To be miffed at prospective landlords not accepting children in a rented property

[MolotovCocktail]

We are looking to rent a larger property. We want to remain in the same location, but just need a bigger house. There's me, my DH, and our 2 DDs, aged 4yo and 11mo.

This is the second time that, when I've called to arrange a viewing, I've been told 'the landlord doesn't accept children' when asked who the property would be for.

Why is this? Surely, if any of us caused damage to the property, that's what the deposit is for?

AIBU to feel miffed and want to question the reason why such landlords are holding onto 3-bed family properties within walking distance of school?

[ihategeorgeosborne]

expat, knowing the government, they'll bribe land lords with tax payers money to 'persuade' them to let to families with children. They certainly won't do anything which might inconvenience those with property or to try and do something really useful for renters like build more houses. I can see it now in the next budget "more tax breaks for landlords". At all costs, they must keep house prices high you see. We mustn't do the sensible thing and make them affordable to the average wage. I simply cannot fathom this government, or the previous one come to that.

[Hullygully]

I am a ll and we love families with kids. They stay put because of schools etc, they pay the rent, they treat the house as a home and look after it and generally cause absolutely no ag.

Get a couple of professionals and they buggar off after six months and you still invariably have to paint etc. Rather do a refurb after five/seven years than every six months. And that's without factoring in voids, the hassle of changing bill accounts etc etc.

[expatinscotland]

They won't, though, Clouds, that's the problem, or if they did it would be crap subcontractors to build crap housing like that where so many died in those floods 60 years ago, oh, what's it, the anniversary was just last month or in January, this freak storm to hit the E. Coast and all these people in thrown up housing died.

We must understand that there will be increasing numbers of families like the OP and my mate, working, reasonably well-paid, good references, with children, who can't get housing even at market rates which they can and are willing to pay.

And they can't get a one-bedroom and cram in because no one will let like that with two children and it's against the laws in many councils. If you lie and get found out you will be evicted.

So where exactly do they go? This mate of mine has had to present as homeless. She is so embarrassed and ashamed, but she literally has no place else to go till she finds another landlord, and she's in a university town. She has no family or friends nearby or that can help and she really can't leave her job, but reasonably-paid as it is, she can't afford to put up in an hotel until she finds a let and it is a university town.

Her children's father cannot fled back to his native Australia a year after their divorce

And this is not someone on welfare, she earns £27k/annum. There's no way to save on that amount when you are supporting 3 people and paying childcare. You are not entitled to anything but child benefit on that. It's little in the Southeast.

She's had to go this route in hopes she'll find a place to live in the month she has in the homeless flat.

But honestly, it's not an uncommon scenario.

I think that's wrong.

[CloudsAndTrees]

I think it's wrong too expat, I just don't think landlords should be expected to pay the price of fixing it. It's not their fault any more than its the fault of people like your friend.

[expatinscotland]

I agee with you there, Clouds, but there must be some solution, because this situation, even from what you see anectodatally, is getting more common.

[CloudsAndTrees]

There is a solution. Build more housing! But, even if we had a government that was prepared to do that, we would still have problems, and there would still be people that had to live away from where they want to live for families and jobs. Cities and large towns are already crowded, new homes would have to be built further out, along with the infrastructure to go with them.

This is something that should have been done back when we had a strong economy.

[expatinscotland]

But it hasn't been, Cloud, and now that is water under a bridge. This is now. There is still nothing being done to address this problem. It is growing worse, and will do so, in the new fiscal year.

What will it take?

These people are not even on a low wage. These are working people, in jobs that you can't just give up and move. And also if the new duty on petrol is brought in in April the price of commuting even by public transport will rise.

Let us take those on £26-32K/annum. A wage for the not un-skilled. Such people may well have a family. They are not entitled to anything but Child Benefit. Such people dare not leave their jobs, often enough, and it will be difficult for such people to find similar employment, when they are afar.

This is too little, especially in the Southeast and increasingly in all major cities in the UK, to save much with the cost of food and fuel to heat and to travel rising, not to mention childcare even after-school.

Yes, the solution is to build but this government will not. If they do not stay the increased fuel duty it will be even worse for everyone, as the cost of transport will rise, and also the cost of food.

People who say that food is too cheap do not take into consideration the cost of everything else - rents, travel to work, food, council tax and heat. Those who say the Victorians coped ignore the HUGE rate of infant and child mortality (death before the age of 5) that was present then. It is not so easy as 'just move' when the price of your railcard has increased by 20+% in the space of two years.

