Here is a question to the blog clinic from Christie who is a tenant:
Our landlord has left us without heating for over three weeks now and no alternative other than our living room fire, I have severe asthma and a paralysed right hemi diaphragm and this has affected my health.
We have also been to the hospital with sulphur poisoning from the boiler, and National Grid issued a health warning to our Landlords saying that it is illegal to leave us in this situation.
I have complained and complained all to no avail, I have been told that they are waiting on a second quote, however we have had two contractors out both of whom stated that they were the wrong contractors and as such were unable to even look at the boiler, so how did they even get the 1st quote.
The second contractor put on our immersion heater so we had hot water and he stated that the pressure was wrong in it and it would have exploded within a couple more months. Also this has put our electricity bill through the roof.
Any help or advice in this situation would be greatly appreciated.
I have three suggestions. The first is to contact the Housing Officer of Tenancy Relations Officer at your local authority and see if they can help. You may possibly be eligible for rehousing.
The second suggestion is to speak to your local Health and Safety Executive (assuming it is a gas boiler) as they police the gas regulations.
The final suggestion is to find a good personal injury solicitor, as you may have a claim for compensation. Both for your deteriorating health and for the condition of the property. Many solicitors will be able to offer a no win no fee agreement for this kind of work. You will probably also have a claim for the excess electricity you have had to pay for.
Your solicitor may be able to negotiate with this situation to get the works done to the property.
Don’t, by the way, go to one of those claims companies you see on the TV. You should be able to find a good specialise personal injury firm from Yellow Pages.
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If YOU have a problem, why not put it to the blog clinic? However there are a lot of questions submitted, so if you need an answer quickly remember that members of my Landlord Law service can ask me questions in the members forum area, and will normally get an answer with 24 hours.
I have a fourth and fifth suggestion. Report the matter to the council’s environmental health team. No heating is a category 1 hazard under the Housing health and Safety rating System and they can serve works notices on the landlord forcing him to fix it.
Also approach the council’s homelessness unit for temporary shelter (which will be billed to the landlord). Where there is a Cat 1 hazard the homelessness unit must find it unreasonable to to expect them to occupy, especially given Christie’s health problem.
And dont take no for an answer either
Also, for the disrepair, note that some firms do CFAs following Sibthorpe v. Southwark nowadays.
Ben, but what if Christie’s not priority need, they won’t have any duty then, surely? Asthma’s hardly something which renders her more at risk of injury or detriment etc. etc. etc.? Unless you can bully them into saying that this gives them reason to believe…
Yeah but my argument would be that if her health contributed to making it unreasonable to occupy then that should also be a material fact in considering vulnerability under the Pereira test – ‘Would injury or detriment occur when a homeless’ If her asthma is so bad that she cant live in a cold house how could she live on the street?
I work in the homelessness unit but I’m not a homelessness case worker and I know it will be a fight but I teach homeless law for the CIH and I reckon the argument would run, and the liklehood is it would only be temporary, until the landlord had carried out the works, in the full knowledge that during that time he will also be forced to pay the costs of the temporay accommodation
In my view Ben is right.
HHSRS assessment is the answer in terms of forcing the repairs etc, but that may take weeks and months and doesn’t deal with Christine’s immediate problem which a homelessness claim might.
Ben, do we have any case law on a Category I hazard making premises unreasonable to continue to occupy for homelessness purposes, or regulations, or what?
No its a more complex animal. The 2 legislations, Part VII (Homelessnes ) and HHSRS dont match up like that.
Cat 1 hazards like the one Christie is experiencing would actually only become Cat 1 where someone is vulnerable as a result of the defect. Most commonly in heating things is the age of the tenant, which for HHSRS purposes is 65 but for homelessness purposes doesnt apply, the code of guidance stating that council’s should not use retirment age as the sole definition of vulnerable because of age.
Also a Cat 1 doesnt automatically imply reasonable to remain, which must be decided by the homelessness assessor. For instance a window that is hanging off and in danger of falling on a 2 year old child would be a Cat 1 but wouldnt necessarily make the property unreasonable to occupy.
Sorry Christie, this is how pedantic and nit-picky mine and JS’s jobs get. Not much use to you when all you want is to be warm
Oh and meant to say, as you will know a property can be unreasonable to occupy for homelessness purposes even without HHSRS issues.
Homelessness investigations must take into account all material factors and their effects upon a homelessness applicant, which is my argument about Christie’s situation sits. In the case of R v. Brent Ex P McManus the courts quashed Brent’s intentional decision on the basis that the council should have taken into accoutn the fact that her Belfast home, having been close to a variety of expolosions and the Irish troubles in general were making her depressed