1st Sales and Lettings

My wife first went to view this property in question, she said she liked the location and the space but the property used to be a student let, which left its mark on the property. It was a 3 bedroom house. She booked another viewing to enable me see the property. The agent who was showing us around told us that the landlord would prefer to rent the property to a family as opposed to students, and because of this he reduced the rent from 900+ to 525/month, which made perfect sense. We told the agent that we liked the property but it clearly needed work (normal cosmetic work). He told us to point out the things that needed fixing and put them on a list and bring it to their 95 Allesley Old Road office in Coventry, which we did. They assured us that they will be done. They told us that the house was ready for us to move into after a couple of days and my wife pooled me from the office to go sign the agreement, pay and collect the keys. The mistake we made was not viewing the place before signing the agreement, paying 6 months rent up front and collecting the keys to the house. This was a serious oversight as we came to find out. On the day we were supposed to move, we walked into the house and the house was in unbelievable condition. Pictures are sometimes worth a thousand words, but the attached pictures cannot really show what the house looked and felt like. There were moulds in all the bedrooms, cracks on the walls, live wires, rotten windows, filthy carpet rotten kitchen cabinet, broken windows, damp walls, falling bathroom tiles, the door to one of the bedrooms was lying on the floor! And to add insult to injury the house wasn't even cleaned! In our desperate state we called a cleaning company to come clean the house from top to bottom so we can at least keep our things. They cleaning company came it and took pity on us, and told us that we shouldn't be paying them to clean the house and whoever gave us the keys to that house looking like that is a gladiator! We immediately contacted 1st lettings and even stopped moving to go to their office. We showed them the pictures of what he house looked like and she told us that the house was cleaned and confirmed by them. We told them we simply cannot move into that house with 2 babies, it is unsafe. They made us write everything in an email and they did nothing about all the complaint. After about 5 days were now in limbo, having paid for a house for 6 months and still in the old one nearing eviction. 1st Lettings never called us on the phone once, we were making all the phone calls. It got to a point and we told them we cannot live there anymore and we need our money back, it still didn't move them. I must have called a thousand times before I was put through to the "business owner" I told him in unflattering language that he is messing around with my family's life and that is the worst thing he can ever do to me. He is sitting pretty on our hard earned money and cannot afford to call us for 5 mins to resolve the issue. In his exact words "You can't change your mind after signing a contract and you cannot dictate to us, you viewed the house 2 times and you were OK with it, tell your lawyer to send me a message in writing". I told him I am not dictating to you in any way and the things that we are talking about are thing that you must take care of under the law. They are very basic things. I have never been this provoked to dangerous levels in my entire life, and I am a pretty easy going guy. I am going to spend extra money to make sure that this gladiator is brought to book and 1st Letting gets the bad reputation that they deserve.