You cannot put the cart before the horse.

You reap what you sow.

[monsterchild]

I'm a LL and allow kids and pets. In fact I think that families are a safer bet because they are less likely to move than singletons. The fact that other LL won't makes them almost unable to move. My rental used to be my house and I'd had pets so there isn't much left that can be destroyed.

[havingamadmoment]

I am in the same position OP. when we moved into our current house 3 years ago renting with children was no problem. We need to over again now as our landlord is for whatever reason not paying his mortgage and we are finding it impossible.

We have 5 children we both work, we have good references from previous landlords, we have money in the bank and have offered both 6 months up front and extra deposit. We don't claim housing benefit, smoke or have pets. the houses we are looking at are in the higher price range for our (relatively cheap) area so up to £1250 a month and have at least 5 bedrooms. The last one this week was 7 bedrooms. We have been refused from them all because of our children.

We will be homeless soon despite having tens of thousands in the bank (saved as a deposit to buy - which we were also refused as we are self emto use, decent jobs and a 12 year track

[havingamadmoment]

Oops posted to soon -
12 year track record of renting with no late payments. We went to the hosing association who said that while of course we could put our name down but since we need a larger house (4 beds) and most of their properties are 1 or 2 bedroom flats or retirement flats we would pretty much never get one. So the alternative is that we are going to end up in a bed and breakfast.

We have actually had more luck looking at moving abroad since our business is 100% online we could do that but it would mean the three people who work for us losing their jobs. What choice do we have really though - keep them in a job and have our children homeless or keep a roof over our heads while potentially taking theirs away?

[MidniteScribbler]

Birds are my one absolutely no way, not happening thing with my rental property. I'm horribly allergic to bird lice, and DS seems to be the same, and since I plan on moving back in to that property one day, I'm sorry, but I just won't allow them.

I do have a single mother with two children with ASD and five dogs living in my house though, so I'm not a completely horrible landlord.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just an anecdote, but it fits on this thread. DH and I are looking for a new place and we don't have kids. We looked at some two-bed places because we wanted a spare room so his mum can come stay, so naturally got the questions about whether we had children. A few LL said they'd drop the rent for us because we don't, so obviously there'd be two people not three in the property.

What amused me was that on LL DH rang up asked if we had kids. So DH says no. And the LL says 'and are you planning to? Because if you do I would like to know.' We assumed she was just being immensely nosy, and it didn't really occur to me she might have meant 'because I will not rent to you if so'. It wasn't an issue because we didn't like the house.

But honestly, what would/could they do if you moved in on a twelve-month contract and had a baby?

How much damage could a non-mobile baby do anyway? (naive?).

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

LRD a baby can vomit onto the carpets. Also, we had a few poo and pee accidents on the carpets, basically explosive ones that leaked out from the changing mat. Do you get a 12-month contract? I've always only got 6 months and then rolling. I think they'll keep you if they see you are still looking after the property well after you had the baby. It's just they don't want to take the risk with someone they don't know.

From a business POV, professional couples are the best tenants. If there are lots of tenants to choose from, obviously the landlord is going to pick the best. It's just human nature.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Fair enough, I can see that.

I have a 12 month contract with no break clause atm. It's fine for this property - like I said, we didn't end up taking that house because the LL seemed a bit funny in other ways. I just found it a bit bizarre that she thought it was ok to ask if we were planning babies. I found it intrusive, frankly.

I can understand the LL wanting to pick - we've been turned down because I work at home and that will be more wear and tear than if I didn't (though I wouldn't have thought much!). I just thought asking about an as-yet-unconceived baby was, well, funny.

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

Don't understand the cases where they won't rent to children in a 5-7 bed house though. Is it a student town? Are there going to be any professional singleton or couple renting that large a house? If it's a shared flat, surely that's worse than a family? No one does any housework in a house share!

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

LRD shocked about the work from home .... That's the first one I've heard. I've heard the no kids or pets before.

[MolotovCocktail]

My DH has really worked over the last 12 months (since DD2 was born and It became obvious that we can't comfortably stay where we are) and has secured a job which would enable us to pay an extra £200pcm rent. This theoretically means that we could rent the house we need.

