Landlord problems - advice needed

My daughter and friends (students) were due to move into a house in Bristol, with the tenancy starting 1st July. During June the agents were chasing the first payment earlier than the schedule in the agreement, clearly worried about students not coming back due to Covid-19. When they moved in they found the following issues:

-Damp in various places, with peeling wallpaper, raised paint and black mould
-The place in dire need of decoration
-It hadn't been cleaned - they found used tissues, ear buds and a chlamydia test amongst other things -Broken toilet seat, windows, missing door handles, damaged sockets, and much, much more.

It transpired the previous tenants moved out the day before, so no time was allowed for repairs and cleaning, nor to allow the risk of coronavirus infection to be reduced. I would argue that the house was not habitable in the current circumstances, and my daughter came home. Others had no option but to stay. The inventory was provided a week after the tenancy started.

They raised it with the agents, who reacted slowly, but contractors did turn up, but unannounced and with keys, in breach of contract and the law. One let himself in without ringing the bell and walked into a bedroom where one of the tenants was sleeping. Since then more contractors have been coming, without notice and not wearing face coverings or gloves, and not santising after they leave.

A back and forth with the agents hasn't really led anywhere until today, when they confirmed that the decorating can now only be done in September, it will take three weeks and the tenants will have to move out. If they don't want to move out, the decorating won't be done. They've had a over a month to arrange this but have clearly delayed it until term starts in the knowledge that the tenants won't be able to move out. The repairs will continue ad hoc, but no information has been provided on how the contractors will observe measures to minimise coronavirus infection. They are still awaiting a damp report. The landlord has offered a £50 rebate to each tenant as a "gesture of good will", which is not negotiable.

Apart from the breach of the tenancy agreement (and law) with contractors turning up unannounced and letting themselves in, I would argue that the landlord/agent are failing in their obligation to provide a habitable property - not only only the grounds of the general state of the property including the damp, but that they have ignored, and continue to ignore, all advice and guidelines on ensuring the property is Covid-secure.

Does anyone on here have legal/housing experience, or work in the field, and be able to advise on next steps? The obvious ones are to go to the university accommodation office and the Bristol branches of Shelter and CAB. I appreciate that student accommodation comes with issues and these are not young people at risk of homelessness, but it is still unacceptable and I would like a better resolution for my daughter and her friends.

I can't really speak to most of your post but I would advise they immediately swap out the lock barrels in the doors and keep a record of all this.

Unfortunately everything is stacked against the tenant here. The hassle they will have to go through to get the property owner and agent to do the right thing is immense.

Maybe they should aim to find another place and not pay the rent for three months.

No particular advice I'm afraid but sympathy - similar (but probably not as bad) when I was a student, also Bristol. Maybe ask if all parties or their families/parents can sign any complaints etc, so the agent know you're serious? Best of luck.

I suspect the contractors no longer have keys, as the agents were shocked when they found out one had wandered in to the bedroom. I will get confirmation of this before swapping out the locks.

I have raised it with the agents in fairly strong terms and they know we're serious. The issue is that they're dealing with a cunt of a landlord who hides behind them.

Buy a house in Bristol otherwise your kid will get fucked by landlords and agencies every single time they have to move and every single time they change housemates.

I'll need one in Leeds next year as well

Shit situation. I remember student accommodation. I had it easy, but I did do a solo deep clean of the first place (entire house!) I moved in to in my second year. Didn't know any better. In hindsight should have got the agent to get a contractor in.

It sounds like the house wasn't viewed prior to accepting a tenancy agreement? Is that the case? Otherwise some of these issues would have been seen, I would have thought. Or the previous tenants trashed the place.

I suspect the decorating in September is fiction with the intention of getting you to back down by making it appear a massive ball ache for you.

You could keep pushing; the council can force landlords to make repairs. But what you think is serious disrepair might not be the councils definition. Damp is often just the effect of lots of cooking and clothes drying.

Not sure where there is going, except if you want to get this totally resolved it will take a large co-ordinated effort. It might be simpler to find another house, or suck this one up and make the basic repairs yourselves and buy a dehumidifier.

Plus 100 on the dehumidifier.
A good one will change your life and have you feeling much better in damp UK houses.

Sounds like this will be an ongoing shit experience.

If the deposit was just a one month payment I’d personally stop any further rental payments and find another place asap. Living under a crap landlord is tiresome and grating.

They viewed the house, but with tenants and all their stuff in there. I'm not sure a group of 18 year olds were looking for the bad stuff and it only became clear when they moved in.

You're right about the decorating. They had two months from when it was pointed out to get it done. I think the damp is more fundamental than condensation.

What are the consequences of moving out having signed a 12 month tenancy agreement?

Talk to Acorn, the union. I think they're based in Bristol too.

What are the consequences of moving out having signed a 12 month tenancy agreement?

They might come after whoever signed the contract for some or all of the money.

I think the damp is more fundamental than condensation.

In what sense? Roof leaking? Window seals leaking? If that's the case, take it up the council to get the LL forced to make repairs.

If it's an older building it's probably the effects of poor ventilation and modernisation efforts that wreck the building's designed moisture escape routes, i.e. constant draughtiness.

Good suggestion, thanks

We're waiting on a damp report to see what the cause is, but I would think it is either pipes or ingress from outside. That is based on photos, as I haven't been to the property.

Its the green algae that dangerous to health. Keep the area ventilated.
Damp can cause serius structural problem its in the landlords interest to fix it.

Yeah I know, keeping the internals of a building at a constant level of high humidity can wreck the internals of the building and cause as much if not more damage than rising damp or penetration.

But you cannot fix it without removing the source of the humidity or physically getting the water out - which might be as simple as residents needing to open the windows when drying their clothes or use a dehumidifier and not block the trickle vents on double glazing etc.

What are the consequences of moving out having signed a 12 month tenancy agreement?

Surely in this case, none?

Property was not ready and to a decent(healthy) standard. The property owner expected the tenants to vacate so the house could be made liveable. They also admitted responsibility for the situation with their (derisory) compensation offer.

Pull up the contract and read every point, noting all of the points that the landlord is in breach of, use this to argue that your contract has been broken and should be terminated, move out and find somewhere else.

Or offer to get the place professionally cleaned and send them the bill, then buy dehumidifiers, a few tins of paint and have at it. Just don’t expect anything from the LL in the future

Also make sure they agree in writing that the students can leave it as they found it at the end of the tenancy, ie not professionally cleaned.

I would imagine they would dispute the state of the property, despite photos.
They have said the tenants need to move out, temporarily, for redecoratiing, which they will surely describe as cosmetic.
The offer was a "gesture of goodwill", which presumably means no admission of the property being uninhabitable.

The 2018 Homes Act has a list of things that make a property unfit for human habitation, and the standard seems to be stacked in the landlord's favour. We would be getting into an argument about whether each issue met the threshold or not, with the landlord arguing that they were trying to put everything right in any case.

Is it an Assured Shorthold Tenancy? Depending on the lease format used you will have different rights etc.

Yes it is, how will this affect things?

The real fucker is going to be finding an alternative. By now all the decent student houses will have already been let.

TBH it a lot of this sounds like standard student house stuff. I get that accommodation costs in Bristol are punchy so it's that much more galling. But this is common and dare I say it part of growing up.

Imo the choices are;

1. Move out and all filing small claims against LL for the associated costs.
   
2. Chalk it up to experience.
   
3. Agree to move out for decorating and tell the LL that they have to pay for their accommodation.
   
   

I doubt 3. will get much traction, so they'll probably still have to file small claims. But as 1st yrs they'll have plenty of time on their hands to do this.