It is important that both tenants and landlords do their part to make a rental property work.
For instance, landlords have to ensure a property’s safety by providing gas and electrical equipment, an Energy Performance Certificate and a deposit protection scheme. Tenants, on the other hand, have to take care of the property, pay their rent on time and not sublet.
Landlord repairs
However, this balance can be disrupted when landlords do not fix things that break down in a property. This can include repairing or replacing faulty boilers, white goods such as washing machines, ovens and fridges or dealing with minor water leaks and electrical issues.
This depends on whether the rental contract states that the landlord is in charge of these types of repairs. Some do not.
The question is, how long should tenants wait?. One problem is that there is no specific law that determines how fast a landlord or agent should do relatively minor repairs and the government only says landlords should keep a property “safe”, in “good condition” and that their properties should “meet safety standards.
Landlord repair time
But legislation introduced in 2015 that was meant to protect tenants from retaliatory convictions DOES set a time-scale, but only in specific situations.
It says landlords should fix major problems within two weeks if they pose a risk to a tenant’s health and security, such as a broken boiler in the middle of winter.
As we have discussed in a previous blog, if a landlord does not do this then the tenant can report the issue to their local authority, who will start enforcement action.
One surprise is that landlords let properties get this bad. Recent research by Shelter shows that over a quarter of landlords have insurance policies that cover repairs, while nearly two thirds have money set aside to pay for them.