March 19, 2024

Am I (tenant) Responsible For Fixing The Garage Door?

5 min read
fixing the garage door

Your landlord is obligated to follow the terms of your leasing agreement apart from the normal wear and tear to the rental property. Your landlord is also responsible for maintaining the structure and outside of your house, such as the walls, roof, foundations, drains, guttering, and external pipes, as well as the windows and exterior doors.

• Basins, sinks, bathtubs, toilets, and the piping that connects them

• Water and gas pipelines, electrical wiring, water tanks, boilers, radiators, gas fires, installed electric fires and installed heaters

Nothing in your tenancy agreement can take away your repair duties. Furthermore, your landlord is not permitted to pass on the expense of any repair work that is their obligation to you.

Your landlord is only required to perform repairs if they are aware of an issue, so make sure you inform them of any required repairs. These repair duties also apply to common areas of a building, such as entry halls, staircases, and lifts, for leases that commenced on or after January 15, 1989.

If you don’t feel comfortable in your house, don’t stay there. If your home is unsafe to live in, it may be deemed “unfit for human habitation,” which includes common areas such as entry halls and stairwells. Your landlord is responsible for ensuring that your house is safe to live in. This is true for most forms of tenancies; if your landlord does not comply, call Citizens Advice.

If, for example, your home is unsuitable for human habitation:

• it has a significant moisture or mould problem

• It becomes excessively hot or chilly

• There are much too many people who live there.

• vermin such as rats or cockroaches have invaded it

• It lacks a reliable water supply.

It makes no difference whether the issue existed from the start of the tenancy or only surfaced later.

Make sure to notify your landlord if any repairs are required. Unless the problem is with a portion of the building that your landlord still controls, such as the roof or the entry hall, your landlord is only required to make repairs when they are aware of a problem.

If you caused the problem, your landlord is not required to ensure that your house is safe to live in

• not properly caring for your home, such as not utilizing the extractor fan after a shower

• acting irrationally, such as leaving candles burning while you leave the house.

If you’re not sure if your home is suitable for human occupancy, contact Citizens Advice.

Responsibilities of the landlord in terms of repairs

The majority of your home’s maintenance is the responsibility of your landlord. Private landlords, municipalities, and housing organizations are all affected.

Repairs to the following items are among their responsibilities:

• installation of electrical wires

• boilers and gas pipelines

• hot water and heating

• Ventilation and chimneys

• pipes and drains, sinks, bathtubs, toilets

• communal spaces, such as lobbies and stairwells

• the building’s construction and exterior, including walls, stairwells, and banisters, roof, and external doors and windows

Once the problem has been resolved, your landlord should redecorate it if necessary. Even if your rental agreement states otherwise, your landlord is always liable for these repairs.

Windows and doors

The following are the responsibilities of the landlord:

• window frames, sashes, and furnishings

• replacement of interior and external doors, saddles, and door frames that are faulty

• exterior door hinges, locks, handles, trapper bars, and letterboxes

The renter is responsible for the following:

• interior door hinges, locks, and handles

• Kitchen and bedroom cabinet doors, hinges, knobs, and drawer latches

• draught-proofing windows and doors

• Broken glass is replaced.

Repairs to the structure and other issues

The following are the responsibilities of the landlord:

• all structural timbers, walls, stairwells, roof, chimney, and rainwater products

• tiling on the walls and floors

• interior ornamental woodwork such as architraves, skirting boards, wooden sills, and other

• ventilators and airbricks

• insulating the roof space (where the tenant has not been receiving grant aid)

• rotted wood

The renter is responsible for the following:

• the expense of sweeping chimneys, as well as any additional work necessary as a result of the failure to sweep chimneys

• interior wall and ceiling plaster cracks

External projects

The renter is responsible for the following:

• Garden and hedge care and maintenance

• gully trap cleaning

The following are the responsibilities of the landlord:

• landlord-installed garden pathways, walls, fences, and gates must be repaired.

• the replacement of wheelie bins every seven years if they are in need of replacement.

• rotary clothes dryers must be replaced

• Unless the local authority is in charge, common amenity spaces must be maintained.

• exterior repair work includes structural repairs to walls, outside doors, windows (but not glass replacement), roofs, chimneys, valleys, gutters, downpipes, and house drains (but not glass replacement) (excluding cleaning of gullies)

• exterior painting

Negligence

In most cases, negligence refers to your landlord injuring or damaging you as a result of their reckless or negligent behavior.

For example, your landlord may be liable if they failed to complete necessary repairs in your house after you informed them of the problem, and as a result, you were hurt or your possessions were destroyed. They might even be considered negligent if they completed the repairs but did so in a reckless or unsafe manner.

A Personal Annoyance

When anything on another property or a common area of a building held by your landlord interferes with your use and pleasure of your house, it is called a private nuisance for social housing. For example, if your landlord failed to repair pipes in your block’s roof space and water flooded your property, causing damage. In this case, you might file a nuisance complaint against the landlord for structure and exterior.

The 1972 Defective Premises Act

This Act establishes specific responsibilities of care that your landlord owes you. They include a responsibility to avoid human injury or property damage caused by flaws in your house. This is a responsibility you owe to yourself, your family, and guests to your house.

When your landlord is required to repair or maintain your house or has the authority to access the property to do maintenance or repairs, the duty is due.

Even if you haven’t informed your landlord, the obligation is owed if the landlord knows or should have known about the repair as per the landlord and tenant’s tenancy agreement.

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