Privately renting scares me

[EllieRosesMammy]

Has anyone else who rents privately ever came to the end of the contract and their landlord have just decided they don't want to renew it - and you've had to move out??

I have this absolute fear that will happen, eventhough we have paid our rent on time every month and never asked the landlord for a thing (so we are good tenants😂). We moved into a private rent property in June from living in a Housing Association house (council house) for 6 years.

Our tenancy is a 1 year one, and then I assume you just renew it after the year is up? But what if the landlord randomly decided he doesn't want to? I never had to think about any of this living in a housing association house 😅

Possibly. It’s a complicated situation with inheritance issues across their whole property (it’s not ‘just’ a house), but I don’t know all the details of course. The silly thing is, we wouldn’t really want to buy it, the house needs no end of work doing to it as our landlord is rather ‘hands-off’ and ultimately it’s too small for our needs now but it’s been a very happy home for our family and I think we thought we had a little longer to line up our next move. Like OP we run a business from home, which relies on the physical space we have here… but alas, that’s renting I suppose and we’ve been lucky to be so settled for so long!

We did a 3 year contract with our tenant. they are buying so ended the contract. Each time tenants leave it’s also a nightmare for us.

If he has that many properties I wouldn’t be worried, it’s clearly his business renting properties. Those with just one property are the ones more likely to sell up.

You’re dreaming. Although section 21 will be abolished, the landlord can still kick you out using section eight for a certain reason and one of those includes them wanting to sell up.

This is exactly the sort of attitude that is meaning that landlords are selling up and will continue to do so under the new Act as they are allowed to give notice if they wish to sell. The fact that some renters think like this is driving many good landlords to leave the market to avoid the hassle, causing supply issues and higher rents.

Yes possibly need to sell the property to have liquid assets to cover IHT which has to be paid within 6 months if it is going to arise on their estate.

I wish I was. I’m actually on landlord’s side. It will still take 12+ months to evict someone using section 8.

Got to say I fully agree with you on that one, it's hard not to put everyone in one box as I lived in a HA property myself and was a good tenant & neighbour. But everywhere I've lived it's always the HA tenants that cause issues. Even the road we live on now, which is mostly private rented and owned, 95% of the neighbours are lovely and considerate but the 5% who aren't are all HA tenants 🤦🏻‍♀️and it really winds me up because having lived in a HA house myself I know all the rules in our contract we have to abide to - yet the ones who don't just seem to get away with it!

This is the main reason that when we do finally buy we want something rural, fully detached, in the middle of nowhere🤣

I would be very careful about shared ownership. We had 25% share of a lovely HA flat, paid 75% rent on the rest plus service charges, so it was quite expensive.

But we were responsible for 100% of repairs and maintenance costs and could only use the HA approved contractors. Our flat needed new windows (leaky & mouldy), bathroom, kitchen and had a boiler that kept breaking down. Why would we pay for those things on a property we only owned a quarter of? It felt like we would be lining the HA pockets as we knew we would never buy back the full percentage.

Also when we came to sell up we could only sell to people who met the criteria for shared ownership properties so it really narrowed the pool of buyers and we lost a bit of money on it. When we moved to our own fully mortgaged we were paying so much less a month than we were with the shared ownership with all the fees on top.

My advice is don't do it! Keep saving for your deposit.

I was actually wondering about the repairs and who would be responsible for the bill so thank you for clearing that one up for me! :)

I find that shocking that you're expected to pay 100% of the bill yet you only own 25% of the property, how is that fair?

In my HA house we fully redecorated the place, put new flooring down throughout, tiled the bathroom, installed a shower, put decking outside etc and I paid for all that because these were things I wanted, so didn't really expect the HA to foot the bill (I know some people do). But any major repairs eg. Roof work, boiler, etc would always be done by the HA. Hopefully itll work the same way with my private landlord if I ever need anything doing :)

Some of the new builds that are available with shared ownership seem overpriced to me. £54k for a 25% share in a tiny 2 bed in Little Hulton is ridiculous. I know the area.

I thought the same when I checked my local area. They've just built a new estate that sits right next to an area with a stupidly high crime rate (literally no one decent wants to live there) and these new builds start from £220,000 - whereas you can buy a house in that area for just £50,000 (less than 25% of the cost of the new build)

I feel sorry for everyone buying a house on this new estate, because they're clearly not from round here so don't realise that they're now sitting targets for the scum from the rough area right next to them 🤦🏻‍♀️

Why did you leave your HA house..?? 😬

Sorry didn't read the full thread. Yes, private renting is scary I agree. Depending on where you live you could try and get another HA property.

Antisocial behaviour from other HA tenants that moved onto the street earlier this year. It was a nice street to live on before they came along. HA did very little to support or help us in regards to the antisocial behaviour. These new tenants would fight with people in the street, stand in their gardens blasting music and drinking/taking drugs during the day, leave their children alone in the house while they went to each others houses to take more drugs (yes I did report that to the social). The final straw was bank holiday weekend in May, where I worked 50+ hours over 4 days, whilst pregnant, to wake up on Tuesday to my car vandalised by them with £400 worth of damage.

Trust me, I absolutely did not want to leave my HA house, that I had spent 6 years making into a home for my children, for the unpredictability of a privately rented property but they left me with no other choice :(

That sounds awful and the exact scenario I'm most afraid of. I'd definitely leave for private in that case.. it's scary either way and feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Shared ownership sounds too expensive to me. I think ultimately it's down to luck, as to whether you end up in a decent area with a decent LL.

Shared ownership is definitely poor value compared to only having a mortgage. So I see there’s a perfectly fine two bedroom house in Little Hulton for sale at £170K. For a 10% deposit and costs you’d be looking at approximately £22K. But if you were going to go the stated ownership route with the house I linked to you’d need about £10 - £12K in total so I can see why shared ownership is attractive to some people.

Yeah we were very lucky for 6 years to have nice neighbours (who were also HA tenants) then 3 houses moved out and the 3 sets of new neighbours brought nothing but trouble with them :(

My husband has a theory that the HA moved those people in on purpose because there's been rumours for a while they've wanted to knock down all the houses on that road anyway (as the land they're built on is worth more than the houses themselves) - so move in a bunch of scum to the road, force away all the nice tenants, then kick out the scum and knock the houses down to sell the land. I honestly think he could be right because the scum have continued to cause trouble since we have been gone, and still nothing has been done about them despite multiple complaints from everyone else!

I think the government is making landlords very nervous about what's to come . I'm thinking of giving my 9yrs tenants notice because I want complete flexibility with my own property .

Landlords want to keep good tenants, so keep the house nice and be accommodating for inspections etc. However a lot of landlords are currently selling, especially if they're not making much on the property or if it potentially needs a lot of maintenance/work done to bring it up to current legal requirements. Neighbours who have rented for over 10 years and kept the house lovely have just been told the landlord is selling.

Also, landlords are often putting up rents annually now, and if you're not happy to pay the increased rent they may decide to take their chances and find a new tenant who will pay it.

So true @Spirallingdownwards . For me it’s S24 which is forcing me to sell up. If only it hadn’t been retrospective.

That's going to be sad for your tenants but I can also understand why as a landlord you'd do it :/

I'm hoping in regards to the annual rent increase part that won't happen, based on the fact we already pay more than the average rental price for our area anyway, and I don't think they'd get someone in this house who would be willing to pay much more 😬