Landlords as neighbours

No you are not. The agent acts for the landlord.

I would hate to live next door to my landlords. Our neighbour used to report to our landlord when we hadn't cut the grass in the time he deemed acceptable. And I thought that was too much!

sounds awful and they definitely will be checking up on you. We have a nearby landlord who still uses a garage directly next to ours, they live across the street, and any excuse to move things back and forth while having a nosey in the windows and gardens they do!

The reason most landlords prefer not to inform a tenant if they live close is so they aren't bothered day and night with jobs and complaints. They want you to be able to go through the agency/estate agent for that without knowing they are there. So I wouldn't take offence it's definitely not creepy as people are saying. Landlords have he right to their privacy and some tenants can be a handful that's why they pay a comp at to manage them. So they are dealing with as little as possible.

I had something similar! I was looking a for a 1 bed apartment and found an amazing one in a block of 4. I really loved it and was amazed to find out that the landlord had chosen me out of another 5 applications to rent (crazy Bristol rental market). On the day I came to get the keys the landlord came to give them to me and gave all his contact details along with the paperwork. He then proceeded to say that if I did have any problems and couldn't get in touch with him I could knock on the flat below mine or the flat next to mine as his 2 sons lived in the building. I was really shocked!! Fortunately all worked out and they were a lovely family but I was definately a bit worried if I ever had friends or my boyfriend over. Should definately have been disclosed in my opinion.

I lived in a top floor apartment of a ‘three family home’ in NYC for eight years. The tenants in the two apartments below me never knew that I was their landlord. I don’t think it would have served any of us well. They paid their rent to an agency and the property was owned by my company. I understand it from the landlords perspective but I probably wouldn’t have been inclined to disclose the information after the event.

I have a close friend who had neighbours is this situation. They chose not to disclose as they didn’t want tenant hassling them and wanted any issues to go through proper channels. They wanted the privacy. They picked you - so well done you passed their test. If you like the house forget it. If you feel they are overstepping the mark - look for somewhere new and once you move tell the agency why. If you like the house but they hassle you- put them straight they aren’t allowed to do so. And take it up with letting agency. I rented for a while and my landlord always gave me notice if anyone was coming round to eg service boiler. He didn’t even bother doing 6 month inspection- I assume whoever did the service told him house was well looked after. He was a great landlord and to be fair I was a great tenant

How did it come out that they were your landlords? I find it strange that they would ask it not to be disclosed and then tell you anyway.

My MIL once owned a house that was on our street that she rented out, managed by an agency, once the tenant found out who we were they were knocking on our door at all hours for this and that. We had a dog that barked when someone knocked on the door, a toddler and I was pregnant with number 2 but they seemed to think it was perfectly reasonable to come to us rather than contact the agent no matter how many times we told them to. The man could be very reactive (though the woman was lovely) and being home on my own during the day on my own I didn't feel comfortable with this. For this reason I would ask the agent to do the same thing, which is why I think it would be strange they would just go ahead and tell you anyway.

YABU. You don’t have a right to know your landlords live next door.

Oh that's awful, I'd hate that too. As others have said I guess it depends on how the landlady is as a person, hopefully she just wants a quiet life and to be left alone, and will do the same in return. How did you find out she was the landlady by the way, did she tell you?

The landlords name and address should be on the tenancy agreement, so you should have had an opportunity to see this info before you signed the tenancy agreement and were committed?

They don’t. All that needs to be listed is address of their agent and one to serve notices too.

Yeah they should have stayed inside I think. For what it is worth ours live behind us and it's fine

Lived next to LL for about 3 years. We were a bunch of 20 something single women, plenty of parties, late nights. Not once did it bother them. The house was leased to us (same group of friends) for about 10 years in total, we’d come and go but a new friend would take the vacated room. We were good tenants, clean tidy, paid rent on time, fixed things ourselves. They even decided not to increase the rent when we said we couldn’t afford it. They were an older couple raising their young grandchild. They knew they could have got way more rent by evicting us but I think they liked having us next door. The only time we saw them was when the husband did our lawns.

