How to Sue a British Landlord 101

If you've been an avid reader of this blog, you'll have learned that we live in a flat, that is considered by British standards to be habital...and it is. We can LIVE here, although the frigid weather causes us to have to wear more outer-wear whilst we are inside than out (I know you all love how I just slipped in a British-ism), this is WHEN we have our heat on. So not only are we not getting the heat that we are so dearly paying for (and I mean it, our heating bill is 3 times what our friends are paying, in larger flats, and they actually feel WARM when they go to bed at night...) but we still have the mold problem that we started with. When we moved in, we thought it was just a little water damage, they told us they fixed it, we thought it was taken care of. We have since learned (with the return of the water, AND the mold) that the front structure of our entire flat is unstable, but it's too expensive for the landlord to be consulted to fix it (our property is being managed by a third party), so basically, our windows are coming away from the wall, which allows water to come into the house when the rain is bad (and we LIVE in London, when is the rain NOT bad) and water to be trapped in the walls, which is promoting mold growth, that the builders seem to think will just go away if they paint over it. According to our local health authority, this means that we are giving our bodies unhealthy doses of all sorts of lovely things on a day to day basis, possibly aiding in the development of bronchial problems (although, thanks to my mom, I am very wary of anyone that seems to be medicating me in any form, therefore, I'm taking this 'diagnosis' with a grain of salt, although, I will use it in a legal battle to be sure.

This aside, we went to Rights and Advice, the council that talks to students who need representation to tell them if they have a case. Which we do. Unfortunately, the third party that is managing our flat (Foxtons) is notorious for this behavior, espeically with overseas people, whose visas require they have housing and have to sign leases abroad (which we did). Therefore, we have to categorically list every problem we've ever had with the flat (which are numerous and frequent), publish pictures, then threaten that we will be suing our landlord, overstepping the management firm, which makes them look bad. If we go to court, which we are assured we will, it will cost us money...of course.

Our only other option, that we recently taken by another American who had the very same problem with Foxtons...is that we find someone to take over our lease (I don't know how we would do this with MOLD growing on our walls) we pay a change of lease fee (another fee for Foxtons to throw a party with since God knows they don't help the tenant with that money) and then it gets turned over to the new tenant. We hope this leads to a full deposit return, since it was a huge amount, and of course, we need the money, but we would be at their mercy.

While we are still pursuing taking Foxtons to court, we are starting to think the above might be the easiest course of action, provided we can find a way to make all the cracks and mold disappear while people are looking at the flat, and we can find someone to take the price of this flat, which is embarrassingly high. The thing that makes this nerve-racking, is again, the possibility of Foxtons taking money out of our deposit, when they have clearly breached their contract (which we are obviously trying to prove in court). We also realized, that we never received a copy (because one was never made) of the tenancy agreement where the landlord and ourselves signed. We have one we signed, one he signed, but not one that has both signatures. So I wonder, if our tenancy agreement even valid to the courts?

Anyway, this is a long one, so sorry for that, but this is just another example of the crap we are dealing with outside our 'everyday' lives. More on those later.