Oil heating and incompetent Agent

[snakelady]

Good afternoon everyone

I stumbled across this forum while searching for help on google so maybe you guys are the ones to ask!

We have had a nightmare move.

Background - my partner is in the military and we had to relocate 200miles. We aren't married so not entitled to quarters.
We were given 35days notice of move!!!

So, with 13 days to go we find a fab place, bit expensive but we love it and we weren't having much luck with a property who would accept my pooch. Estate Agent wasn't very helpful over the phone, a family member viewed the house for us (as policy said it has to be viewed in person before deposit taken) and said we'd take it. Agent never held house for us and wasn't mentioned on system until I spoke to another employee.

All is paid for over the phone with 6 days left until we collect keys. We arrive. The oil tank for heating out the back reads 1/5th full. We think we are ok. We have never had oil heating before and don't know how to use it. Agent says he couldn't see to get reading for the inventry as it required a ladder.
We had other issues such as the place was dirty, which the agent stirred between us and landlord we later found out when we met him face to face.
Couldn't tell us when the bins were collected.
Couldn't tell us who we pay council tax to.
Couldn't tell us who the current energy suppliers were.
The list goes on and he was very rude about the above too.
As it turns out, because he didn't tell us how to use the heating system we didn't know we had to reset the optic on the tank. We only turned it on to shower and do dishes, otherwise it was turned off completely so we could preserve the '1/5th we had' as best as we could. We now have absolutely no oil left because on being shown by tenants upstairs to reset the optic after our water went cold, the tank is empty. We now have no hot water or heating and after spending 2K moving, we just can't afford the £250 for oil.

Where do we stand on this? As if we knew the tank was empty we would have cut back on other expenditures such as rugs for the laminate flooring so my dog's hips aren't hurt and possibly not moved in here at all.

Any help and advice is much appreciated!
Thank you in advance.

[MrJohnnyB]

There's no legal responsibility for LL to give you any heating oil when you moved in. In theory you will also have to return the property with the same amount of oil as when you took it. How large is the oil tank? Do you not have an immersion for hot water? I personally use immersion for water and just oil for CH.

I have oil fired heating system and use circa 1000 litres a year in a relatively small bungalow which is well insulated.

[snakelady]

There's no legal responsibility for LL to give you any heating oil when you moved in. In theory you will also have to return the property with the same amount of oil as when you took it. How large is the oil tank? Do you not have an immersion for hot water? I personally use immersion for water and just oil for CH.

I have oil fired heating system and use circa 1000 litres a year in a relatively small bungalow which is well insulated.

I'm not expecting the LL to provide oil, the Estate Agent didn't tell us how to use the tank which led to us not having any when we believed we did.
Nope, all heating, water and central is oil.

[MrJohnnyB]

They did not record you having any oil on your check in, I would say the only argument you may have was that there was some misrepresentation, but the overall outcome would be the difference in price of oil between the date you moved in and the date you realised you have no oil.

I am surprised that your hot water tank does not have an immersion, its pretty unusual.

[mind the gap]

I am struggling to understand why you think it is your landlord's/his agent's fault that you cannot afford to buy some heating oil on moving into a new property. Nor can I see why discovering an empty oil tank on move-in makes your move 'a nightmare' or would make you wish you hadn't signed the contract. Far worse and genuinely nightmarish things befall people on moving house, believe me. Your experience was more of a mildly irritating hiccup, I'd say.

You presumably knew (or should have asked) about the heating and oil situation before you took the tenancy. You also knew there would be laminate floors. Old blankets would have worked just as well as new rugs as far as your dog's hips are concerned and cost far less.

If money is that short, I suggest (seriously) that you re-home your dog or buy some convector heaters or some thermal underwear until you can afford oil.

Please don't take this the wrong way but as tenants go, you sound very needy. Your LL is probably already thinking of you as 'those nightmare tenants'.