A Trinity college graduate student succeeded in her complaint against the North Oxford Property Services (NOPS), after a room in her rented flat failed to meet safety regulations and was declared “unfit for human habitation” by the City Council. Chantelle Staynings was forced to move out of the property after she tripped over one of the raised floorboards, the existence of which had been previously ignored by NOPS. The property listing was consequently changed from being a threebedroom to a two-bedroom flat.
Staynings had been renting 82 The Heyes, Gloucester Green, for £1040 per month with two flatmates – Trinity finalist Sarojini McKenna and another Trinity graduate who wished to remain unnamed. Following months of complaints to NOPS and an assessment of the property by the City Council, the students eventually received monetary compensation for the unusable third room, as well as for other costs accrued from various repair problems.
The tenants first brought their concerns to the attention of NOPS in July 2004. Their letter pointed out that “the oven billowed acrid black smoke for several months” and that it “still sets off the fire alarm every time we use it”. Other complaints included the lengthy and delayed repair of a faulty sink.
NOPS company secretary David Wilding said that, as a rule, company agents “respond very quickly” to concerns and delegate repairs to subcontractors. “We make the assumption that the job has been done properly,” he said. The company also refused to compensate for the students’ travel expenses when they temporarily relocated.
When the students threatened to publicise their complaints against NOPS in the press, a letter was sent by the company’s agent Sally Franklin offering them a “compensatory fee” of £100, “on the basis that you refrain from persisting in your continued threat to release details of this incident.” The students turned down the offer and spoke toCherwell at length, requesting their quotes be kept off the record.
The students first asked for monetary compensation of the month’s rent after a leak from the washing machine buckled the floorboards, making them feel unsafe about living in the flat. A letter to NOPS on 19 January showed that after she tripped over one of the floorboards, Staynings moved out of the flat. Following weeks of negotiations with the company, she received her security deposit and, as of 1 March, no longer had to pay rent for the property.
Despite this, Wilding continued to stand by the claim that the flat was “never uninhabitable”. “I’ve never seen a parquet floor buckle so much that you can’t live on it,” he said.
In March the tenants called in Anne McMahon, a Senior Environmental Health Officer for Oxford City Council, to assess the state of the apartment. Upon visiting it, she found “grounds for unfitness for human habitation” in Staynings’ bedroom, as shown in a letter to NOPS dated 21 March.
According to regulations, openings in inhabitable rooms must be at least one-tenth of the floor area for lighting, one-twentieth of the floor area for ventilation and the room must have a minimum area of 70 square feet. The room in question failed to meet all of these requirements, making it legally uninhabitable for anyone over the age of ten, according to the Housing Act of 1985 and DOE Circular 1796.
Staynings had previously seen the main areas of the flat and all three flatmates “visited several times”, according to a letter sent to NOPS and signed by the prospective tenants. Prior to this, the flat was let for at least three years and NOPS said that they had had no complaints from previous tenants.
Contrary to the aforementioned letter, McKenna insists that she had not seen the property before agreeing to the lease, since it was unavailable on the NOPS open day of property viewing in January 2004. “It was a great location and because it was rented as a three-person flat by NOPS, I assumed it would be alright,” she said.
The original letting agent, Sue Phillips, has now left NOPS to work for Top Lettings and will take charge of letting the property in the future.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005
Student flat; "unfit for habitation"
