The landlord is refusing to repair a broken backdoor lock, what can the tenant do?

This is a question to the blog clinic from Catherine who is a tenant.

We rent a property privately via estate agency for 5 years . the homemade extension is in bad repair and now the backdoor cannot be locked . we cannot get contents insurance. and I think it would invalidate Landlords insurance too.

We have notified landlord of the deterioration in person and by letter but he won’t see the problem .

We don’t want to move . any advice ?

Answer

Well if you are going to stay in the property you will need to get this fixed. As the landlord won’t do it, the quickest way to get it done is to do it yourself.

It is arguable that this would fall under ‘structure and exterior’ of the property which it is the landlord’s duty to keep in repair under the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985. So it may be worth following the procedure set out here.

However, if you actually claim the money back from your rent, your landlord may respond by requiring you to leave – I don’t know whether he will do this or not but it is always a possibility. So you will have to judge whether this is a good thing to do or not.

Or you could wait until you leave and deduct it from your final month’s rent – although if the landlord wants to deduct this from your deposit be aware that the deposit adjudicators do not have the power to consider this sort of claim – so you may need to go to court instead.