Landlord problems - advice needed

The latest is that they need the tenants to move out for three weeks in order to decorate. The tenants have agreed to do this as long as they don’t have to pay rent for those three weeks, the agents have said that that isn’t an option and they won’t redecorate if the rent isn’t paid.

Seriously think they should remain in place while they find somewhere else.
Moving out then back in again isn't a fun intro to student life.

This is SUCH a shitty attitude from the agent (or landlord, or both, or whatever). Fingers crossed for you, this sucks and I hope it is resolved in your favour.

One thing to bear in mind is that if the landlord is a dick, which certainly seems to be the case, they're going to continue to be a dick with any problem that comes up. One of the places I rented the landlord was clearly a dick from the off and I regretted staying.

HMO landlords are the dickest of the dicks, too.

+100000

Do you have that in writing?

You are wrong, I knew one good one....me.

But overall you are right.

That's fucking ridiculous. What a bunch of cunts.

Change the locks, stay put, don't pay rent.

Make the fuckers have to spend money evicting them.

The problem is there are five other students with parents who might have different views. If it were just me, I would be an absolute grade A cunt with the agents and landlord, who would rue the day they gave me the keys

We have everything by email

Time for a (probably excruciating) Zoom call with all of the tenants - A united front can only help, I'd imagine.

You are going to hate this but unless the place is completely fucked you are just going to have to suck it up and make the best of it. Slap some paint on, fix the worst of it, trash the place before they leave - that way it will be the same condition as it was when they moved in.

If it's completely fucked then move out.

Following this line of thought. If you can sort out the mould so it's not life threatening, it's a student house, they'll be there a year or two at most. Make good documentation of the state of it right now and how it hasn't been cleaned or tidied in any way, then you can use that to make sure you get all your deposit back at the end of tenancy. Bleach all the surfaces for Corona, put fresh mattresses in and you'll be fine. It also means they don't have to be precious about it, have parties or whatever and if something breaks it doesn't matter.

Would be nice if there was some place to make landlords accountable for this shit.
I had an absolute cowboy for a landlord in my last place, lovely reviews somehow.

It popped onto my head that he's asked me to prove income and all sorts of things. In the end he broke numerous contract rules and fucked us over. Would love to put him on some list of cowboy landlords, it'd probably get filled up with airbnb providers.

Explain how there precious little snowflakes (in the original sense) and them are being fucked over/life endangered by a money grabbing cnut.

Also, the agents are really stupid if they put that in an email.

A shitty landlord can ruin your student life.

I was in Leeds in the late 80s my mates had the flat above the main dodgy landlords office, we saw a few people turn up and smash his windows, somehow never managed to get a good enough look to give a description.

Sounds just like all of my student houses in Bristol 1999-2003. The landlord’s surname isn’t Quant is it...?

Wish my dad had given more of a shit about the standard of accommodation we were in! Good luck to you, but as others have said, a certain element of being at uni and ‘growing up’ is just lumping a few years of substandard housing...

I remember having a issue with a property in Bow where the estate agent/letting agent pushed to get us in and the house was a tip (filthy carpets and oven/white goods). There wasn't any fire alarms which was a breach of the contract too, after numerous back and forth with the letting agent and making no progress. I put a complaint in with the council and the following morning I had a call from the agent being aggressive about why i did this so obviously listed the reasons and referred back to the multiple emails and communications about the state of the flat and breaching the contract. They immediately organised for a professional cleaner to come in and for a contractor to install fire alarms and fire doors..

So advice would be look into the breach of contract and highlight every item, I was lucky in this instance above but i can see it getting very sour with the letting agent/landlord...

One of the principles of a lease is that the tenant has "quite enjoyment" of the space that the lease covers. Having decorators in the house does not constitute quite enjoyment and even less so if you can not even occupy at the same time. LL can not charge you rent if you do not have the benefits that that the lease automatically provides to the tenants. They either cover your additional costs for the time you are out or you don't pay rent.

If it's not done yet, change the locks.

Where do we stand legally with changing the locks?

Keep the old barrels, don't damage anything.

Not sure on the legal side but if the visit isn't conforming with the contract I'd assume you have good grounds to refuse entry

Your flat - as long as it's returned with a lock the same as it was received then there is no issue.

"quite enjoyment" means that atleast 24-hours written notice AND you approval should be the norm.

...tell your managing agent what you are doing and what you expect with regards to giving them access.