To offer a Landlord's perspective

[RoseWay]

There's been a lot of bashing of Landlords on here of late, land-owning class etc. I thought I'd share some experiences to offer an insight into why many are so paranoid about their property.

Background: we rented a family house out whilst we worked elsewhere near jobs.

Tennant 1: 6 months until first check, hadn't used heating all winter (we know for sure from bills no gas used) to save £ and had dried clothes inside. Worse damp across the property I've ever seen, left with 2 months rent unpaid, advised not worth pursuing due to chance of getting money back as gone abroad.

No. 2: Man, partner was his carer as he couldn't walk. Constantly sabotaged property (e.g. disconnecting waste water pipe, unscrewing bits in the boiler, removing floorboards) then calling environmental health. Seemed to be linked to trying to get council house but never really understood why. Maybe another reason. Intially thought problems were genuine until plumbers etc started poiting out deliberate damage. Turned out to be working as a roofer of all things and left shortly after causing a lot of damage to ours, including removing entire outhouse roof (???) Left owing rent, not reclaimed.

no. 3: we nearly lost lease due to action from neighbours due to noise.left owing rent.

no. 4: didn't clean in entire tennacy. Kitchen in particular so sticky shoes stuck to the floor. carpets ruined. junk in cellar/ outhouse about 4 skips worth.

All left withoutpaying rent worth more than the deposit plus an average damage of £500-£1000 (when fixing ourselves, not using anyone if possible)

Now we're moving back, out of pocket due to all the repairs etc. and to a very very poor condition house which was once lovely.

Not all tennans are like this, but I'm trying to share that not all landlords are greedy scum either. It's a horrible thing to rent your own home out and know all the risks, even if you try to be a wonderful landlord.

I don't really think MOST tenants need to 'adjust their expectations' silverten.

Neither do I. Which is why I said 'some'.

"I had to explain the concept of betterment to our arla registered agent when we left a rental property so I'm not convinced that arla membership shows anything."

If ARLA membership was compulsory, and if the membership could be lost if the LL was sub par, then it may achieve something.

I do however agree with inspections (did you never inspect the people who ruined your brand new carpet or showerhead?). ...

Oh, there it is again. My fault that the tenants didn't hoover or clean!

(Actually when I posted a thread about this, wondering whether I was being unrealistic in expecting tenants to hoover occasionally, I was told in no uncertain terms by several posters that it was none of my business and I should keep my beak out.)

But I digress. Yes, you're right LRD about the legal mins. I misread your example of the 'no hot water' bloke and thought it meant heating, which led me onto the FIL house example. Which did have a heating system, just rather a rudimentary one involving a back boiler and an open fire. It worked, but you had to be prepared to put some effort into running it.

It's never a good idea to deduct rent, is it? Though I was a little at our LL when I asked politely for a rent deduction after the shower had been broken for two weeks, and they didn't understand why having no hot water to wash it was reason for that. It was a grey area, though, since we do have a bathroom sink and could wash in that.

Oh, sorry, I am being confusing about hot water/heating. My fault!

I think with so many things, there's a legal minimum (eg., 'must have some source of heating'), and then there's what's decent to live with, and probably it's hardest to work out what counts as decent or reasonable.

I couldn't swear to it, but I would think that if there is a legally defined minimum, I bet it involves having a source of heating, but doesn't get too specific about exactly what this must be. So, for example, you might have a period cottage with only open fires for heating, and be within the minimum stipulated level, IYSWIM. Someone might be prepared to live there for the whole 'period cottage experience' and be prepared to put up with the inconvenience to have it.

I'd be surprised if there was a minimum level which included 'hot running water', because you can always just boil a kettle. Yes, I realise that this is pretty damn minimum, but that's where market forces come in, isn't it?

silver not saying it was your fault at all that the tenants did that and believe me bad tenants make me cross too as they give us all a bad name which means we all get subjected to more frequent inspections etc. I was just asking as you said they hadn't hoovered in 2 years and I would have thought inspections would have picked up on this (or if you had an agency doing this on your behalf and let this happen then they weren't doing their jobs properly).

