and is the one to which you are presumably referring, seems to be about clarifying whether landlord or *agent* is responsible for making the arrangements, not landlord or *tenant*.
But in principle, there is no reason why a tenant should not also act in the role of landlord's agent, and make all necessary arrangements for everything, if the landlord trusts him and doesn't want to be bothered with day-to-day management and doesn't trust a commercial agent to do as good a job as the trusted tenant.
None of this, however, addresses the OP's original question, which isn't about who makes sure repairs get done, but about who pays for them. It is customary for it to be the landlord, so that the tenant's costs are absolutely predictable except for own-fault breakages. But no law can stop landlord and tenant making a deal transferring the risk to the tenant in return for a substantial reduction in rent. It would be very unconventional, though.
Thats right, but there is no requirement for an annual service. The only statutory annual requirement is for a 'safety check' and for any subsequent work to be carried out The post to which I was referring claims that there has to be an annual service, which there doesnt.
I quote the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 S 36 (3)
Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (2) above, a landlord shall -
(a) ensure that each appliance and flue to which that duty extends is checked for safety within 12 months of being installed and at intervals of not more than 12 months since it was last checked for safety (whether such check was made pursuant to these Regulations or not);
Not so, the same para from the above :
(10) Nothing done or agreed to be done by a tenant of relevant premises or by any other person in lawful occupation of them in relation to the maintenance or checking of a relevant gas fitting or flue in the premises (other than one in part of premises occupied for non-residential purposes) shall be taken into account in determining whether a landlord has discharged his obligations under this regulation (except in so far as it relates to access to that gas fitting or flue for the purposes of such maintenance or checking).
Well, since there has to be an annual inspection ("safety check"), and since gas boilers generally don't need servicing beyond an inspection, we can say that an inspection *is* a service, and so if an inspection is required by law, then ipso facto a service is too.
That bit applies to a persons acting in sole capacity as tenant. However, if the tenant is also formally appointed as managing agent, the tenant *will* be responsible for ensuring the statutory requirements are complied with, notwithstanding the fact that he also happens to be a tenant of the premises in question.
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