To think being a tenant is an absolute misery

They are not inspecting how they are living their lives! I usually went out when I had flat inspections, but on the odd occasion I was there they were literally in and out in a few minutes. They walked to the doorway of each room, took a photo, had a look out the windows, and that was it.

Well peoples definition of 'reasonable decision' varies considerably. That small cute French bulldog is fine until the owner leaves it at home all day and it gets bored and distressed so starts barking and chewing on furniture. Those couple of gerbils are fine until the owners stop cleaning out the hutch and the place stinks of piss. Etc. Having worked in the property industry I can with confidence say that for every crap unscrupulous landlord there is a crap dishonet tennent. I tried to avoid both as they are both nightmares.

To be honest OP it sounds like you signed up to a really crap contract OP. What you describe is not the norm.

Well that's a big difference isn't it, in England you are still responsible for council tax, you aren't responsible for maintenance but for many many people actually getting the LL to do anything is like pulling hen's teeth, and many will block you from pets, pictures, etc because there is an expectation that you don't treat it like your home. The OP's letting agent has a constant reminder of the countdown until the end of the tenancy for exactly this reason, and the same reason certain types of people like to talk about "rented accomodation" rather than "rented home". We've regressed to a form of feudalism.

Me too! Hated that feeling. Also ea could come in any time. I know they meant to give 24 hours notice but we found one once in looking in my underwear drawer. Again reported...a well known London ea but nothing done.

Yes it was awful. We escaped the rent trap now but over 12 years of hell. Our first attempt to buy a flat a landlord bought it instead of us (unbeknown to us estate agent was dishonest and at point of exchange told us it been sold the night before...we did report them but got no where). I hope to never rent again but it feels me with fear. The stories I could tell you. Saying that we had one amazing landlord and I will always be grateful to him. I wrote and thanked him. We were buying and it was taking longer and he agreed to go monthly until we exchanged. Such a nice man. We always paid on time and left our the places spotless and got full deposit back each time.

Unless it's a mutant hamster it's hardly going to wreck the house? People should be able to make reasonable decisions about their life without rubbing it past a landlord.

I assume the 19 year old part comes from having a teenager (barely an adult) inspect how they are living their lives as adults.

In many parts of the country there are so many more renters than homes to rent that you take the shitty letting agent terms as written or you sleep in your car.

I’ve been a landlord for 15 years and I never do inspections. I recently went into a property to fix something (tenant of 10 years - I’ve only put their rent up twice) and it was seriously untidy, but I figure that’s the tenants issue. My properties are better looked after than my home as I do repairs straight away though getting tradespeople can be a pain.

I’m quite happy for tenants to redecorate though I was less than thrilled by the one who painted around furniture and left it like that when they moved out.

surely you can only put up rent once a year??

in places like Spain tenants have to pay for a lot of their own repairs plus replace appliances themselves - my friend just had to pay for a new boiler. So, it’s not brilliant in a lot of places sadly, not just the UK.

I have rented for years and could not afford to buy the house I live in. Rent has increased by only just over 10% in over a decade and I have pets and redecorate regularly. And when something needs fixing, it's not my problem.

As for inspections, I don't understand what the issue is. No one is judging how clean or tidy your house is, just that there is no damage, and they take only a few minutes. Whether the agent lives with his parents or not he is capable of seeing if any damage has been caused.

If the OP’s experience was anything like mine (over and over) then they didn’t have any choice-you get to a point of desperation where you have to accept any conditions

I had a landlord who used to let himself in but he said it was ok because he let me know - yes by texting once he was at the door, and going in even if I was out! I hated that bloke. Also the letting agents who completely changed their attitude towards me when they found out I was looking for a house to buy and wasn’t the skint single mum they thought I was. Parasites the lot of them!

It can be dire. My DD experienced 3 sets of terrible landlords in 2 years in London. One simply refused to do any repairs, the second refused to admit there was an issue with raw sewage coming into the flat from the upstairs neighbour. The third put the rent up 20% after 6 months.

But I also have 2 friends who are landlords and they are brilliant at it, and respect their tenants.

It seems to be luck which is outrageous when you are considering that these are peoples' homes that we are discussing.