I think I remember that thread and whilst I agree that she should have been hoovering, I think a lot of other posters were taking umbridge with how you knew that she wasn't hoovering (I think they were under the impression you'd been peering through the windows). That might not have been your thread though, I can't remember, probably mistaken.

Don't worry about it Constance. Was just pointing the comment out as an example of the sort of thing you see a lot whenever you have LL/tenant discussions on here.

silver - yes, I think you're right about that. I'm certainly aware that heating doesn't have to be central heating as some people think. Ours is just a little gas fire, but it's quite a small flat.

I'm sure there isn't a rule about hot water, except if something providing hot water breaks, it'll come under the usual 'fix promptly' stuff, and I would expect if it wasn't fixed promptly (in the end ours took much longer than 2 weeks - it was the fact no plumber had been contacted in two weeks that got me cross - and I felt it would have been a nice gesture to give some money off for that, since we could have gone to the agent and asked for the expensive, prompt plumber instead of their cheapy slow one. But I digress.)

emmieging Wed 01-Aug-12 09:41:16
"I can't understand people saying they can't sell their property. The only reason your property won't sell is Because it's overpriced"

Do you think people wanted to pay over the odds for their house? Do you not understand that relatively recently house prices were going up rapidly and people were advised to get a foot on the ladder and offered 100% mortgages to enable that? And that indeed with the lack of social housing, and limited rental market it was seen as the responsible thing to do, to buy?

I guess you had a crystal ball and knew that house prices Would come
Crashing down, that large numbers of people would lose their jobs and have to relocate, with the added burden of having a bigger mortgage on their house than its worth.
_

Yes it was obvious to me house prices are in a massive bubble. The long-term average is 3.5 X average wages but at the height of the bubble they were more like 8x average wage so more than double what they are worth. Prices are still around 6X average wages so still way too high and have a lot more to drop. You don't need a crystal ball this is blatantly obvious. Its ironic that many of these accidental landlords bought the house with 100% mortgage with no money down and then expect several months bank statement and stringent references from employers etc for prospectivetenants when none of that was done on them to purchase the house in the first place.

Same here OP. The rents don't even pay the mortgages on our pension properties. Fair enough, the risk we run. But I do get sick of personally cleaning up other people's mess. I am not a cleaner, have never worked as one, but I am now very, very good at it. Its just disgusting. It makes you so aware of how dirty some people are. Its very easy to tell who does clean their home regularly and who doesn't. When you don't clean, the wear and tear on a property is incredible. And then theres deliberate damage - the dismantling of bathroom ventilation fans because they are noisy, mains smoke alarms because they go off, door locks because they keep forgetting their keys, etc..

Unfortunately the dirty type of people are also the type that are proficient in the "its not my fault" excuses. Last year's new tenant's first monthly check revealed the bathtubs were covered in chips - tenants admitted they had been standing in the baths to wash their rugby boots, while wearing them. I've had radiators sat on and cracked, multiple baths left running to overflow, wallpaper set on fire, candlewax and wine dripped everywhere, carpets covered in chewing gum and burns, walls and sheets scribbled on by children, sick on the carpets not cleaned up and hardened to a crust, to name some "favourites".

Tbh, theres some tenants you would actually have to live with and provide a carer service to in order to check up on them enough to prevent damage. Which is why we now won't take anyone without two previous landlord references, bank reference, job reference and two month's rent as deposit up front. Its actually cheaper to let the properties lie empty until you get a decent tenant than to take risks.

That's the thing that I can't understand geegee. When something goes wrong, we replace. When someone pulls the tap so hard that it 'falls off', then says that the taps that you are replacing them with 'aren't the ones she wants and she's seen some much nicer ones' you start to get suspicious. Even more so when she then says that we can put the old taps back on as she likes them better than the 'new' ones.
If my kids accidentally destroy something in the house, I suck it up and replace. If there is a genuine accident, we claim on insurance (once in just under 30 years of owning a home), if it is wear and tear, we save up and when we can afford it, we replace.
As a tenant, we have very little recourse as to whether it was an accident, complaints if we let insurance company do it themselves as it takes longer than anyone would wish (2 claims as a LL in 3 years of having to rent out an elderly relatives home which was completely re-furbished with new appliances) and apparently natural wear and tear in 3 years includes cracks in windows, dents in doors, threadbare carpets in places, burns in the carpet, sockets hanging off walls - which the agent says although seemingly harsh, is difficult to dispute.
We will not be continuing to rent out this property when the tenancy ends. It is now cheaper for us to leave the property empty than to replace items that the tenant does not like and do the constant repairs. If she had not of liked it at the time, she should not have asked to rent it, but then I suppose her children would not have been able to get into the over subscribed school down the road (or am I being overly suspicious?)

