Renting in the UK

[serenmoon]

We might be moving back to the UK later this year after ten plus years abroad. We won’t be able to buy for a while so will have to rent. What are the things I need to be aware of about renting in the UK?

Estate agents are terrible for omissions and outright lying .

Their fees for rentals are very high - £300 per person not unusual. (unless you go to Scotland where such fees are illegal)

Pets can be difficult.

at the cost of rental fees. Is this just an initial payment to the agency or is it an ongoing cost? We don’t have pets so that’s not a problem.

It's an initial payment for them doing a credit check worth £5 and copy and pasting (often badly and inaccurately) your name into a stock tenancy agreement.

Oh and it's non refundable if you decide not to take the property or you fail the checks.

Also be aware of 'check in' fees.

For two adults and a child we were looking at an average fee of £550. Often split different ways but still all worked out the same.

If you mean agency fees, it's an initial payment to the agency for doing the admin and your finance checks. It can vary from agency to agency but it can be expensive and is non refundable if you get refused the property. You will also normally need a deposit of 1 or 2 months rent.

Check the length of tenancy, if it's long or short term. Check the tenancy agreement thoroughly, especially things like how much notice you or landlord needs to give and what you are responsible for doing. Also will the landlord be doing house checks.
Make sure there's a thorough inventory, and anything not mentioned in it is added so that you don't get blamed for it at the end of the tenancy.
Make sure your deposit goes into a deposit scheme.

Oh, they will also try and hit you every year to the tune of £100 plus to change the date on said tenancy agreement.

You don't have to do this though.

which country?

england has a how to rent guide on gov.uk, read that.

do not rent a dump from a crook, it wont improve. This rule also applies in London.

Move to Scotland if you can! It's illegal for agents to charge any fees to tenants. Tenancy lengths are now indefinite so you get a bit of stablity and can move on when you need to with minimum hassle. All landlords also have to be registered with the council which gives you another avenue if eg the boiler breaks in the middle of winter and they drag their heels getting it fixed.

and you think that landord registration means enforcement? doesnt work anywhere. decent landlords fix stuff, bad ones ignore anyway.

Be aware that without a recent UK employment history or a guarantor you may not pass the reference check. The main way round this is to pay rent in advance (usually 6 months min)

I haven't rented in 5 years, but this is what I was sent by the letting agent when we rented our last place:

You will need to complete an application form each and return each form together with a copy of your passports or driving licences, a utility bill or mobile phone bill or credit card statement dated within the last three months and addressed to you at your current address and your National Insurance numbers. The referencing fee if you are in full time employment is £70 plus VAT each which can be paid by debit card over the phone if necessary.

Your joint guaranteed basic income will need to exceed £21,750 to meet the referencing agencys financial criteria.

It varies from place to place, obviously, but this was what we had.

As above, you'll need a deposit (ours was 1st month rent) and make sure to THOROUGHLY inspect the house before moving in and get an inventory. Definitely yes to the deposit scheme too.

You will need to move quickly, when you see the place you won't have time to think it over you will have to make a decision there and then.

Previous rentals i have checked the owners are the landlord (via land registry!) as theres been a few houses locally rented out after its been left empty by the owners and "landlords" have broken in!
Our last move the fees, upfront rent and all that totalled around £3000.
Its good to check things like if your allowed to put pictures up, that can be an expensive assumption.

This is all really helpful, thank you. It seems more complicated than where we live now and also that we need more money upfront. Are contracts typically a year long?

Typically a year, i think one of ours had a 6 month break clause in. But we don't have that in our current one.

Standard tenancy agreement is 12 months. However after that point you automatically go onto a rolling contract.

...unless you don't want to.

standard agreement should have a mutual break at 6 months, a landlord would be nuts not to do that.

get informed by reading the how to rent etc, bad landlords and bad agents prey on clueless tenants.

ask -
is it a buy to let or are they likely to want to move back in
is there a mortgage (if there is, new rules mean the landlord may be leaving the business soon)
what are the fixit arrangements when stuff goes wrong
check the place over as if you were buying it. No, not a survey, but that everything works. The standard you see it at is the standard it will be when you rent it. Decent landlords fix places up before viewings. Bad ones don't and lie that they will.

I’m an estate agent in Scotland and we also dabble in lettings. Everything in the post about Scotland is correct but to add, as of yesterday all Scottish letting agents must be registered, or have their registration pending, with the Scottish government. If you are thinking about Scotland and use an agent make sure they are registered/pending (a huge number haven’t bothered according to ARLA)

Be prepared for a section 21- a 2 month notice that you have to move out, from the landlord at any time once your contract is up. They don’t need a reason to ask you to leave, they just can, and frequently do. So try and avoid going to any trouble/cost to make your rented home homely eg furniture that would only fit your rented accommodation, expensive curtains/blinds.

ah, the guardian swallower idea that landlords issue se c 21 because they feel like it. they are used because sec 8 for tenancy breach is so easily defended and our dysfunctional court system gives a wait of months for another try. meanwhile the deal, steal and wreck carries on.

most sec 21s are issued by housing association s, who do not die, divorce or get driven out of the business. they may be called no fault evictions but they rarely are unless the landlord is selling.

Ours breakdown of costs when we moved in 2016 (London).
1st month’s rent (£1150)
6 weeks rent as deposit (£1725)
2 x referencing fees at £50 each
2 x Admin fee at £125 each
Plus £70 VAT. Total: £3295 😫

I think the estate agent’s referencing company worked out affordability on 30 times both of our monthly pay and that result has to exceed our annual salary

We had to send copies of 3 months bank statements and savings accounts to prove affordability

Agree with special ref section 21's. We've just had to do it ourselves. Had our tenant paid us rent and not been trashing the place we would not have evicted them

It’s not a guardian swallower idea the section 21. It’s my lived experience, and that of many other people I know- mainly single mothers. And my experience working in an advice centre, when people being unable to find somewhere after getting a section 21 is a common problem, due to rents having increased beyond their means in the time they were in their current home, or due to competition for properties. Landlords seem to want to sell with alarming frequency, especially in areas with a buoyant housing market/ rents that increase exponentially.

...and I’ve not come across a section 21 issued by a HA yet. All private landlords. HA at least in our area use different proceedings (eg notice of seeking possession) due to the tenancies not being assured shorthold, unlike private tenancies.

dangermouse - someone i know who works in a housing association told me that they issue section 21's 6 months before a tenancy ends with all tenants, and then if the tenant is bad they have saved time and can evict them more quickly. good tenants they dont enforce them.

i would happily not have issued one....but alas the single mum caused nearly 9k's worth of damage/rent arrears which we have little hope of getting back and we didnt want to risk prolonging proceedings and increasing our losses even further by rising the section 8