My ex moved out and a mate moved in, the letting agents have finally after 3 months drawn up a new agreement which they want us to sign but i dont want to sign until they have sorted the damp in the kitchen. where do i stand and what can i do? the damp is bad enough to render one cupboard useless and one other on the verge of useless, there is substantial subsidence in the building and no right angles anywhere but the place is HUGE (we have an 11 seat capacity in the front room!) and cheap (£500 a month for gloucester road bristol) i have complained many many many times and they have still not done anything, it took 6 months to sort out the leak in the roof, now i know that some of you will say move out and find somewhere better/nicer but do i have the law on my side what can i do????????

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A few on this forum work in this area, maybe give it a bump in the day. I don't know if there is legislation about damp, but I'd doubt it would be relevant unless the house was very bad.

The way I see it you have a few choices.

If you refuse to sign, they can say ok and let to someone else giving you I think 2 months notice if you're on a rolling agreement. They might of course fix the damp! Depends on how much they need to keep you, and if the LL can afford the work.

You could sign and hope they'll fix the damp. Not gonna happen, as your experiences so far show.

You could find another place. Rental market is supposedly very tough for landlords at the moment, so you might get a better deal. Certainly rental prices around here have stalled and then fallen over the last year. If there are lots on the market you can negotiate a good rent.

Partly depends on the original contract you had with your landlord was it a joint contract with your gf or individual contracts , say you wont sign until the damp is fixed if they kick you out you have got 6 months to leave assuming you have a lease not a licence. I am NOT an authority on this matter though!!!

The landlord has an obligation to keep the house in a good state of repair – however going all legal on him probably will result in you being evicted.

There is some mechanism I believe for doing the repairs yourself and taking the cost out of the rent but I think there are a lot of hoops to jump thru to do so legally

See http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/family_parent/housing/disrepair_in_rented_accommodation.htm for some information from CAB, and details of Bristol City Councils Tenancy Support Service for people renting in the private sector: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Housing/tenancy-relations/tenancy-relations—our-service.en