It’s probably absolutely pointless and it wouldn’t achieve anything but I’m so annoyed I feel like saying something anyway. We were renting a house for almost 7 years, it was always intended to be a long term rental as the owner only planned on returning from abroad when they retired. We never missed a rent payment, kept the place pristine etc (so much so that the owner ditched the agent and the handy man she used to pay because as she said we were so easy to deal with she could do it herself and save the money). Anyway out of the blue almost a year ago we got a phone call from the owner of the house, she was giving us our notice as her husbands job had changed and they needed to be back in the house asap. We were absolutely gutted but what can you do, these things happen with renting. She sent us it out in writing, correct notice period and reason was she needed the property herself so all above board, also in that was if she didn’t return to the property within 12 months and it was to be rented out again we would get first refusal on it.
Well, we are pretty much 12 months on from moving out and the house has stood empty since the day we left…. clearly she didn’t need to return to the property at all. Where we live there is a major major housing crisis and I can only think she knew she could drastically increase the rent if she got us out (we were paying over 1000 a month but as things are here landlords can literally charge silly money and desperation makes people find it). We are really gutted, that place to us was home and to see it go back up for rent will be gutting for us. But the other issue that troubles me is my partner was talking to someone from nearby that we know and they were clearly of the impression that we had been evicted because there was an issue with us, I hate that people are now thinking we were bad tenants and we did something wrong and got kicked out. We left that place with a glowing reference but is she now telling people we did something wrong to cover up her greedy reason for evicting us…. I just feel like emailing her and saying why did you do this to us? And I feel like messaging the neighbours we made friends with there and telling them it wasn’t our fault, completely pointless I know as it won’t achieve anything but I’m so annoyed she’s done this and as renters we don’t want people thinking we’re bad tenants. Sorry for the rant and I know the answer is probably just get over it and move on but it has peed me off!