We cant manage to save any more than the usual monies needed to move house - its not feasible with living costs, travel expenses, having
2 young children to care for, etc. We have the deposit. We can afford the amount needed. We're meeting barriers which, from my point of view, are ridiculous, and firmly put us at a disadvantage.

It just feels like everything is there for the LLs benefit. Of course, it is the LLs property, so I understand this need. However, it's not like the LLs are doing us a favour. We pay to live in that property under a
contract. And if I could, I'd like to be paying our own ortgage instead, but it just hasn't happened that way for us. I spent too long at uni thinking that's what I needed to do to get a good job to secure our future, but it hasn't worked out that way. We were ready to buy after the housing bubble had burst. Then we had our children and - saving £££££££s is nigh on impossible hard.

We looked at a property in January (this one with just a no pets policy). I loved it, until the LL said that we could only use 1/2 the garage because they needed somewhere to park their lawnmower (one of those sit-on jobbies). I saw one in November that I absolutely fell in love with, but that LLs daughter live next door and she said we would have to be "considerate with parking because my daughter has lots of visitors".

Both these properties were the best part of £1k pcm.

These points I'm making because I think they further illustrate my point about the pickiness of LLs. To be completely honest, the situation is doing my head in.

[MolotovCocktail]

Am at what LRD has retold!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

one - to be fair, I think LL have a choice and sometimes just think 'mmm, no!'. I expect if you saw me and DH, and a nice professional couple both with good jobs, you might just think we're a bit less smart-looking. Actually we look after places ridiculously well and have the references from the LL to say so, but you never know how people decide things.

To be honest I always try to steer clear of houses where the LL is setting a lot of conditions, because it's often a sign they view the house as their home (often if they've moved out of it to live elsewhere), and that can be a nightmare because of course it's your home when you move in.

I am shocked about the 5-7 bedroom houses too, though ... would they be looking for holiday lets or something? Surely that could be quite hard on wear too?

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

I havent read the whole thread so I apologise.

My husband was asked by a letting agent to quote for work to put right damage done by a tenant and her children, the price ran into thousands. As she was evicted due to non payment of rent there was no "deposit" left to pay for repairs. The photos and work ran to about 6 pages and the only way of getting any money back would be to take her to court.

The children had scribbled on every wall, broken furniture and obviously swung on the kitchen cupboard doors as they were hanging off. A large percentage of carpets had to be replaced as they had stains on plus food and crayons walked into them. I cant believe that anyone would treat another persons property in this way but some people just have no sense of right and wrong.

I appreciate this may sound harsh but a number of landlords are just people who without pensions have invested in a house which needs to pay for itself and eventually (hopefully) be sold for a profit. You may not be the kind of tenant which behaves in this way but is it worth taking the risk if the house can be let to someone who is less of a gamble?

[MolotovCocktail]

Do you want to know the most ironic thing about this?
If it were not for our children because of DD1 (and in a few years DD2) and school, we'd be a lot more flexible as to where we'd be prepared to move to.

[Trills]

If there are enough tenants that the house will be full anyway then they can pretty much put whatever restrictions on that they like, even unreasonable ones.

YANBU to be "miffed", that's a reasonable response.

[MolotovCocktail]

I feel for LLs in a way; that they might be unwilling to accept families because they've had bad experience(s) previously.

It makes me feel sad/frustrated for us because we - and many like us - are penalised for others bad treatment of the properties. Anywhere I live, I treat like a palace I don't like the idea that some think my kids are gonna fuck up their house, you know, because kids are grubby. It's really insulting.

[FireOverBabylon]

LRD we've bought our home (well have a mortgage) and there's a covenant on the house that we can't work from home - it's apparently to stop people setting up taxi businesses etc outside their home and causing a nuisance to other neighbours, so the LL may just be passing on pre-existing restrictions on the property.

Saying that, if LLs are loathe to rent to parents with young children, as they're at home all day, I can kind of see the rationale for you not working from home. however, would they also turn away a couple where only one of them worked, as the non working partner would be at home all day as well?

[pickledparsnip]

Snowywellies you sound like such a lovely landlord!

OP YANBU. It is incredibly frustrating.

I was kicked out of my flat when my son was 9 months old as the letting agent said it wasn't suitable for children. I had pnd & she was a truly awful agent, so had no energy to fight & just wanted to get away from her. Managed to eventually find the house we are in now. The agent is lovely & doesn't bother us, but the house needs lots doing to it & the landlord is pretty slack & doesn't like to spend money.