Housing Disrepair Success Stories – Water Penetration And Flooding

The Housing Team at Hodge Jones & Allen have been defending the rights of tenants since 1977 and we understand how your life can be turned upside down when a landlord refuses to carry out repairs to your home.

With this blog series, each week we plan to share the details of another successful settlement to show tenants that help to is available to get results and gain compensation.

This week’ Housing Disrepair case is as follows:

We were instructed to deal with a case where there was severe housing disrepair. The property suffered from an ongoing leak, which occurred whenever there was rainfall. The rainfall penetrated and caused water floods in several rooms in the property. The property also suffered from other disrepair.

Pursuant to Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, it is an implied term of the tenancy agreement that a landlord would keep in repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling house and the installations therein for the supply of gas, water, electricity, sanitation and space heating. The landlord owes the tenant a duty of care compliant to Section 4 of The Defective Premises Act 1972, to ensure the property is reasonably safe from personal injury or from damage to their property.

Our Housing Team prepared a detailed Letter of Claim, which was sent to the landlord. In addition, instructions were prepared and sent to an independent surveyor to attend the property and provide a report on the conditions of the property.

Upon receipt of the surveyor’s report an updated Letter of Claim was sent to the landlord. A short while after the updated Letter of Claim was sent our Housing Team entered into negotiations with the landlord’s solicitors.

The claim was settled and he parties agreed upon terms of settlement including setting off the settlement against the client’s rent arrears and paying the remaining within 28 days. It was also agreed that the landlord would complete all works listed in our independent surveyor’s report.

If you need help with housing disrepair, you can try our housing disrepair compensation calculator or talk to our housing law specialists today. Call us on 0330 822 3451 or request a call back.