To think being a tenant is an absolute misery

I've just had a quick look on Rightmove. Where many of my houses are there are currently 132 houses up for sale under £250k. Absolutely housing associations should be buying some of these up but they don't. The other area I have btl houses there are in fact 234 3 bedroom currently houses up for sale on Rightmove for up to £150k. Nobody or nothing is stopping councils or HA from buying these houses. Yet you think they would buy my houses 🤷. Can you explain why they would buy my houses but not other houses on the market for the same prices I bought mine for? I'm not stopping anyone from buying a house in these areas. What I am doing is housing families who maybe can't afford a deposit or don't have the salary multipliers needed to buy. The rents I charge do make me a small profit but they are not much higher than local rent allowances. They are bought interest only and I'm making a slow but steady capital gain over time.

@caringcarer I would like to see a system whereby homeowners could either rent long term or sell their houses to effectively the government/ housing association wherever. Either at or just below market rate, guaranteed quick sale no hassle. The housing stock then could be put on long term leases to those who need them. Or could be sold through a rent to buy scheme. It would also give variety and choice to the housing stock rather than 'council estates'.

I'd like to see this type of rental become the norm. With no attachment that currently exists in living in a council house!

Private rental for those who want more luxurious accommodation or more choice could then be in addition to the standard housing association rents.

Yes I had this experience too when we had to move out temporarily. It really opened my eyes to how horrible it is. The no pictures rule, the inspections, the lag to get anything fixed.
Landlord turning up at the door unannounced... our agent was really lovely though thankfully.
Oh and the shockingly high rents.

Yes it's totally screwed.

I also wish there were more housing accommodation houses. I find it really hard when I put a house on to the market. The EA gets their details and often there are 25 or so candidates wanting the house within 3 or 4 days of it going on the market. Because my houses are mostly 3 bedrooms candidates usually have a couple of kids. I look at their applications and honestly out of every 25 applications 20 seem absolutely fine to me. I would happily rent to any of them. I have to only pick one though. Then EA rings others and tells them they are unsuccessful. I've even had a couple of times tenants going back to EA offering more rent or several months of rent upfront. Very often they tell EA they have a DC in a local school so need to get the house as they don't want to have to move their DC to a different school. I hate having to say no to them. I get angry the council should be buying more houses and refurbishing them for families not leaving it to private LL's to do their job.

Tbh @caringcarer you would disagree because you're a landlord! My point is you shouldn't be allowed to be! It should be run professionally by large housing associations.
Ultimately it comes down to greed sadly! Having a safe secure place to live at an affordable price should be a basic right not something for the privileged to gain inflated profits from.

I do agree with tenants with cats because I like cats

🙄

I am grateful every day that I don't have a landlord anymore.

I think the LL has every right to stipulate conditions of contract. If they don't want DC or pets they have the right to stipulate this. The tenant has the right not to rent from them if they don't like the terms on offer. The contract is an agreement of terms. Most LL's do accept DC and pictures on walls. Some pets destroy properties so I can well understand some LL's not wanting pets in their properties. I've allowed 2 tenants 1 small dog but not from the outset. Only once I know they are keeping the house nice do I agree. I do agree with tenants with cats because I like cats. If someone works but gets a UC top up I accept them as tenants. I don't accept tenants who do not work at all as they don't pass finance checks.

When I private rented I didn't know that my landlord was friendly with one of the neighbours. Didn't matter what I did the landlord found out

Barbecues, kids parties etc..

Getting messages from the landlord that the grass was too long or the hedge needed trimming 🙄 because that neighbour was complaining, I moved.

@TheCadoganArms and I do kind of understand the inspections , although my agent never calls it that- just says can I pop round at your convenience just to check all is going well for you - because at one point we lived next door to a house that had indeed been used for a cannabis factory and this was a big modern 3 storey 4 bed semi - not some run down flea pit. You could have knocked me down with a feather, although I did find it odd that we never saw the neighbours!!

Yeah. I really don't think I'd have anxiety or depression if I either a. Owned my home or b. Had a council house.

I've never been late for a rent payment in 10 years but knowing that landlord can give me 30 days notice at anytime has caused me to feel insecure all that time

I'm determined to buy a house this year

I've been a Landlady for 20 years.
The appalling audacity of the tenants, the constant anxiety as for what's gonna get destroyed, what bills they gonna run up, what's going on in my properties...
The inspections are an absolute necessity, but
you are right, it's hell.
At least I don't have to work.

The rules on landlords need to be much tougher!
None of this no children, no pets, no benefits, no pictures on the walls rules.
Standard Tenancy terms should be much longer term years not months.
If you only want short term tenants it must be advised as such.
Inspections should be no more than annual and only for maintenance purposes. No photos of tenants or their possessions.
Housing associations should be the norm and not individual landlords. Even if owned by individuals they should be managed on a professional manner not on the whims of the landlord.

Being a tenant was the worst time of my life.
First one blocked me in and pinned me up against the wall because I was 24hrs late paying the rent - due to being in an RTA and in hospital. Second I was harassed stalked and intimidated by landlord and his wife. Landlords wife ended up in prison as she viciously assaulted the next tenant they had and was done for GBH. Third was a dick who kicked me out because I couldn't afford a 50% rent increase yet refused to do anything about the state of the house I was in. I still rent now but from family and this is my home.

