Management Company refusing to get boiler serviced & I'm the landlord! Help!

[mrso'brien]

I am a landlord and in early July my previous tenants vacated the property. I have had new tenants since the end of July.
I immediately contacted my management company and requested that a service on the gas boiler be carried out prior to the new tenants moving in. This never happened and I have been hounding the management company since to do it.
Literally once every 2 weeks I have been on to them requesting them to confirm that it has been done and asking them to send me on the certification for same from the person who carried out the service.
Initially they said that the new tenant (the present tenant) wished for the service to take place when he was there and that they would wait until he moved in to do it....even though I requested them to do it BEFORE he moved in. However, since then, they have said that they are having trouble getting access to the apartment to get the gas boiler service done. They keep saying things like "He doesn't understand us as he has very little English".
I have been on to the management company many, many times asking them to do this. My husband phoned them 2 weeks ago and told them that it is a health and safety issue and that it had better be done by the end of the week. Since then I have not heard a thing from the management company and I have emailed them this morning asking them (yet again) to confirm that it has been done and to please forward me certification for same.
I am just wondering if, God forbid, something happens the tenant and something goes wrong with the gas boiler. I don’t want to be held responsible for something happening as a result of the gas boiler not being serviced. It hasn’t been serviced in a number of years. I am trying everything possible to get the boiler serviced. I live at the opposite end of the country to the apartment so I have the management company engaged for the last number of years to manage the property on my behalf.
Please don’t tell me to ‘fire’ the management company. I don’t have the money at the moment to be changing management companies and this company has one of the best reputations (although I would wonder how this is possible given the current circumstances!) with regards to managing property.
If something happened would I be able to show that I did everything reasonably practicably to get the boiler serviced and that the agency has been fobbing me off and not doing what I requested? Have they the right to tell the tenant that the boiler has to be done and he had better let them in? He has signed a lease and I am sure there is something there to say he must allow repairs as necessary to be carried out. Advice please as I am worried about this. Thanks

 

[birdy]

Can you clarify, is it the letting agent you have employed that you want to organise the service of the boiler. Because I don't think it is the responsibility of the manangment company in an apartment block to do so.

 

[Bronte]

Can you arrange yourself to have the boiler serviced?

 

[mrso'brien]

Yes to clarify. I own the property-I am the landlord. I have asked the letting agent who manages the property for me to arrange to have the boiler serviced.
They keep fobbing me off for 3 months now saying 'It'll be done next week' and so on....
If they didn't want to do it or told me it was not their responsibility then I would have organised it myself. They quoted me 150Euro in June to get it done through them and since then have been fobbing me off.
I don't deal with my tenant directly, all correspondance is through my letting agent so I feel it should be them (and they agreed and quoted me a price to do it!!!) who does it! They have agreed to do it but just won't do it and keep saying they will and fobbing me off! It's infuriating!!!

 

[oldnick]

Yes, yes very annoying. They should have done it. They haven't-and you won't change letting agents. So you must do it. What other suggestion could there be ?

 

[NOAH]

What you do, is get make of gas boiler, ring manufacturers and get a local name of an engineer, ring engineer for quote, if you know the mobile no of tenant give that to engineer or name of letting agent. A good engineer will do the necessary. As for maintaining the existing letting agency???? and deduct the cost of the service from their bill. And by the way a letting agency that does not do a simple task like ringing a boiler engineer would be very very and I mean very low on my interpretation of the word BEST, the word AWFUL springs to mind and do they really do anything you cant do yourself!!