UK Landlord Forum / Life

This is a follow-up from my posts in June 2022. The most important thing to my landlord appears to a huge and scruffy hedge and now she appears to have stopped talking to us in favour of instructing the 'bullying' agent to be her voice.
For a quick background: the hedge to one side of the bungalow we rent is bordered with a hedge (just short of 3m high) along the boundary side. The hedge is very old (40+ years and leylandii) and not overly cared for although the contract shows a reasonably tidy hedge but nothing like the reality - we signed the contract in 2014 not thinking that much about the hedge. In 2018 we had new neighbours who had a boundary issue with the landlord and decided the only way to resolve the issue was to take a chain saw to the back of the hedge and removed what they could of their perceived side of the hedge - a professional landscape gardener (in passing) said the hedge was essentially dead. Shortly after this we were in lockdown so could not do anything to the hedge (other than my husband taking care of the longer bits of growth) but to some extent it helped the hedge grow upwards but inside the hedge it was brown sticks and brown fronds despite a short green exterior.
In June 2022 the managing agent started to pursue us for the cutting of the hedge which was probably 2.5 -3 feet taller and declared it "out of control" and would take no account of the devastation caused by the neighbours (who had vacated their property by this time) and just said "cut it now!" After weeks of harassment over this we fought back with all the work inside the property that had not been done including damp and black mould which to us was more relevant than a hedge at that time.
We struggled to find a contractor to do  work on the hedge apparently because of the reputation of working with Landlord and her family and also because of taking cuttings away. We found a person and took advice from him and had the top and sides of the hedge on the drive side in consultation with the landlord. That was not good enough for the agent and the weekly emails continued. By this time the landlord had stopped speaking to us.
We have managed to have the height of the hedge cut back to more or less where it was in 2014 - albeit leaving it in a rather in an ugly state of progress. We are aware that we will need to cut it more but the agent has raised her mega phone again. Despite us asking her on many occasions what her or the landlord's parameters for the hedge are they have refused to answer this and on the days the contractors were here the landlord was invited to the property to have her say on the height and anything else before the contractor left. As it happened the contractor moved to another job before he had totally finished.
Sorry for being so long-winded, but the agent has been back to us again today and insists that both she and the landlord want to come to the property together in a few days time no doubt to tell us what we already know - the hedge is not finished. We owe the landlord nothing and have never missed a rent payment or bills associated with the property so we do not understand what is going on.
The stress of this bullying is making me ill and would really appreciate any advice anyone could offer please - we are dealing with a local 'farming family' and their 'land agents' here so don't feel that comfortable although we keep as up to date with regulations. There are no other local properties to rent that we can afford other than those available with the same agents in horrible places and the same issues over facilities. We also doubt we would get a reference although we have done nothing wrong.

Unless your tenancy agreement specifies that the hedge requires specific attention, there's no need for you to do anything specific regarding the hedge other than basic maintenance. Height and shape are a matter of preference, and it's currently your home.

The practical issue is that if your landlord gets sufficiently unhappy with you, they'll serve notice. So you need to balance what you do with that possibility.

Farmers can be a bit of a law unto themselves.

If your contract requires you to keep the hedge under control then that is what you need to do.I can't help but feel there is more to this story.The term "bullying" seems over dramatic unless they have done other more serious things to harm you? Regardless,if you want to stay/cannot move then why not just get the hedge sorted out? Lockdown did not prevent outdoor work by residents or contractors.
Damp and black mould are usually down to failure to heat and ventillate. Are there problems with the roof or gutters that you think the landlord should repair,if so you need to decide how to get this sorted.If you report it to the council there is always the risk they will serve notice.
Apologies if you are under other pressures that are making this seem worse for you than it is,but on the face of it you are being awkward and creating bad-feeling.

I have just read your previous post.Do you still have birds nesting in the hedge? If so that will put a different perspective on it.I cut my hedge right back before the mating season begins (I am referring to the birds I hasten to add) then leave it alone until later summer.As mentioned in the last post,it is illegal to disturb nesting birds.I get JP Keates point,but there are some occasions when the state of the exterior can be very troublesome to neighbours or passers-by. If you have had no other complaints then you are justified in ignoring their demands. 

I am less knowledgeable than other posters, so I'll leave them to advise on whether your landlord's demands regarding the hedge are reasonable.

It does strike me that you are in a difficult situation since you cannot afford to rent an acceptable house in the area and you believe that you wouldn't get a good reference from your current landlord. If the house you're in is the best of a bad lot, you need to be pragmatic. It isn't clear to me whether the complaints you raised were about serious maintenance issues which make the house unliveable: I got the impression from your wording ("we fought back with all the work inside the property that had not been done") that perhaps this wasn't the case.

What I'm getting at is that regardless of the rights and wrongs of the unaddressed maintenance issues, it may be in your best interests to let some of it slide or to attempt to deal with it yourself. (Mould, for example, can often be kept at bay with better ventilation, heating, a dehumidifier, and regularly removing the mould.) If the landlord perceives you to be troublesome, she may increase your rent or ask you to leave. i don't say she would be right to do so, because I don't know the details of the maintenance problems you've raised. But she could do that. That's a risk when you're in a vulnerable position. I rather doubt she would kick you out over the hedge issue alone, but she might ask you to leave if you're persistent about demanding she address defects which she thinks other tenants would tolerate.