An American in Britain

No, our landlord issues have not gone away.  Our previous landlord issues remain unresolved, and we fear we may have others looming ahead.  However, that’s not something we can control and we will only be affected indirectly.  If that should amount to anything, I’ll be sure to mention it.

But, getting back to our previous landlord.  He has been an obstacle to getting the bills resolved.  And now he has conveniently gone on holiday.  But while he thinks he can escape his problems, we feel we have finally made some progress and have confidently swung the ball back in his court.

After many weeks of phone calls to the estate agents, to no avail, we put in a dispute.  I had forewarned them of it, so before they were forced to do anything, the agents sent us a partial refund of our deposit.  They’re still holding an amount equivalent to two-and-a-half times what we believe we owe on the water bill.  Despite knowing how much we used, neither they nor the landlord can figure out what we owe.  They seem to think they need to get all the bills and decide our portion.  I will be searching around the internet and make complaints on some landlord/estate agent forums.  No one should ever be put through the misery of working with any of these people. 

And the electric company finally came up with a figure that we can agree on, but it’s questionable whether the landlord will accept.  The figure given to us is just a little over what we had offered and he had turned it down.  Now, we have both the electric company and the estate agent agreeing to it, so if he won’t agree, we may have to take legal action.  We could have had this resolved sooner had the electric company agreed to look back at previous usage by the landlord as we had requested.  They finally did so, and came up with the figures.  Our portion is rather generous (all but the landlord will agree); however, we are willing to be generous just to get this resolved.

We do not have the ready cash to hire a lawyer.  We are also not the litigious type.  We have sought advice from the Citizen’s Advice Bureau several times, but they cannot give legal advice.  However, they do offer Legal Aid, a free legal service to those who are impoverished.  You have to be below a certain income level to qualify, and we do not.

We had tried the third party negotiation through the estate agent and it had not been going well.  Our next step was to go to an ombudsman.  There are several around – The Property Ombudsman (for estate agents) and the government Housing Ombudsman (for landlords).  However, they all want a protracted formal dispute process going through other channels first; i.e., through the landlord’s and agents’ in-house complaints procedures.  The ombudsman could take up to a year.

We have RAC membership and my husband knew he could get legal advice on motoring issues through the RAC.  So, he asked them about other legal services.  We were told that for an additional 15GBP for year, we could get legal advice on all other issues.  He was reluctant to join because it sounded like many of those internet services where you make an offer for advice and the advice will vary depending on how much you were willing to pay.  After exhausting all other avenues, we finally signed up for the RAC legal aid.  It sounds even better than we thought.  The advice comes from real practicing lawyers and if they take your case, they will even represent you in court.  All this is included.  They’ve given us a two-week trial and if we don’t use it, we can cancel it.

We called the lawyers first thing and they told us to start with EDF, the electric company.  It was funny because I was writing a letter to EDF while my husband had them on the line.  He repeated what the lawyers had advised us, and they denied any responsibility.  At that point, my husband called OfGem, the electric utilities ombudsman, who made a note of the complaint.  Shortly after, EDF called back and gave us a figure for what they felt we owed.  It was as if the call to the lawyers had set a string of events in motion.

If things work out well, we may not need the legal service after all and can cancel it.  However, given their usefulness, we may decide to try it out for a year.  It’s like having a lawyer on retention for only 15GBP a year.

Wow!  It’s been a while since I posted.

My hours were supposed to be 9-5, but there’s no 9-5 about it.  Paperwork was rushed through so that I could start on the agreed date.  It’s a good thing I’m only working 4 days a week.

Unfortunately, last Friday was taken up with clearing out of the old house.  Still some unfinished business, but after threatening legal action, I think the agents are  starting to see our side.  It also helped that a couple of them have already come out to see it and have exclaimed in disgust at the conditions we were forced to live in.  Then it was our daughter’s last gymnastics meet last weekend, followed by another hectic work week.  So, I am finally back to post about my time in Britain.

I’ve had loads of things I wanted to say, but I’ve forgotten most of it.  However, I do want to comment on my mode of travel these days.  I’ve been taking the trains in to work.  It actually works out less costly than if I were to drive (that is, if I ever get a chance to practice for my exam).  The most inconvenient thing, of course, is to live by the train schedule.  It can be tricky as well when the work days are so variable that you never know when you’ll finish, so you don’t know which train is best.

In my first week, I just had to go with the flow.  But, by the end, I managed to get a rough idea of the timetables from a couple different stations.  The one closest to work is rather small, so there are fewer trains that stop there.  So, some days, I have to walk an extra mile to get to the next station.  I may have to get creative with the routes I take.  It may mean that I also have to walk further at the house end.

It’s such a novel thing for me to commute to work via public transport.  I know that in big cities in the US, people do it all the time, but I never lived in those cities.  It’s more common in the UK, even in the smaller towns.  Given the state of the roads these days, I’m surprised not to see more people doing it.

Of course, you start to notice the regulars on the train as well.  It’s a bit of a surprise for me to find large groups of students travelling from one town to another to attend school – a state school, not a private one.  It makes me wonder about the availability of schools.  Which reminds me, the deadline for secondary school admission is next week – better get going on that.

One of the difficulties of living in a country where they drive on the other side of the road is remembering which way to look for oncoming traffic.  Of course, you look both ways, but when you cross into the middle, you need to know which side to watch.  I am starting to adjust.  However, my problem now is always remembering “the other side of the road”.

When I first came here, I used to remind myself that I have to look the opposite way that I was used to.  I have become adjusted to being a passenger on the left side and seeing cars going down the left side of the road.  However, that reminder still pops into my head, and now it’s gotten to the point where I am looking to the opposite of the opposite and I have to stop and really think it through.  It becomes very frustrating, especially because sometimes you have a very narrow opportunity for crossing the road.  (Though most places have crosswalks, sometimes it’s too far out of your way to cross there.)

I don’t know when I’ll have adjusted enough to just take it for granted that I am looking in the right direction.  Sometimes, I see people, whom I consider natives, who make the same mistakes.  Of course, they might also be foreigners, or they might just be careless/forgetful.

It’s taken almost a year for me to get to this point.  And I’m not even driving.  It’s so appropriate that I bring up this topic today because the people of Samoa are about to experience what I’ve experienced this past year.  Only, they will all experience it collectively and will have to adjust in a shorter time period.

The people in Samoa have to make the switch from right-hand driving to left-hand driving in one day – today.  They will have a two-day holiday to get people adjusted.  Some critics are complaining about the lack of preparation, with the roads (not to mention the people) not being ready for the change, and the resultant increase in car crashes.  I really feel for them.  I can’t imagine what would happen if the UK were to ever decide to switch like that.  Since Samoa is many hours ahead of us, I wonder how things went over there today.