UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi

I have been renting a two bedroom house for 16 years with my 2 children,

I started out with a rental contract and a guarantor, since then the estate agent went bust and the guarantor died.

I currently pay £600 a month in rent and landlord wants to put it up to £750 a month in rent. this would seem a reasonable request since cost of living has gone up. but i refuse to pay anymore than £600 a month as in every room there is mould and damp!

this is affecting my mental health ( as i am naturally a paranoid person) and worried about my kids.

I told the landlord about all this mould and damp and showed him my sons room aswell, his room is gross with plaster even peeling off the walls. and my landlord comes round with this silly mould spray and thinks that this will fix the problem!! He did spray it in the kitchen but the mould is still there!

I have asked the landord for a section 21 , so that the council would put me first on the council house list, and I have a better chance of finding a council house (after all he is not getting more than £600 a month of me! NO WAY!) he said he would give me a section 21 if I stopped my complaining to the council (as I reported him for mould and damp) so i wrote to the council and lied , telling them the mould has been fixed.

But i text my landlord two days ago (as it has been 2 weeks since i put the council off) and I said where is this section 21 letter???, but he has not text me back. I am so BORED of this situation and wish my landlord would get his ass into gear.

Sometimes i think the landlord needs me more than i need him and he wants me to think that i am disposible to him , but in reality he needs me as he knows I will always pay him rent, as i have been here 16 years and his last tenants didnt pay him rent at all! and he has to go through courts which took him months to evict!

But here is my thoughts, I owe him rent in 2 days, should i withhold rent till he responds? I mean what have I got to lose anyway? I want him to give me a section 21 so he can kick me out. why should i and my kids have to live in these damp conditions? if he doesnt respond soon I will report him to the council again, but there is no way he is getting an extra £150 a month of me for this crappy house! the cheek! sorry i am just annoyed at my landord. but I want to know what is going on. I have already applied to home choice and said that my landlord is giving me a section 21, but landlord appears to be dragging his feet

A Tenant cannot withhold rent like this.

The result could not be the Section 21 you so desire, but a Section 8 (on the Ground of non-payment of rent) and if that is eventually successful you could be put into the terrifying bucket of "having made oneself intentionally homeless" and the Council will attempt to wash their hands of you. So, not first on the list (as you seem to have been told - which I don't think is very credible) but nowhere on the list, heading towards a single B&B room, maybe.

So, be careful and act only when you have facts (including checking up on what I've written here).

On the face of it it appears as if your Landlord is playing you... and you have taken him at his word and removed the problem from any 'authority'. If you understand the motivations of parties you can work in that envelope - at the moment the Landlord has a paying, compliant Tenant and a crumbling property with little maintenance overhead. He doesn't want to lose you with a Section 21 as that removes the rent, and gives him the headache of re-letting the property - which will be difficult if it is as you say. So he needs to see he has a choice:

a) have you stay as long as possible at £600, don't fix the house
b) have you stay at £600 until the house is fixed and then get £750
c) see you go, fix up the house, re-let it at £750

Personally I'd go with b. The order of things can even be swapped, but only based on absolute trust. This is a quid pro quo and is perfectly valid in life.

I am not saying d should not be an option too.

d) fix up the house, keep the rent at £600.

It just seems unlikely based on what's written.

A 25%  rent increase is very excessive,    so I suspect your landlord wants to get you out.  You don' t mention what the result was of the council report.  Did they say the mould was because of lifestyle,and give you advice on ventillation and heating,  or did they think there was structural damage and give the landlord a  formal list of work that needed to be done within a set time? 

If the latter, as I understand it he cannot serve 21 until the council is satisfied that the work was done, regardless of what you said to them. It may be very hard to get work done while the place is occupied, so my guess is he is hoping for option c.   

No way should you stop paying rent. As mentioned above,  that will go against you with the council, and prevent you getting any landlord reference in the future. Unless you are very lucky you will not be first on any list, especially if your children are nearly adult. Shelter and CAB would be able to tell you what the social housing situation is in your area. You could also try your town councillor,  who might mediate with the landlord. 

thanks for all the help!

I will give him another 2 weeks and if not heard anything from him, I will go to the council again to report the damp