Just moved into rental house, aleady having issues with landlords

vibe666

We were forced out of our previous rented house by our landlord's ex-wife (but that's another story) and had to find somewhere to move to quickly and the house we have just moved into has a lot of issues that need to be resolved by the landlords, but they are flat out refusing to do some of the required work.

they've refused to address issues with rot and damp in both the kitchen and main bathroom saying they can't afford to get them fixed, so they're just not going to and leave us to deal with it, which we don't believe is acceptable.

the house was also filthy inside and out, despite them having 'professional' cleaners in before we moved in. my wife spent hours steam cleaning the main bathroom which was covered in mould, a lot of which they had just painted over to hide. there is also a thick layer of grime over the top of the grouting on a lot of the tiled surfaces which you can actually scrape out in lumps with a knife.

we tried to raise it with the landlords over the phone, but after they agreed that they'd send round a handyman to fix the problems, we got a text message from the agent who'd let the house to us asking for a written list of the issues so he could go through them and he'd come and visit us to go over everything in detail.

he arrived and basically went through the list we'd given him with a yes/no and no room for any kind of discussion from us in such a way that it was like we were 2nd class citizens and that we should be grateful that we got the place at all in the condition that it was in.

when i mentioned the rot and mould issues he said that they couldn't afford to fix them and that was the end of it. when i explained that they were legally required to fix mould and rot and that they didn't have any choice in the matter he just repeated that they just weren't going to do anything with it and it was basically tough luck.

we asked for all his responses in writing, but he refused saying that he wasn't involved, he just came over to explain everything as a favour to the landlords and we needed to speak with them from now on as he wasn't getting involved, which personally he should have thought about before he came into our home laying down the law regarding the issues.

I think the real issue we have is that they had bad tenants in the house previously and they left the place almost derelict and it was in such a state that they had to repaint it from the ground up and had to replace a lot of stuff inside as a result.

the problem is, that although it's (most likely) in infinitely better condition than it was before they started, it's still a sh1t tip and a lot of work still needs to be done with the place to get it up to standard, none of which is our fault and shouldn't be our responsibility to fix.

unfortunately we had to move in at very short notice at their request (and to get out of our previous house) and at significant cost to ourselves in the process and we feel that they basically thought that they'd tidy the place up a bit and get the bare minimum done and then get us in before we knew what was wrong with the place and then just leave us to it from then on in.

we really were rushed into it from all sides and we pretty much didn't have any choice but to move in when we did unless we wanted to end up with all our stuff in storage (which is a lot for a 4 bed house) and end up living out of suitcases from a hotel.

i should also point out that there a a lot more issues that we didn't cover in our email, we just wanted to get the more urgent stuff addressed and we were trying to be nice about it until the agent came around last night and basically told us to put up or shut up.

so where do we go from here and what's the best way to approach things going forward?

drunkmonkey

If you've that many issues move. Your not going to get them sorted easily regardless of what the law says.

Stheno

Yep move.

Did you not notice the issues when you viewed the house?

vibe666

we've just spent pretty much every penny we have moving into the place and the rental market at the moment is like the buying market was during the peak of the celtic tiger. we lost out on several decent places to live due to not getting in quick enough and there were (literally) 30 people lined up behind us to view this place and we had to jump the gun just to get it, so who knows what our chances would be to even find somewhere that suits our needs.

i should point out that aside from the specific issues we're having, the house is in the perfect place for us and would be ideal if we can get these problems resolved.

we like everything else so much that we were actually ready to invest in the place ourselves and contribute our own cash (in conjunction with the landlords) to fixing up the kitchen and bathroom before the agent came round, but he really got our backs up over something which until then we really hadn't considered to be a big deal.

Chris_5339762

we like everything else so much that we were actually ready to invest in the place ourselves and contribute our own cash to fixing up the kitchen and bathroom

Don't do this.

vibe666

Stheno wrote: »

Yep move.

