One of the tenants we have on our books discovered a leak late one evening which they thought came from the shower.  They called me, got the answerphone then immediately called out an emergency plumber who charged £215 to put sealant around the shower tray.  They want the landlord to refund them in full.  I feel the most the landlord should pay is £50 which is what one of my maintenance men would have charged to do the same job the following day.  This was not an emergency inasmuch as the ceiling was not in danger of falling down.  Who is correct ?

Where can i go for some more information regarding the latest licensing requirements for HMO's, as the website quoted in the newspapers adverts doesn't appear to work?

One of my landlords have furniture in his property which does not have any labels on. How can i check if these comply with the current furniture and furnishing regulations?

Hi Im new here but hope to get some good advice from your members. The flat above me is split into 3 bedsits,well actually two live in bedrooms,the third lives in the front room.As this room leads on from the front door this deny's the other two access from the door and so they use a fire escape to come and go. The flat is pretty run down and is let to dss tenants.All 3 have been long term unemployed and we have had disturbance on and off for years.My front door has been tried at all hours,we have had water leaking through my ceiling from an upstairs flood but mostly we have noise.Despite the flat being old and therefore the walls very thin two of the tenants have and play their guitars,oftern into the night.This is accompanied by shouts of which led me to believe the tenants are on drugs.We also have loud music,sometimes from more than one room at once. The flat is let from a private landlord,.Having spoken to the local authorities Ive been told he has a reputation as a ""slum"" landlord.He is the only landlord in the area who will take dss because his properties are very run down and in poor decorative order.There are other issues which may prove this flat is being let illegally which are being looked into. Anyway,he doesnt see a problem with his tenants making noise,despite having been spoken to by the police on the matter.(I have been advised we are talking asbo here.)If I call him to complain he just hangs up. Having read up online the tenants are clearly breaking the terms of their tenancy so am I entitled to take him to court as a civil case?If so any advise please?"

Can someone tell me, can I issue an AST for less than 6 months?   

my friend signed her tenancy agreement 15/09/2004 and has not signed a new one since her landlord now wants to sell the property and has only given her 2 mths verbal notice can he do this without an up to date tenancy agreement   

I first began to realise that there may  be problems with my female tenant about 3 weeks ago when I tried to make arrangements for necessary repairs to be done. With relief I collected the rent the day before yesterday - in cash a week overdue from her boyfriend at the property. At this meeting I ascertained that my tenant seems to have left, leaving a very unsuitable unemployed boyfriend in residence dealing drugs from the property. The neighbours can supply cctv footage and tell me that they have no doubt that this character was beating up my tenant which is why I surmise that she has moved out. She is very difficult to contact having told me that she is staying with her mother as there have been family problems. However I have been ringing her at work and on her mobile. The boyfriend is also keeping a dog at the property which is against the rental contract. At the moment he thinks that I am just a stupid woman who has no idea what is really going on which suits me fine until I can find out the legalities of the situation and advice on the best way to deal with it. At least the rent has been
paid until the 18th March. I have been advised that I should give her a written notice to quit as she has gone against her rental agreement, listing the reasons why - at least 4. I have been looking on legal websites and ascertain that section 8 is the one I would use if it goes to court which I am hoping it will not do. I am loath to use the correct legal form as it gives a time scale of 4 weeks and obviously I want vacation of the property as soon as possible given my legal responsiblity with regard to the drugs involved - 2 weeks is reasonable. Please can someone advise me on a written notification which I can write which will not jeopardise me using Section 8 if it is unsuccessful. Thank you in
anticipation. my email address is v.treasure@------

I am renting a fully furnished house in cambridge, and presently paying 805.  I have been renting for more than a year now.  Since we moved in we discovered that most of the furniture and appliances are old, over 15 years old.  IN fact the washing machine and oven door broke down after a few months of usage, and after a a lot of pressure on the agency, these were replaced. We can manage with the rest of the furniture, but now the sofa springs have broken down.  I am 7mnths pregnant and have started to suffer from severe pelvic and back pain, and cannot rest anywhere except sitting down on the dining room chair, which is hardly acceptable.  We cannot even invite friends over as they would have to sit  down on the floor if they don;t want to sink down into the sofa.  We have contacted the letting agency and explained the problem.  We even offered to change it ourselves, as long as they provide us with a sloution for storage.  We have first contacted then more than a month ago, and to date, and several emails later, the only response we had is that as the landlord resides abroad, he has not replied as to whether he intends to replace the sofa or not.  What should we do as the situation cannot remain thus.

We're having some problems with our former landlord. We rented one of his properties from Sept. 04 to Dec. 18th 05. For the first six months, we had a tenancy agreement with an estate agent and then the landlord took over with his own agreement. Not having received our deposit back in January, we saw the landlord at the property one Saturday and he told us we would get it back once he had had the immersion heater and the pull cord in the toilets repaired. After looking into the legal side of stuff and talking to our former estate agent and to a sollicitor, we wrote to him last week saying the repairs to the immersion heater were not our responsibility and that we would seek legal advice should he not return the deposit within 2 weeks. We received our deposit yesterday minus a bunch of repairs that have been done over the course of our tenancy, incl. repairs to the garage lock and door, fixing a blockage in the bath tub. There are also 2 other repairs which appeared just before or upon leaving the property, namely repairs to the pull cord in the toilets and to the outdoor light. Funnily enough, all the figures quoted in the statement sent with our deposit are round figures and no invoice or receipt of any kind has been sent with it.  Now 2 questions: among these repairs, which ones is the tenant responsible for? Can the landlord be charging us now for stuff that has happened months ago and for which he never said (until we met him in January) we were going to pay or were responsible for?