maintenance charge

[Eun]

I'm not sure if this is the correct pkace to post this question but here goes - we live in a housing association house and my son R has a lot of adaptations (most of which I fought for to have installed).

All the equipment installed by the social work dept (hoist, clos o mat toilet etc) are regularly serviced for free. R's electric bed is serviced by the Health Board also for free.

My son's height adjustable electric sink in the bathroom is not working (making it very difficult for him to get washed and meaning that he can't clean his own teeth anymore).

The sink has never been serviced in the 9 years it has been installed and I pointed this out to the housing association when I telephoned to report it wasn't working.

They said that if it gets serviced or maintained they will put up the service charge on our rent to cover the cost - can they do this?

Regards

Eun

[Guest]

What does your tenancy or leasehold agreement say and are you already paying a service charge for the sink? It doesn't sound right to me, if they didn't impose a service charge when they installed the sink I don't see how they can now; if they did, as they've failed to service it for nine years surely they should refund the charge to date. I'm not sure if the DDA applies here, the access to goods and services sections might give you further rights.

[charles47]

I'm not sure what laws would apply in Scotland. But if the Housing Association installed the sink, I would have thought they are responsible for its servicing. If they have failed to service it they are probably in breach of contract. Failure to increase the service charge is not your fault - it's theirs - but I don't think they can justify it anyway. It may be worth talking to Shelter about this. They are generally pretty good on tenancy issues.

[Guest]

Hi there
I lived in Scotland for 10 qnd a half years for most of them in a purpose built bungalow. As far as i know they have to at least service it as I can be classed as unusable so it could be unsafe. These thins can have a short (i presume that it is electric) and the longer that something is not used the more it deriorates. My council were very goo in Scotland and replaced or repaired anything that went wronf or got broken. The thing that I found that usually gets things done is just keep on at them or threaten them with taking the issue to the papers. We did this an yo would not belive how fas the council moved to get a few outstanding repairs done. I wish you luck. Take Care Alison

[Eun]

Thanks everybody for the advice

The sink is not mentioned in our service charge details. They are charging us 75p for maintaining the hob (never maintained), 75p for the oven (never maintained - they waited until it packed up and gave us a new one). They charge us for communual lighting for areas we don't use and £8.95 a month for gardening (it takes a gardener 5 minutes or less to cut our tiny 4ft by 8ft patch of grass - I would not dignify it with the name of "garden".

The sink was installed by a specialist firm called Astor-Bannerman but the Housing Association sent out an ordinary electrician today who does not have a clue and doesn't think he can get the parts so my son is still without his sink - GRRR!!

[Eun]

Just giving an update on the sink situation - still not repaired!

However, we gave it an extra hard thump and that seems to have put the height down an inch or two which makes it the right height for my son to be able to clean his teeth.

Phoned the housing association who say it has now been passed to the firm who made the sink - the firm say they are waiting further word from the housing association - meanwhile we play piggy in the middle.

All the best

Eun