myself and my wife live in a privately rented house and when we moved in a lot of jobs needed to be done which we carried out ourself but there was always one problem and it was the front door.

The door has a bottom lock that when locked with a key is stiff but sometimes it doesn't unlock at all

Gaps in the bottom of the door that lets a terrible draft in even tho i have a draft excluder around the outside of the door.

Condensation around the door windows causing the wood to rot and mold.

The worse problem with the door is it lets in rain water into the hall and is rotting the rail around the laminated floor, i was out hosing the front a few weeks ago and when i cam in my hall the hall was flooded, and the door was fully closed at the time.

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I have spoken to our landlord and asked for this to be looked at and firstly she told us it may need a new door and she sent a man around who was supposedly a joiner and he said he would new draft excluder and lower it on the door and make it longer to fill the gaps in the corner of the door.

I did inform him that if he puts a longer excluder on the door then it would dig into the laminated rail and make a hole in it then there would be more of a hole to outside but he over looked that.
And i told him a draft excluder wouldn't stop water coming in or damp.

He also said he would put WD40 on the lock!!! whoopy

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I have contacted Whitegates today to tell them about this but they are just sticking up for the landlord and saying as long as it is safe then its ok and thats all a landlord has to do.

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I am really not happy coz we have a baby due in 4 weeks and they still just want to patch the work up.

Is there anything that can be done?

surely if the lock is faulty, is this not a fire hazzard, and also a health and safety issue .

Have a look at MSE forum; they have specialists that will answer your question

yeah that what i said but wd-40 is the answer so they say. i am not having it, i have a baby due in 4 weeks.


yes via whitegates


what is MSE please?

MSE - MoneySavingExpert aka Martin Lewis off TV lol.

To be fair Summer checking the lock on the door when you view a property isn't the most important thing, I sure didn’t look at the lock to see if it worked when I viewed my home. The doors/Windows/Damp/ and anything structural is normally the landlords responsibility

Yep, and sometimes issues only creep up, when you actually live in the property, for various reasons (landlord bodge job to hide them from you or niggles that you only notice when they start annoying you every day etc).

A draught for instance, may not have been picked up on a viewing, because it was not a windy day! And the lock may not have been picked up on a viewing, because it may have been working previously, or not used/unlocked during the viewing etc...

Also, sometimes people don't have enough knowledge or the chance to say no (ie. if they are/about to become, homeless), and whilst some of this could be regarding as tenant ignorance, that does not negate the landlords responsibility of providing property that complies with regulations and meets a decent standard for the tenant paying good money to live in it.

My sister had an issue a few years ago in a private rental, went on for months with the landlord saying he was going sort it all... but he was skint and had invested approx £1m into a load of new homes, just before the market went tits up, and could not sell them, so was dragging his feet.

So much work needed doing, in the end my sister got environmental health, and they gave him 14 days to resolve the issues or face legal action. He didn't do anything, and got taken to court. I think they condemned the house by the time my sister had moved out.

Sounds like a typical private landlord!

Indeed, far too many amateurs and skinflints became "landlords" during the buy-to-let boom a few years back in the hunt for easy money, who don't have a clue how to be a responsible landlord or give a shit about their tenants or the standard of the property they are providing.

Most are just in it for the money, don't want to spend a penny, just collect the rent each month!!

OMG i have just put a message on a landlord forum for advise and i cannot beleave one of the responses from a landlord.

he said why am i putting the lock on anyway when i am in the house, he couldnt seem to see that people put locks on when going to bed ect.

is it just me or does most people put locks on when going to bed.

As usual, there's a lot of sense spoken in this thread as well as the usual rubbish by those who know very little, but insist on posting. Matt, your posts are pretty spot on. However, sod looking at the contract, it's not a commercial lease so repair, decoration and alientation clauses are NOT relevant in this case; despite what someone who rents a room to a lodger might say.

Forgive me for what I'm about to say, but as well as being a private landlord myself, I also have some experience of things such as the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the key thing to remember here is that any property rented must be fit for human habitation from the word go, i.e. from the time your AST is signed. It remains the landlords responsibility to make sure that the home stays this way for entire duration of your tenancy - this is about the long and short of it.

Although this doesn't really apply in this case as the landlord is being a bit of an arse, it's worth knowing that if your landlord wants to come round and take a look at the house, or carry out any works/fix anything then it needs to be convenient for the tenant and they also need to give you 24 hours notice, as a minimum.

Cutting a long story short, the only thing the tenant is actually resposible for is their own possessions inside the house, as well as obviously any damage they have caused themselves which in this case, again, isn't applicable as the door has always been an issue.

Your landlord is responsible for everything from gas and electrical appliances, to ventilation systems, to ensuring that even any furniture that they've left in the house for you meets current fire legislation. It's probable that the door, in this case, is an issue here? But I'm not an expert.

