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Landlord refuses to fix things
Hello dear all,
We have this 2 bedroom flat for 900 Euros on a 1 year lease. The room heater in one of the bedrooms had a very old knob to turn the heat on and off. The rest of the house has normal, functioning knobs on heaters. Around 6 weeks ago we had guests who stayed in our second bedroom so my husband tried to rotate the old style knob, in doing so it broke.
He is a good handyman but despite his efforts and experience, he couldn't fix it. We informed our landlord about the same. Unfortunately the knob was not fully turned off when it broke so the heat was on the whole time (how costly!).
The landlord who wants to sell this house came around 4 weeks after we informed her, actually to take pictures of this house because she wants to sell it. She brought in a handyman to look at this problem. He inspected it and said that this problem gets fixed by closing the central heating of the building and then working on the heater. This response annoys our landlord who declares it is too much work and she leaves.
We try to contact our building upkeep guys (a company called Sodeximo is handling this) to fix it since the landlord refused to. Sodeximo guys told us that they had a conversation with our landlord and that this has to be fixed between us and the landlord and that they cant help it.
What can we do now? Our landlord simply refuses to fix the knob of this heater which is constantly 'on' costing us a lot in heating charges (now 6 weeks plus). She refuses to let Sodeximo fix it for us.
In 3 months our contract will end. If the heater is still broken then, the landlord can charge us to fix it along with other costs. We don't mind paying for it (after all my husband did break it) but we would like to do it well within our contract also because the heating bill will be enormous if this doesn't get fixed.
What is our legal or otherwise recourse here? What should our next step be? Can a landlord refuse to get something like this fixed? She isn't even talking costs or anything with us, she just refuses to have it fixed.
Please help me everyone. I want to do the right thing, it can involve us paying for what's broken, no issues but I'd like to return this apartment in the same condition as it was given to us. Thank you.
you really need to check what is written in your contract because J can be right in his assumption. Even if your short term contract clearly states 1 year there is usually the clause that 'if none of the parts send a termination notice three months before the end blah blah blah" then the short term contract becomes a long term one (9 years) and you enter the second year and you can resign only giving a three months notice and paying two motnhs penalties.
So read very well what is written in your contract line by line. In theory to end the contract on May 31st you should have sent the letter BEFORE March 1st.
Never ever put the rental money aside, if the landlord decides to go to court and use a Juge de Paix you might be on the wrong side.
Calll few plumbers and ask for quotes. Use Facebook pages or Yellow Pages
I would recommend: http://www.waterworksbe.net/
I had a similar case, but the hub was already broken when we moved in. The landlady did not react neither to calls, nor registered mail. In the end we had a case before the justice de paix, followed by a legal case in an attorney’s firm. We ended by paying some 3000 euro for heating, some 2000 euro legal fees, we lost the deposit of 3000 and considered ourselves lucky because the landlady demanded additional 11 000 for the period she did not rent the apartment. There is no price for the two years of nightmare. I would recommend to move out asap.
""And yes, you broke it, you fix it.""
That's a very Belgian attitude, J. But then we know you love Belgium. Did they break it or did it break? Turning a knob is using it exactly as described on the tin, no?
RAISA....Sorry to hear about that. According to J, things would have been much worse in the UK. He's wrong of course, but that never stops him.
I have heard that Belgian judges favour Belgians vs foreigners when their is a lawsuit regarding neighbour conflicts etc. Thus it is probably a waste of time and money to go the legal route.
@R, yeah I just checked my contract. You're right about the contract becoming an automatic lease for 9 years if neither parties sent termination letters. This would bother us if we didn't know the landlord wanted to sell the house. She doesn't want us here for too long after the contract ends, and we frankly don't mind leaving this house in whatever is the legal way. We have an oral agreement about us leaving in 1 year.
@Karjatu, thanks man! Great reference. I will definitely call this guy.
@Raisa. It seems that you were treated rather unfairly. I mean wow, the landlord didn't even respond to registered mail queries and still won. Shakes my belief in due process. These amounts you mentioned were massive, how did the landlord get away with it? What's was the catch? Didn't the inventory/ inspection guy note already that the hub was broken?
@ Everyone. Frankly, the legal route is so frustrating and unnecesary here. Simply because we are not contesting costs of repair of a silly knob anyways. We are more than willing to pay even though the knob was prehistoric and was bound to break. I don't understand why this landlady wouldn't just give the permission to our building upkeep guy to turn off the central heating so we can get this fixed.
By the way, is it true that in the summers, the central heating is turned off for the whole building? If that's true, then we will just need to wait till summer and then get our guy to fix the heater. Please tell me.
"You're right about the contract becoming an automatic lease for 9 years if neither parties sent termination letters. This would bother us if we didn't know the landlord wanted to sell the house. She doesn't want us here for too long after the contract ends, and we frankly don't mind leaving this house in whatever is the legal way. We have an oral agreement about us leaving in 1 year."
This all sounds quite worrying. I think you should be prepared for the fact that your landlord has misled you deliberately. From what you say about her, wouldn't put it past her. It sounds like the building has been divided into several apartments. If so, whoever buys it will most likely buy it as an investment (rather than to live in it themselves, which would require costly renovations to convert it back to a family house). So having sitting tenants is actually a bonus point when trying to sell the place. Your rental contract will automatically be binding with the new owner as well. So I don't understand why your current landlord would like you out, as you say.
If your landlord really did want you out for some reason, I would assume she would have made sure to send the termination notice in time. As she has not done so, it could be that she is actually happy that the contract has not been broken. After all, you are now in the second year of a nine-year lease and if you want to leave this year, you will need to give a notice of three months, and pay a penalty of two month's rent. Especially if it will take some time before the house finds a buyer, it's a nice little earner for the owner.
The oral agreement about you leaving after one year is not worth anything. The landlord will simply deny there ever having been such an agreement, and will say that if you truly had wanted to leave, you would have sent the required notice.
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