Did you not notice the issues when you viewed the house?

we only viewed the house once and there were builders everywhere at the time and they stressed that it wasn't finished and that any outstanding issues would be resolved before we moved in.

we tried to get in the house again for a 2nd viewing, but they just kept saying that the builders were in and we couldn't get in until after they were finished.

the final snag was on the morning when we were literally on the road on our way to collect the keys and we got a call to say that it wasn't ready for us to move in and it would be at least an extra week or so and we would have to stay where we were, but by this time we had put all the wheels in motion (movers, my mother flying over to look after our baby whilst we were moving, mail forwarding, utility bills etc. etc.) and we were being forced out by our old landlord's ex-wife who was literally waiting for us to move out on the dsay so she could move in and we couldn't turn back at that point even if we'd wanted to so we explained that we didn't have any choice and we had to move and that we didn't mind if there were people there fixing a few things for the first week or so given the circumstances.

when we finally got in to see the place again it was 10:30pm and the landlords were still there so we couldn't really get in and have a proper look and at that point the movers were coming first thing the following morning anyway.

from there we had felt like we had a good relationship with the landlord's given what had already happened and we were all laughing and joking about it all being last minute and everyone was apologising for the trouble (them to us as well as us to them) and it seemed like everything would be fine.

we figured the best thing to do was leave it a few days to get moved in and find any issues we had and then speak to them about them once we'd settled in and it would be simple enough to get everything resolved, but that's when the sh1t hit the fan.

gaius c

You should probably give Threshold a call.

BostonB

So all the signs before moving were in were to run a mile screaming from the dump. But you moved in anyway. ????? Seriously ??????


You'll probably ignore this also, you should give notice, and leave, then get someone else who knows what they are doing to vet the next place.

not yet

BostonB wrote: »

So all the signs before moving were in were to run a mile screaming from the dump. But you moved in anyway. ????? Seriously ??????


You'll probably ignore this also, you should give notice, and leave, then get someone else who knows what they are doing to vet the next place.

Jeez,I'd hate to make a wrong move in your house. OP If u like the area, and the house covers most of your needs maybe ask can the rent be reduced and tell the landloard you will spend the reduction on improvements etc.....win-win.

BostonB

not yet wrote: »

Jeez,I'd hate to make a wrong move in your house. OP If u like the area, and the house covers most of your needs maybe ask can the rent be reduced and tell the landloard you will spend the reduction on improvements etc.....win-win.

The fundamental problem is the LL (and the agent) are inept at best and deceiving at worse. I don't see how that will change if people keep renting these kinda properties from them. Until it hurts them in their pocket they won't do anything.

bikewiddow

If you're not happy with this house, and the landlord is saying they can't afford to further fix up what you ultimately accepted when you moved in, then you should really look for another place. You mentioned that you were willing to put a bit of money in yourselves to get it to the standard you wanted, so really you knew that these issues existed. I don't see any deception on the part of the landlord here. Ineptitude - maybe.

Hope it all works out for you.

MikeMichael

bikewiddow wrote: »

If you're not happy with this house, and the landlord is saying they can't afford to further fix up what you ultimately accepted when you moved in, then you should really look for another place. You mentioned that you were willing to put a bit of money in yourselves to get it to the standard you wanted, so really you knew that these issues existed. I don't see any deception on the part of the landlord here. Ineptitude - maybe.

Hope it all works out for you.

The landlord has legal obligations regardless of whether a person agreed to rent a property. I think a good ploy is to rent a place in poor condition knowing that you are not competing for price as much as other places. Then when you are in situ you can force the landlord to bring it up to legal spec. You are doing a favour for us all by bettering the state of rentals in Ireland. Expect a fight but the prtb will always be on your side.

BostonB

In fairness to the OP they only accepted this.

vibe666 wrote: »

...they stressed that it wasn't finished and that any outstanding issues would be resolved before we moved in....

Obviously they weren't. To then say they couldn't afford to do it, is changing what was agreed. Assuming they ever intended to do the repairs. Its obvious from work that was done that things weren't repaired but covered up. What else is that except deception.

But then it was a mistake for the OP move in when they realised this and the other problems. Considering they seem extremely bad.

BostonB

MikeMichael wrote: »

The landlord has legal obligations regardless of whether a person agreed to rent a property. I think a good ploy is to rent a place in poor condition knowing that you are not competing for price as much as other places. Then when you are in situ you can force the landlord to bring it up to legal spec. You are doing a favour for us all by bettering the state of rentals in Ireland. Expect a fight but the prtb will always be on your side.

Not sure it worth the risk of the health issues that could arise if there fundamental problems like damp and rot.