In most cases this sort of thing should be carried out by certified contractors and details of the works they have done etc should be passed to you within 28 days.

There's so much info on the L&T act, and as I said, I'm no expert, but part of my chartered status is to understand these things. But because of the info available on the net and through forums like this, tenants are usually pretty clued up on the situation and as such landlords will generally, when pressed on it, comply to their obligations otherwise a county court can prosecute them - perhaps this is your next step? Their powers include fines but also instructing your landlord to carry out the works.

A bit of case law from the net;

On November 9 2006 Camden council prosecuted Mr Avigdor Brinner for not complying with statutory notices that required him to make his premises fit for the tenants, and to remedy neglect of management. He was ordered to improve the sub standard living conditions including works to toilet, kitchen, bathroom, lighting as well as general repair work and extensive cleaning and fire safety measures. Mr Brinner and his property company were also fined in excess of £8000 for the various offences.

In the current climate with increased media attention – landlords cannot flout the law or their responsibilities and bad landlords will not be tolerated.

At the same time, jumping in with threats of legal action only gets peoples backs up, and you don't want to be faced with a notice to quit (i.e. f**k off mate) at the end of your tenancy, especially if you like the house, the area etc etc.

My advice is to speak to Whitegates, let them know that you are clued up, quote what you need from this post and inform them that you will be seeking legal advice and heading over to the Citizens Advice Bureau if they don't get it sorted. Whitegates are a large company, and they won't want the bad press or the hassle and it's more likely than not that they will stop fobbing you off and do something about it through your landlord.

As for what Matt said about the buy-to-let days, it's true, anyone could get almost a 100% mortgage, buy a house and expect the rent to cover the repayments, what most people forget is that it's not a guaranteed income. I've had tenants of mine do a runner owing thousands, trashing the place at the same time and taking things that dont belong to them, including lightbulbs in some cases. The problem being that when this happens, you still need to cover the mortgage and you need to carry out repairs; if you have no money, this is where the problems start.

Forgive my rant but I wish some people would stop replying to posts when they have little or no knowledge of such things.

How can one person be so full of sense but also so full of sh1t.

The_Monk, please just call your landlord and/or Whitegates and quote a bit of my post - a door that you cannot unlock is not acceptable. A door that has a gap big enough for small animals to sneak in, again, is not acceptable.

If you need any more advice or I can be of help then please do feel free to send me a PM and I will see what I can do - I can even draft a letter for you if needs be for you to send to them (recorded delivery, obviously) in the hope it gets them to do something.

There's a few avenues to explore but I sense this thread going way off topic and being filled with so much crap that the helpful posts fade into the background.

Best of luck.

I dont have anything nearly as good as Alex85's posts to add, but just wondered, wouldn't the mould caused by the condensation, be some kind of health risk? Especially with a new baby on it's way.

Mold can cause problems, if it's present in abnormally high levels - it's not generally going to be the case in situations like this but in essence you are correct; and I don't know how bad the mold is but breathing it in leaves you at a higher risk of respiratory issues - I imagine this would be worse in new born babies.

Did you know that mold can actually grow inside you when it lands on internal tissues? Unless you are in Japan at the moment I doubt it's something to worry about!

That's what I meant

Can you tell I'm still in the office in 'report writing' and 'replying to client' mode?

I have to admit the male who she said was a joiner pushed a note through our door and it was a gardening company he owns.

thank you so much for your help alex.
when i phoned whitegates and phoned someone called tim who is the manager of the prenton shop they first told me they were no longer anything to do with the property as the landlord had only asked them to find a tenant and to do the paper work only.

but when i told them about the problem i couldn't believe how he started to back the landlord up and telling me that if she is willing to have a joiner come out and do the work then i should just let them do it.

even tho i had told him he wasn't a joiner and i had someone who is a real joiner out to look at the door and i told our joiner what the lanlords joiner was going to do and he couldn't believe it.

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the landlords joiner wanted to lower the draft strip and make it longer to fill the gaps in either side of the door, but that wasnt going to stop the water coming in.

and the lock i told him was locking and then not unlocking after being to bed etc and all he could say is "oh its a bit stiff ile just take it off and put WD-40 on it.

i wouldnt mind but we have spent hundreds on the property and they cant just do one single thing right.

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whitegates have said today that they will speak to the landlord now and see if she will allow them to send there own worker to look at the door.

here is a few pics.

In fairness, Whitegates may well have just had a 'find a tenant' agreement with them and not a management contract. Who do you pay your rent to?

If Whitegates were managing it then you'd be paying it to them, they'd take their cut and pass it to your landlord.

Have you had any correspondence re: where your deposit is being kept? Out of interest.

We pay the landlord via standing order, the deposit was given to whitegates and it is the DPS (the deposit protection service) who holds it.

Landlord is your first port of call. Let him know you know your right, and don't want to cause a fuss unnecessarily but that you are willing to if needed.

Sorry for short response I'm on iPhone!