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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.
This is Belgium. Here, things like that are the tenant's responsibility. If you don't fix it, you are correct in assuming that the landlord will charge you the cost of doing so - and, quite possibly, rent for the period of time that the flat remains "unletable" as a result of the time taken to fix the problem.
I trust that you have given the requisite three calendar months notice (unless something contrary is stated in the contract) to determine the rental contract at the end of the first rental year. Term contracts don't determine here unless notice is given, if it isn't they just roll-over, quite possibly into (the second year of) a nine-year contract.
Double check what your contract specifies.
If it is a fixed one year contract you should not have to give notice but check to be certain.
As to who can carry out the repairs, ask a neighbour or a colleague or look in the Yellow Pages but, for sure, get it done yourselves or you will end up paying through the nose.
In the meantime it must be possible to cut off the supply to the heater. Even if you cannot disconnect the wiring, you can surely trip the fuse.
Continue to get the radiator to shut off until something breaks and there is a flood. Claim on insurance.
> In 3 months our contract will end.
IF YOU HAVE ALREADY GIVEN NOTICE.
And yes, you broke it, you fix it.
The best you can do is send a registered letter to the landlord saying you will put the rent into a separate account until they fix this. Then open an account and stop paying the rent. If they don't get the money it may help, but I imagine it won't. It also proves you were trying to fix the issue and what ever you do employ an expert for your leaving survey because it's goi g to worth it.
