Withholding rent on unliveable apartment

(Potsed this thred under legal advice before I saw this property forum - oops).

We have a water seepage problem under our floor boards since Augsut 2008 at which time our landlord sent over a contractor (one to suck up the water and one with an industrial heater to dry it up). Neither of these worked and the landlord has never fixed it despite repeated attempts to get them to come look again in the last 6 months. We see the place as unliveable with the walls crumbling from the rising damp in the main bedroom and part of the living room, floor boards are popping out everywhere, power outlets don't work in one room due to the rising damp and water continues to come up through the floor board cracks.


Finally we got the landlord to come back again last week and they themselves said that to fix it properly, they may need to move us and all our furniture out, to find the source of the leak and fix it. They even mentioned that this is the case if the place is unliveable and asked us not to use the ensuite in case the water is coming from there.


Does anyone know what rights we have as a tennant in this case? This has been the situation for 6 months - can we claim back any of that rent with the place being unliveable and the landlord not upholding their obligations or fixing the problem? Also, moving forward, do we have a right to withhold the rent until they fix it? We are concerned if we do hold back rent that they won't give us our bond back when we move one day. W


Advice please?

thanks for the advice and that is exactly what we have decided to do. We are moving to a bigger cheaper and better located place - its a renter's market out there and will be for a while it seems!

Oh gosh, is it possible you're currently living above me?


We've got a tenant above with a very similar situation to you, an offshore landlord who refuses to fix the seepage/leaks. It's now impacting on our apartment. Thankfully, our landlord has placed a temporary fix (re-plastered) while hassling the upstairs landlord.


Good to see you've found a better apartment. Out of curiosity, did you actually pay the last two months rental? Seems a little unfair as the conditions of your apartment appeared to be completely unacceptable.