Am I within my rights?

[Jenkosowls]

I am privat renting through an estate agents. I have been there over a year now every 6 months I have a property check. The first check was 9 months ago and several problems were reported to be fixed some minor some serious. I was told they would contact the land lord to send some one out blah blah 5months passed and nothing I kicked up a fuss and a builder was sent to take details and make quotes. Since then I have had another inspection reporting the same problems since then it has been 9 months since reporting the problems and not a single thing has been resolved no contact about them and still I made payment.

I have had enough of this and so last month made no payment what so ever put the money in an account to hold. And guess what within a month I receive a threatening letter for non payment of rent. So they chase money up pretty Dam quick but not building repairs and so I'm going to confront them with there lack of priorities. And tell them I am with. Holding payment till its resolved! But am I legally allowed to do such thing as last thing I want is them kicking me out! To which I would simply got to the papers.

This is the sort of laziness I have to put up with I received a letter saying it was my problem they hadn't done a gas safety check which was over due by 2 months! The boiler had failed. I was without heating and hot water for 6 days due to them failing to chase landlord up for repairs till yet again I had to constantly nag them to sort it. The best part was the boiler should never had passed previously as all the failures were present the year before!

So what am I legally allowed to do?

[Toby]

Right, with anything like this it isn't always easy to see who is in the wrong.

The first thing to point out though is that withholding rent in this situation is NOT allowed, I advise you to pay it as soon as you can.

What you need to establish is whether the problems you are required to be fixed. Things like the supply of water HAVE to be maintained by the landlord/estate agents. What you will find though is that the list of things which need to be maintained is fairly short.

If it is a problem which requires them to fix it, and they ignore your requests, you then have to get quotes from 3 separate builders for the repairs. You then have to tell the estate agents about this, and should they continue to ignore your requests you can then pay for a builder to fix the problems, and only THEN can you take money out of the due rent.

I apologise if this is not the most readable reply, am off out and in a rush

[Eeyore]

id pay the rent and keep complaining lots!