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Flatshare follies... information, please

  
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:23 / 27.07.04
Hello all,

I'm afraid I'm a bit of a flatsharing virgin - in the sense that, although I have been flatsharing for about 6 years, a lot of it was for brief periods with large pre-existing groups. However, myself and a flatmate have been sharing a two-bedroom flat for the last 4 years, and had settled into something of a rhythm.

This flatmate is now leaving. As I understand it, this means that, under an assured shorthold tenancy agreement, sole rental of the flat will devolve to me. That's fine, but there are a few issues I was hoping you more experienced bods could help me out with...

1) During recent times, there have been some breakages - a sofa and a bed. Both of these my flatmate heartily and cheerfully owns up to as his fault, and is promising to look into the possibilities of getting them repaired and, if that does not work, telling the landlord and paying for replacements. Now, as it happens I don't really *want* replacements - they are both gratuitous items of furniture, and a replacement would only be a bit of landlordy bric-a-brac - far better to get something proper. So, first up, is it actually kosher to repair something without telling the landpeople that it has been broken? If the mend is subsequenty discovered (or revealed to be inadequate, I am aware that I will get stuck with sorting it out, which for furniture I don't even *like* seems rather galling.

Also, I have to contact the landlords about some structural repairs that need doing before I will have a chance of enticing anybody into sharing. This would also, logically, be a good time to tell them about the broken furniture... there is also the question of cleaning the flat; I understand that at the end of a tenancy a professional cleaning is traditional, and I'm not sure flatmate is going to have time (or precedent) to clean the place properly before departure... that's a comparatively minor issue, though. I'm more about the breakages.

So, should he be informing the landlords and making restitution? Can I specify that actually I'd be happy just to junk the things (it's a single divan - probably cost more to repair than replace anyway). Should the tenancy end, and then a new one be drawn up, or can you take somebody's name of an assured shorthold bingly bong and put someone else's on later? What's the drill, here?
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
14:35 / 27.07.04
Repairs the furniture are perfectly acceptable. The implications of a contract, regardless of actual wording (actual wording should be read from time to time), is that the place will be left in the same state that it is accepted in. Repairs restore the functionality of an item and under the proviso that they are in a suitable condition for their intended usage, retain structural integrity for a reasonable lifetime and show no significant signs of repair then you are not exceeding the requirements of the contract.

An example here. If you have a tear in a couch and repair it with duct tape, this is unacceptable. If said tear is repaired by an upholsterer and the repair work is not immediately visible then you're fine.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:45 / 27.07.04
W00T! Duct tape!

Sorry.

Thanks, SK. I might suggest to him that, if he wants to look into repairing the sofa, he do so, but that the bed is a) a write-off, b) cheapos to start off with and c) unwanted... I just want all this nasty furniture out of the flat. I want to spend money, damn it! I want purves and purves, naked and covered in jam. Which, given that the hot tap in the bathroom needs fixing, just shows my enormous lack of practicality.
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
14:51 / 27.07.04
I hear Purves & Purves do amazing jam taps in obsidian at the moment.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
18:57 / 27.07.04
This a little known fact, but assuming your landlord's declaring his income from the property to the IRS, he can claim back the cost of any repairs, structural or otherwise, against his tax for the year, ie in the long term, anything like this costs your landlord nothing. In this respect, anyone in rented property should in theory should always get their deposit back, though that's a whole other can of worms, I appreciate. Anyway, in this instance, I'd say the easiest thing to do is just talk to him really, see what he says.

Oh yeah, and while it is ( I think ) your responsibility as a tenant to fill the spare room, the cost of cleaning the place professionally may not be, and again might be something the landlord can claim back against tax.
 
  
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