Riesen_Meal

BostonB wrote: »

Not sure it worth the risk of the health issues that could arise if there fundamental problems like damp and rot.

Especially if the OP has children there, which from what I can gather he/she does...

BostonB

You'd also have to deal with an agent and LL who've demonstrated their dire approach to renting and communications.

Its not going to get better.

bikewiddow

vibe666 wrote: »

we like everything else so much that we were actually ready to invest in the place ourselves and contribute our own cash (in conjunction with the landlords) to fixing up the kitchen and bathroom before the agent came round, but he really got our backs up over something which until then we really hadn't considered to be a big deal.

But initially they were willing to put some of their own money into fixing it up, because they liked everything else so much. It sounds like the estate agent got their backs up and this has soured the situation.

I completely agree that there are obligations which a landlord must meet. I wouldn't like to live in a house that has issues such as these. However, the fact is it doesn't look like the work will be done. I wouldn't waste my time taking this through the PRTB. Start looking for somewhere else, and make sure its up to standard before you move in. I think if you stay in this house it may become stressful for you.

vibe666

before we moved in we'd only seen the house briefly due to our time constraints and that the landlords were still renovating it before we moved in and we never saw it on our own so we could have a good look around. given that they had gone to the trouble of re-painting the whole house, we figured they would be decent enough landlords and that might be some small issues that would be easy enough to remedy, but not to the extent that we have found since moving in.

once we were in we started to find problems that we hadn't noticed initially, but as it was in a nice area that suited us perfectly and other than the issues we have is a great place and we think it would be an ideal 'fixer upper' if you were looking to buy somewhere, but as a rental property it leaves a lot to be desired in it's current state.

unfortunately if we hadn't snapped it up when we did we'd have lost it there and then and in the short time frame we had to find somewhere, we might not have found anywhere in the same area that would have suited us as well as this one and could have been left with no choice other than to take somewhere even worse, or end up stuck in a hotel with a 4 bed house worth of stuff in storage and a sick baby to look after.

it's not like we were spoilt for choice, most of the places we'd seen were even worse than this one. again, because of how stuck we were for somewhere to live, we nearly pulled the trigger on another place that needed re-painting from top to bottom and the landlord there wanted to let us do the painting ourselves and give us money off the rent and we only backed out of that one as this one had come up at the last second.

OldNotWIse

Stay for a month and dont pay that months rent as you are unlikely to get deposit back. Then leave. It's not gonna work.

vibe666

bikewiddow wrote: »

But initially they were willing to put some of their own money into fixing it up, because they liked everything else so much. It sounds like the estate agent got their backs up and this has soured the situation.

I completely agree that there are obligations which a landlord must meet. I wouldn't like to live in a house that has issues such as these. However, the fact is it doesn't look like the work will be done. I wouldn't waste my time taking this through the PRTB. Start looking for somewhere else, and make sure its up to standard before you move in. I think if you stay in this house it may become stressful for you.

stressful isn't even the word.

we'd like to get things resolved with the landlord if at all possible to be honest, the stress of moving again could well be worse than what it would take to get the issues fixed.

i've been told by a friend some of the things that have already been said on the thread, that that Threshold and the PRTB will point me in the right direction and that the landlord can be made by them to make repairs to bring the property up to acceptable standards, it just depends on how long that would take? is it just a case of getting someone in to make an assessment and then let them deal with the landlord?

if the worse came to the worst, can we just move out under the circumstances? it's already cost us a ton of money to get in the place, so it's going to be expensive getting out of it again and into somewhere else and i imagine that by moving out we'll have to kiss our deposit goodbye.

legally, what can we do? could we withhold the rent until the issues are fixed?

BostonB

Legally you can't withhold rent.

You've already said the condition of the place was unacceptable. Why stay at all?

You could get the Local Authority to check its within minimum standards. If not and the LL won't fix it, legally they can't penalise you for leaving early.

vibe666

there is going to be a lot of cost involved in moving again. we've got a 4 bed house (admittedly mostly still in boxes) to move and both my wife and I have back problems, so we have to get the movers in (which cost a grand last time) and find a months rent & deposit to move somewhere else, so it's not going to be cheap.

a decent sized 4 bed place (that isn't a kip) in D15 (south of the N3) that's within 10 minutes walking distance of one of the train stations (clonsilla, coolmine or castleknock) is going to be anywhere from €1100 to €1500 a month, so that's €4000 before you even think about the incidentals.

it's all a big added expense that we could do without coming up to christmas, not to mention kissing goodbye to our deposit. add to that, that we just had to buy another car after our last one died and blew away our savings on that just before we originally found out we we being forced to move out and all in all it's going to be a crappy christmas all round.