bp300 - we'd better bow to your superior psychic powers then.

I would suggest that young couples who had no chance in hell of getting into social housing, who could see house prices going up and up and up without any sign of even plateauing, would have simply hung on and waited if they'd known they could get the same house for a lot less in future. I've never come across anyone who wants to pay more for their house than it's actually worth. What I have seen is plenty of young people desperate to get a foothold on the ladder, who then often end up having to move around for promotions or simply to hang onto a job, who then end up having to rent their house out to cover their bills - not to make money.

I've already seen on this thread, there are a large number of people who are both landlords and tenants themselves, because they have to rent where they work, and own a property in negative equity elsewhere. I'm sure most of them would rather be living in their own home, rather than having the worry and stress of renting out their house and themselves being tenants

Stupid them, they should have borrowed your crystal ball and never got onto the housing ladder in the first place.....

You do of course get tenants who are lovely and CLEAN! But it has honestly really shocked me how dirty some people are. If you don't clean a kitchen or a bathroom for two months (the gap between my checks), you would be amazed at how much damage can occur, to the point of having to redecorate to have to get the property up to scratch again.

The two properties we rent out are both our flats we bought as FTBers. All bought and paid for our own hard earned cash. I would say to keep a property to a high standard for letting, you would really have to redecorate from top to toe every two years. Thats presumably why so many rental properties, while reasonably clean and servicable, are a bit threadbare. I've put in new carpets and within two months, have seen them stained and covered in bits of chewing gum. Its always an arguement to take the money off for replacementm, so you take 50% off because its not new any more and will do another year. The next year its tatty, so you can't reasonably take anything off the deposit. Hence you either buy new carptes (and pretty much everything else) every two years and charge top whack rent, or you charge a rent people can afford, but everything is a bit shabby.

Can you imagine having to replace everything in your own house very two years to keep it looking nice? How practical do you think that would be?

Sinks - have I spoken about kitchen sinks? After 2 months of never being cleaned, its really hard to get them looking nice again, even after mutliple applications of PowerKitchen (failsafe). So its better to replace the sink with a new one at the end of the lease. I nearly always have to replace microwaves, kettlees, irons, hoovers and suchlike, after ayear's lease or less, because they get broken/damaged so often. Yet my own stuff lasts me years!

Some tenants are particularly harsh on particular items. I had one who broke two kitchen taps in six months, demanding "immediate replacement" each time. They will claim things are broken when they are simply not switched on - tvs, washing machines, doorbells, etc. and expect you to rush round to "fix" them instad of investigating themselves.

But the dirt! When you have plucked other people's pubic hair out of the plughole, cleaned their encrusted shit off the toilet bowl, picked up their used confomds from under the bed, etc it makes you alittle cynical.

This is also why my own flat is currently tenantless, and has been for the last 5 months. I 've redecorated (again) and once I've paid the HMO license, (£580), the private landlord registration (£155), the gas and electrical safety checks, the EPC, the landlord's insurance, the tenant finding charge, the credit checks, tax on any "profit" (not that I've ever made one but in theory), bought nice new kettle/toaster/iron/pots and pans/hoover/ironing board/cutlery, it is actually cheaper to have it empty, and just use it for the occasional night I'm up in town to stay in.

I'm thinking of selling up and buying a rental property with the money in Germany because their letting regime is less harsh and tenants encouraged to take more care for the property.

I'm also rather at the implication by bp300 that there is something wrong with having taken out a 100% mortgage in the days when those were being offered. I'd love to know the alternative....

