Hello, thanks for your message and very sorry to hear about this, I hope you are recovering well?
Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 provides for certain circumstances when a landlord has a duty to repair a property and, when they do not do so, damages or compensation can be recovered by the tenant. The landlord does have a duty to ensure that the home he provides is fit to live in pursuant to the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018. Fit to live in means that they are safe, healthy and free from things that could cause serious harm. If rented houses and flats are not ‘fit for human habitation’, tenants can take their landlords to court. You can also report the landlord to your local council which you can locate here https://www.gov.uk/find-local-council
If you have problems with the estate agency you should consider reporting the matter to the redress scheme. Every agency should belong to one of two redress schemes. They are The Property Ombudsman https://www.tpos.co.uk/ and The Property Redress Scheme https://www.theprs.co.uk/ To find out which one they belong to, please ask them, or check on their website. You will need to first write a letter of complaint directly to them. If they do not respond or ignore you, I would suggest you escalate the complaint to the redress scheme above. The redress schemes are free and are designed to resolve disputes without the need to go to court.
But if you indeed wanted to take court action against then what you would need to do is write them a formal “Letter Before Action”. In this letter you will need to state the amount you are seeking to recover and the reasons why. You will also need to give them a deadline to raise the payment by, usually it is 14 days in which to receive payment.
If payment is not received within 14 days, then you will need to issue a claim against them in the small claims court. You can do this by visiting this site https://www.gov.uk/make-money-claim
Or you can do it by post by using form N1 which you can find here Form N1: Make a claim against a person or organisation (Claim form CPR Part 7) - GOV.UK and posting it to:
County Court Money Claims Centre
PO Box 527
Salford
Greater Manchester
M5 0BY
I attach a template letter you can use, please feel free to edit and tailor it to your needs.
I hope this helps and wish you well. Thank you again for visiting JustAnswer, please let me know if you need me to clarify anything or if you have any additional questions. I am happy to help.