Paying for Repairs

[Lieja]

Hello, please could someone tell me if I should be paying for this.

I am a tenant and have had numerous plumbing issues in the property I rent. On Saturday my boiler stopped working. I text the agent with the details from the manual hat corresponded to the error code and he said he would sort it on Monday. Yesterday the repair man arrived complete with a bath panel that i had asked to be fixed months ago, and with no knowledge of the broken boiler. After doing a shoddy job with the bath panel he looked at the boiler. Apparently it was the stopcock, and he fixed it in two minutes.

The agency now want us to pay £45 because the stopcock was our fault, even though the plumber seemed to have been called out for a bath panel not a boiler, and the last person to touch the stopcock was the plumber himself, after coming five separate times to fix a leaky sink!

Is it really our responsibility to pay an incompetent odd-job man?

[Snorkerz]

I am afraid I can't quote you any law to verify this - but the answer is patently that you are not liable.

You did not close the stopcock - the landlords plumber did.
You can not be expected to know how to solve the boiler problem.

[Lieja]

Thanks Snorkerz, I wasn't sure if simple boiler repairs were classed as tenant-like behaviour! I'm sure the landlord isn't aware of how bad at his job this plumber actually is, and to him it must look like we're constantly breaking stuff.

[Snorkerz]

Thanks Snorkerz, I wasn't sure if simple boiler repairs were classed as tenant-like behaviour! I'm sure the landlord isn't aware of how bad at his job this plumber actually is, and to him it must look like we're constantly breaking stuff.Seems ironic that the plumber is charging for a call that was to fix something he'd done wrong. No one should pay for that call - no you, not the landlord.