We never once contacted them as landlords, yes we popped over to borrow a screw driver but anything property related went via the agents.

Your landlord has to disclose their residential address on the tenancy agreement. What address for your landlord was given on your agreement?

As per other comments, Tenants Fees were abolished in England in 2019:

Tenant Fees Act - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

So if you've paid an admin fee, you need to make it very clear to them in writing that they need to immediately refund it, quoting this legislation.

In terms of who the agent work for, they work for the LL, not the tenants. Their loyalties should be with the LL. The LL had every right to ask the agent not to disclose that they were next door, particularly if the agent will be fully managing the property, as no LL wants tenants knocking on their door constantly for non-urgent repairs/maintenance.

I understand how you feel about meeting them unknowingly today, but they have a large investment to protect and they obviously had no qualms about you, or else they wouldn't have agreed to let the property to you. As long as neither of you become intrusive toward the other party, I don't see what the issue is here.

I actually have a bad experience with this (funnily enough also in Yorkshire). We went to view the property and loved it so we went ahead. We found out a few days after moving in that it was a very click-y street (only 8 houses). The neighbours left a note on the door to say we’d love to get to know you add us on Facebook type thing. Anyway it turns out the landlords have just moved out of the house and the neighbours were all friends and used to text them ‘oh there’s a dog in the garden’ and they’d say yes that’s been approved ‘for the last 2 nights there’s been another car on the drive’ we got asked in convo with the landlord who had been visiting and I told them it was my brother visiting from out of town.
it just got too much, we CONSTANTLY felt watched, whenever we went for drinks at a neighbours our landlords were there so we ended up isolating ourselves (they were lovely but always asked questions about the house, ‘oh we never our bed there’ type comments) and it was awkward when we had reported problems and they hadn’t gotten back to us after a few days but were next door having drinks 🥴
We ended up moving out…

Twat I meant, he was an absolute TWAT

We had the landlords BOSS as a neighbour!!.he was an absolute that too, I'm sure he offered our landlord a parish if he evicted us

Sort of same position…but I looked up the owner on land registry before viewing (it was on open rent and I suspected was a scam) so I knew. And honestly the nicest landlords and neighbours I’ve ever had. I certainly wouldn’t be put off by this. It’s in their interest to keep you happy as if they don’t they’ll soon know about it. I think it’s a great thing. Compared to previous landlords who’ve avoided me / shirked responsibilities/ left me waiting for basics (locking me out / heating not working etc etc

I would probably look for somewhere else for the end of this tenancy

YaNBU to be annoyed about this and if you've paid the agent fees I would complain to them. Everyone knows full well that you would prefer to know if your LL was living next door. If someone dies in the property they are obliged to tell you. Was their address not on the tenancy agreement you signed?

Especially since they spoke to you under false pretences. You thought oh great friendly neighbours when really they were just snooping.

I don't see why they ever told you. Surely they either want to keep it quiet so you never know and its not awkward or they are upfront about it. Telling you after the fact is very strange behaviour, almost like they are warning you to behave.

YANBU. I lived in a flat with the landlords living above us. I hated it. They were perfectly nice people but I felt unable to relax and they absolutely did raise small issues that wouldn’t have bothered other neighbours but I didn’t feel able to point out anything we considered unreasonable as I would have with a normal neighbour. Also, we once tried to raise an issue with them about noise and it was brushed off and we couldn’t push it because they owned our flat.

Obviously see how it goes because everyone is different (it didn’t bother my DH as much as me, for example) but make sure there is a break clause in the contract and keep an eye out for other properties, just in case!

I think it is likely to be less them wanting to watch what you are up to than just not wanting their tenants to have too convenient a way to ask for things. If they use an agent they want that detachment.

Our landlord is our neighbour and they are lovely, they are no problem. We rented our house and we rented a bigger one. We discovered it was the neighbour who was the landlord after but they are lovely. The rental is actually through an agency so anything is through them really, occasionally we'll ask them directly about stuff like when we for a dog. Also when they had to put the rent up they spoke to us first. Our kids go to scouts together and it's really nice. The other thing I would say I'm more conscious about reporting anything that's broken but that's just me.