Save up all that lovely spare cash that was sloshing around at the end of each month?? Or run to the Bank of mummy and daddy for a down payment???

Yeah right.. and back in the real world.. we bought our house with a 100% mortgage because despite living fairly frugally there is no way on earth we;d have been able to save a deposit. We are relatively lucky - we bought long ago enough to not have negative equity (though we have very little equity)

If (please god no) but IF we have to relocate for work, we probably wouldn't be able to afford to sell and buy again, due to the huge costs of moving. We would therefore become reluctant landlords, renting out our home here while being tenants elsewhere. We wouldn't be doing it to make a buck, we wouldn't even do it through choice - I'd far rather live in my own home.

But I guess its so much easier to assume every LL is a bastard on the make.

'It is interesting I strongly suspect that with a less harsh letting regime, tenants have greater autonomy and therefore more likely to take care of the place.'

Agree with this. There needs to be reform, and it should reflect the fact that many LL nowadays are just ordinary folk who are doing it out of necessity, not choice. House buying has become fraught with anxiety (will prices go up /down, what will happen with interest rates, will I need to move for my job? etc) that it makes sense for renting to be less stressful on BOTH sides, for tenant and LL

emmieging Wed 01-Aug-12 19:44:56
I'm also rather at the implication by bp300 that there is something wrong with having taken out a 100% mortgage in the days when those were being offered. I'd love to know the alternative....
_
The whole crisis that we are now facing was caused by people borrowing large amounts of money to purchase houses for double what they were actually worth. Just because someone who is willing to lend you the money doesn't make it a good idea to do so. Did you not question what would happen if interest rates went up? whether you lost your job or had to relocate? whether the value would drop? etc when you bought it.
IMO most people who bought did so because they saw prices going up rapidly and wanted to make some easy money.

'Just because someone who is willing to lend you the money doesn't make it a good idea to do so. Did you not question what would happen if interest rates went up? '

• Yes, which is why we took out a fixed term mortgage at an affordable rate. I have already answered the other questions: we didn't have masses of savings or the bank of mummy and daddy to run to for a down payment. Nor did we stand a chance of social housing. And as we knew that at some point before we got too old, we;d quite like to have kids, we reckoned that trying to create a home was a kinda good idea y'know?

Suggesting that everyone who has bought a house in recent years did so to try to make easy money is insulting.

I used to work in Housing and have seen disgusting examples of both landlords and tenants. I agree more regulation is needed with regards to some of the slumlords I'm aware of but the decent landlords need protection to. It's a difficult one.

Too. Not sure what happened there.

MissMavis I don't think I've been unlucky, speaking to other owners of HMOs, this is quite typical and not as bad as some. You are very true when you say the regime treats people like children and they act accordingly. I am in Scotland, and the HMO regime is much harsher here. All my doors in my flat must be self closing, 30 min fire resistant, the cooker must be chained to the wall in case someone pulls it over, every room must have mains smoke alarms/CO2 monitors with battery back up, tested every month, the main doors must not be possible to lock from the inside, if it is on two floors, there must be a sprinkler system (I kid you not), much more than this, the smoke alarms I will give you are a good idea but the door closers are just a hazard and are constantly propped open. And of course its all much harsher than applies to council houses with young children, or even offices and some guesthouses!

But the other reason I'm thinking of selling up (and I appreciate I',m, fortunately in a position to do so because the property market hasn't been badly affected here) is because I'm in Scotland and I just cannot plan ahead when I don't know what the regime will do. I might be forced to take DSS tenants by the government at a set price rent. Who knows?!

The German system isn't perfect either, its harder to get rid of long term tenants, as long as they keep paying the rent, and to increase rents, and you must replace the windows and central heating system every 10 years, but tbh I can't go on the way I am as the "system" here is making running two rental properties almost a full time job. And most blocks of flats have a "hausmeister" who sorts out day to day issues and petty quibbles. Most letting agencies I know simply can't provide a good service as its just too much, and simply firefight.

House in Multiple Occupation.

Basically: lots of people living in the same 'unit', like a 8 bed student house or something like that. Decent fire precautions are definitely a positive thing, but lots of them often get disabled by tenants as they are sooooo annoying to live with.