Also from experience, this sounds spot on.

Or just some young lad in his first job?

From experience, I'm guessing the 19 year old estate agent may be a smarmy little tick who lords it over the OP and thinks they know everything. Just a guess.

Absolutely! She had to tell the neighbours incase they went under their floors too I get that, but she obviously didnt want to admit that her negligence keeping up the outside was the cause so she thought she'd just paint us as bograts and throw us under the bus. 🙄

I think you have hit the crux of the issue. As alluded to above I used to work (many moons ago) in the property market and have witnessed first hand the scumbag behaviour of both landlords and tenants.

I have seen landlords try and micro manage tenants and make ludicrous deposit deductions for blown lightbulbs and for insignificant reasonable wear and tear. I have also seen tenants leave properties in a state that can be only described as outright vandalism (plasterboard walls that have been kicked through, porcelain sinks broken, furniture destroyed) or skip town not paying the last months rent knowing full well the deposit will not cover the missing rent and the damage they have caused.

The frequency of the latter issue is why deposits went from one months rent to two or more. Decent landlords want peace and quiet and the only way they achieve that is if they rent out a property that is legally compliant and in a good well maintained condition so that the tenant does not need to contact them every other week to complain that something is not working.

I've rented my whole adult life from 18-46, never experience anything mentioned so I feel perhaps I've been very lucky or you've been really unlucky.

These agent's charge a fortune to "manage" properties and landlords want to know they're actually getting some value for money for said management. I'd be inclined to demonise the agents rather than landlords per se. Absolute parasites and cretins, constantly taking from all involved.

I rented long term in a shit hole of a tiny flat. I couldn’t afford to move and rent nicer or buy.

It was only when I met my now spouse that I got on the housing ladder.

Renting was awful, I was made to feel like a second class citizen. Throwaway comments like ‘oh are you still renting’. Filling forms in, having to tick ‘rented’. I recall once at The Good Food shown in London filling in a survey, the person asked in a certain type of manner ‘are you a homeowner or just renting’. She lost me at just.

A shite landlord whose sole amount of repair work over 14 years was to stick some drawing pins (yep) in wallpaper that came away from the ceiling (yep) due to a flood in the bathroom above (another grotty flat he let out). Gas fires that were condemned and not replaced for weeks. The electric was on a meter, 50ps originally and then overnight he changed it to pound coins. Nightmare if you ran out and didn’t have any. No shower, so expensive baths. He came round whenever he wanted, rent was paid in cash, so every Saturday he’d knock the door and within 5 seconds let himself in to get his money.

It truly was a very low point, I was trapped there, hated it but couldn’t escape. ,

The other thing with the pets situation is
this landlord may be fine with it, but the next may not.

so now you get 2 months notice to find a home, that’s suitable, within budget, within catchment AND let’s you have your beloved pet.

over heard her telling the neighbours we had mice as if it was our fault, I was so angry

you are so looked down on and judged for being “just the renters”.

I know what you mean, OP. We rented a flat for a year while between houses and the whole experience was shit. It feels especially shit when you were previously living in your own home.

We used a big national letting agent chain and the processes were horrendous. It felt like we were having to justify our mere existence to the letting agents! I know you've copped some flack for mentioning the agents age, but to be honest I get what you mean. When you are a 40+ year old hard working professional who is used to living in their own home, probably have management responsibilities at work, responsible for multiple million pound projects, etc, etc, and you are then having someone who has just left school and has no life experience judge whether you are fit to rent a crappy flat or not! It takes the piss. The flat we ended up in was grimy, and we ended up leaving it in a better state than we found it. But they still make you feel like every tiny thing that's wrong with it is your fault, because you are a tenant and therefore you must be an idiot!

For balance, I've been a landlord for a brief spell and we just left our tenants to live in peace in a house that we handed over to them absolutely spotless.

We rented a 1950's house in a lovely street, a street I'd always dreamed of living in, we were really happy there for the few months, looking back I was really naive and when we moved in I spotted a few mouse traps in dark corners and silly old me assumed it was a precaution, no the house had a family of mice living beneath the suspended floors.

I started noticing clothes were getting random holes in them, woke up one day to a hole in the basket under my pram, still didn't click. It wasn't untill we were sat watching tv one night and a mouse ran past our feet that we called the letting agency.

over heard her telling the neighbours we had mice as if it was our fault, I was so angry it was clearly an on going issue as id seen the traps when we moved in, she was trying to insinuate it was cleanliness issue, even though she always commended us on how clean the house was. So glad we don't rent anymore!

and when the pest control guy came to fix it he told us it was because the house wasn't being maintained externally e.g vents didn't have the proper mesh coverings, and someone has literally knocked a brick out to fit the tv wire, giving mice an easy access route. Pricks

@heretodestroyyou, if you want communism why not go to live in a communist country?

You have little choice in accepting the terms when there’s a shortage within budget that’s suitable for your family, within the catchment of the school your kids go to.

again. I’m not saying the landlord is wrong for adding those terms. It’s their prerogative as the owner of the business