I rented for many years in three different countries and it was a real mixed bag. I'd say the only consistent thing is that any landlord I've ever had will inevitably fix or replace anything in the cheapest crappiest way possible. On the whole I didn't mind renting as it meant I could be flexible moving around when I had had enough of somewhere. I finally bought a house when I had found somewhere I wanted to put down roots, and I very much enjoy the differences in home ownership, from being able to make home improvements, to being able to hang pictures. I do not miss inspections, but they did force me to clean the house properly! But the best thing about owning over renting is that, aside from interest rate changes, your mortgage decreases in real terms over time, while rents (generally) only go up. Where I live there is a huge housing shortage and rents have gone through the roof since we bought (as have house prices) and I am very grateful that we aren't at the mercy of a rising market any more.

So what? They are just doing the job they are paid to do. Do you think there should be a law saying that a property manager shouldn't be under 50. What strange notions some of you have.

I rent and thankfully that's not my experience. We've only had one inspection and one increase in the past 10 years. This 100% feels like my home. I think there are good landlords and equally awful ones. We pay several hundred pounds under market value but we've also put a fair bit of money into the house -new floors etc.

We've been landlords too. Our tenant never had their rent increased in the 7 years she was there and she paid well under market value because she was a good friend and didn't earn a lot of money. The peace of mind that she was looking after our property was worth it.

Sorry your having such an awful experience.

Yes it’s shit OP. Unless you’re young and fancy free (and even then you’ll likely be ripped off, landlords keeping deposits etc). If you’re older
or have a child or children or ill health it’s even worse. Having to keep moving, inflated rents, tenancy fees, demands for Guarantors, sub-standard housing, useless or unscrupulous or aggressive letting agencies … I could go on.

It’s also amazing the shocking state of many places that landlords are happy to rent out where I live in the south. They have no pride or respect, it’s just a money making exercise. I was shown places you wouldn’t keep a dog.

I had one decent private landlord in all that time, a vicars widow. She was so lovely and also relaxed. It was far from a palace, but ok and she didn’t charge the earth.

I live in a HA flat now. The estate is a bit rough unfortunately so it’s far from perfect, but at least I don’t have the extra expense, constant hassle and insecurity of private renting.

We haven't rented for 14 years, but I used to feel very rootless and homesick, and regularly pig out on junk food, and remember the DAY that we picked up the keys to our own flat, I felt settled for the first time and all of that stopped.
For someone with my personality type, I need to know a property is 'mine' and I can make any changes I like and not get booted out at a moments notice.
I'm don't imagine all renters feel like me about it though.

My son and dil rent . They will never own a home and they don’t want too . They do not feel inferior to anyone else . As a matter of fact they love it . They don’t need to pay land rates , insurance, pay for any maintenance and they don’t want to be tied down . Not in England so tenants here can have pets and pictures on the wall too . They disagree with your post entirely.

No I completely disagree, these insecurities lie with you, I have rented and never ever felt this way.

In my experience it's the difference between renting through a letting agency or not. We had an excellent landlord for 5 years- after the first year he asked if we wanted to deal with him directly and ditch the agent and we agreed. He didn't put the rent up in 5 years, got all repairs done almost immediately, and returned the deposit in full. A good bloke, who just wanted to make a reasonable amount of money from his property.

It was then a bit of a shock when we moved to a different town, had to pay significantly more rent for a tiny flat than we had for the previous house, and had to be inspected every few months. We had endless hassle with a rental washing machine they had installed which kept breaking down. Plus when we moved out (in a rush, the day lockdown started) they charged me £20 to put up some curtains I'd taken down and had cleaned but didn't get round to putting back up. Twenty quid!

YANBU. Compared to the renting nightmares I've heard from many many friends and family, we had a decent landlord/agent, but even then things broke, leaked etc and were never fixed despite us asking for years. The house just looked tired, but we weren't allowed to freshen it up even with just a neutral/white paint. You could never really make the place your own. You could never feel really secure.

Unexpectedly, agency inspections were the worst though. I appreciate why they're done, but I found them a huge invasion of privacy and really infantalising. 2 or 3 times a year, we'd get 24 hours notice before a random stranger let himself into our home and looked around (we asked for more notice, but they said they couldn't do it). Often we were out at work so couldn't be there. More than once we were away on holiday when we got the notice of inspection. Awful.

I feel very sorry for younger people these days who may be stuck renting for the majority, if not all, of their lives. Renting reform is desperately needed.