Fire alarm silenced and a collapsed ceiling

Two weeks before we were due to move into the property, we were told that our original move in date was now no longer possible, as they still had work on the property to do. When we arrived, remnants of building work were still in the kitchen and a broken radiator had not been removed.

Even after paying the first month of rent, for the second month our original negotiator from the letting agency tried to claim that our rent was in fact £300 higher than was set out in our amended tenancy agreement and took several days to admit he was being fraudulent and incorrect.

One week into the tenancy, the fire alarm system developed a fault and for a day the alarm went off continuously. An electrician was called but only managed to silence the system and remove one of the fire alarms in the hallway. At our HMO inspection last week, we discovered that the system had in fact been permanently silenced and in the event of a fire, the alarm would not have gone off.

One month into the tenancy, a damp patch which had been spreading on the ceiling of Tenant 1’s room began to bulge and eventually burst over the tenant’s bed, creating a large hole in the ceiling. For ages the bath above this room had been leaking into the ceiling. The room suffered from unhealthy levels of damp and broken plaster and, as such, Tenant 1 was displaced onto a mattress in the living room, creating a fire hazard for Tenant 2 as this obstructed access to a second bedroom. This hole took 3 weeks for the landlord to fix.

Tenant 1 moved back into his room after the hole had been covered, but the bath above was still being resealed. We were told that after 48 hours we would be able to use the shower, which we did, only to find that in fixing the leak, the plumber had forgotten to reconnect the pipes. Water flowed into the ceiling of Tenant 1’s room and through the holes which hadn’t yet been plastered – we had cascades of water flowing from the ceiling, soaking Tenant 1’s bed and wardrobe, forcing him back into the living room.

I was on the phone to S&C pretty much every day, attempting to get some action on the problems. I’ve never had any dealings with the landlord except once when he came to view the issues. However, we had dealings with two plumbers, one usually sent from the landlord and the other sent from the let- ting agents. The second plumber only came because the first plumber is, according to the agent, “notoriously unreliable and quite often doesn’t turn up” – but the landlord apparently used him because he was cheaper.

We are currently in disagreement with them over compensation. Because we’re students I think they’re aware we don’t really have any legal knowhow to take action against them. Everything is completed to the bare, bare minimum.