StillWaters

It sounds like its going to be hard for you to find and move into a new place. Was this place renovated just before you moved in? (you mention builders).

The place wasnt cleaned by the builders, but you seem to have sorted this. So what are the issues that remain, has mould grown already? Are all the rooms ventilated? What do you mean by rot?

Builders leave a mess, and of course the place should have been cleaned before you move in, but if you could post up non identifying pics it might help us give you a fairer idea of whether it is worth staying there or packing up again.

vibe666

the place was tidied up after the builders were in, but the bathroom was only painted and in quite a few places, they just painted over damp patches to cover it up.

there is cheap lino on the floor and it creaks (a lot, any time you even shift your weight, never mind actually moving) and the lino is bubbling in places and is coming up at the edges. it looks like this is the result of the bathroom flooding repeatedly over time, maybe from a bath overflowing or shower curtain not keeping the shower water in the bath. these creaking floorboards go all the way into the hall and master bedroom. the room was still full of mould even though it had been painted and cleaned and it took my wife 2 hours to get all the visible mould off with a heavy duty karcher steam cleaner and a toothbrush.

the kitchen unit behind the sink is actually completely rotten away with just the hard surface of the worktop holding it up. i can still push it down enough to get my fingers in the hole between the wall and the worktop though and it is full of rot and mould under the sink. the kithcen floor tiles actually have several mm of grime embedded into the spaces between the tiles where the grout should be (and possibly still is, if you could see it). you can pull out chunks of black tar type stuff from between the tiles with a knife.

all the units are caked in grime and dried on grease. we steam cleaned the insides of the units just so we had somewhere to put stuff, but they're still manky. there are various other minor and major issues we've discovered, inc. blocked drains and gutters outside, no lagging jacket on the hotpress door and the door itself doesn't close properly, which is far from ideal with a toddler in the house.

i could go on, but it's a pretty long list at this point.

StillWaters

Those creaky floorboards will drive you mad, but they are not caused by damp. Lift the lino and sprinkle talc in the seam. Should solve it.

vibe666

normally i'd agree, but you can actually feel the rot under your feet, the boards are actually in bits.

good tip about the talc though, i've always wondered if there was an easy way to fix creaky floorboards.

BostonB

Fundamentally the place is riddle with damp. And you want to stay there. Doesn't make sense.

vibe666

i don't think it's anything that can't be fixed relatively easily, but i have found myself reactivating my daft and myhome email alerts, so it might be time to jack it in and move on. i'm just wondering if there could be any comeback from the landlords if we up sticks inside the contract?

BostonB

If its damp in the wall, as opposed to mould. Then it could be a big problem. Rotting timber would suggest to me a damp problem vs mould. Also with respect, since you made a bad call at the start, perhaps get a qualified person to look at it. Like the local council.

vibe666

BostonB wrote: »

If its damp in the wall, as opposed to mould. Then it could be a big problem. Rotting timber would suggest to me a damp problem vs mould. Also with respect, since you made a bad call at the start, perhaps get a qualified person to look at it. Like the local council.

that's the plan, although when the agent came to us on sunday night he pretty much freely admitted the problems were there but said that it was let 'as seen' and it was our tough luck as they weren't going to do anything about them even though wed hardly seen it and (and only when it was full of people working on it) they had promised that any outstanding issues would be taken care of before we moved in.

the sad thing is, we're actually saving money compared to our old place and after we'd moved in and we saw that there were still all these issues in the kitchen and bathroom, we'd decided that with the reduction in rent that we could afford to contribute our own money to getting the bathroom and kitchen re-done, so they could have been quids in, getting it fixed up for half the price, knowing they had good tenants who would be staying long term and that cared enough to invest their own money into fixing the place up, but after the way we were treated by the agent on sunday, that's out of the question now and the more i think about it, the more i want to just report them to the local authority and just move out and be done with them. :mad: