UK Landlord Forum / Life

We have a leak in the bathroom.

This has caused damp and mould to grow on the bedroom carpet (bathroom & bedroom are back to back). It had all been masked by our wardrobes being in the way, but after going away for New Year's for 4 days and no ventilation to the room we came back to a stench! Therefore we investigated further and found the damp & mould. We reported it immediately.

The letting agent is rubbish at getting back to us about it all, and its been a week of sleeping on the floor for us so far, and all that has happened so far is a plumber has resealed the bath which was the problem of the leak!

I want to know if i can bypass the letting agent and contact the landlord myself purely to get an update and also to inform them about the awful job the letting agent is doing.

We live in a coach house - so a flat on top of garages. It has come apparent that 2 months ago the owner of the garage directly under the bathroom contacted the letting agent to inform them of a leak dripping down! the letting agent didnt inform us about it, and i assume they didnt inform the landlord either. I would like to tell the landlord about this as all of it could have been stopped 8 weeks ago!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Quote from: lu042 on January 07, 2015, 02:32:09 PMI want to know if i can bypass the letting agent and contact the landlord myself purely to get an update and also to inform them about the awful job the letting agent is doing.

As a Tenant you can always contact the Landlord directly. However, the Landlord pays the Letting Agent to provide a service, so you can't guarantee that this line of communication will be welcomed.

If you mean... do you have a right to obtain the Landlord's contact details, then - again - the answer is yes, you do. To get your head around this properly, I would advise you take a look at the Landlord And Tenant Act, 1985 - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/70

Take a look at the first section (it's that important  ) which is all about disclosure of the Landlord's identity. You can, of course, just ask the Letting Agent for the Landlord's details (I'm assuming you do not have them right now) and they might give them to you, if they refuse you need to remind them that it's your right to be given these details and if the Letting Agent does not comply with a written request from you, email should do, then they are committing an offence and could be fined.

Does that help?

Any good Landlord would want to know if their property has issues that need attention... it's a valuable asset.

Thanks for your reply!!

I have read through the link you posted - and yes i have the landlord's name as it was on the tenancy agreement, i simply Googled their name and found an address, so i was thinking of writing him a letter.

Thanks.

Hello.
I rent my house out and recently had a leak in the bathroom which caused a bulge in the kitchen ceiling. A pipe was leaking and water was also going behind the tiles and running down the wall.
Although I have been having a bit of a nightmare recently with my letting agent who is supposed to be looking after my house, they did contact me after a quarterly inspection revealed the leak and damage (that's what they are paid to do??).
Having said that, as a landlord I would have more than welcomed contact by my tenants. They did in fact keep in regular contact after I took on the task myself of repairing everything and re-tiling. It is also good for them to give feedback on the rental agent as well as other matters.
I didn't mind it at all and, in circumstances like that I would very much welcome some contact from the tenants.
Hope you get it sorted.