i'll try to keep this short. sorry I'm a bit emotional and have a 12 week old so im a bit of a hormonal wreck.
we received the contract renewal paperwork to sign from the letting agent, including request for the fee. this is our third fee to the letting agent in 18 months of living here (id say so far we have spent about £600 in fees, including credit checks.) we have been upfront from the start that we would like to stay here longterm, our kids are in the local school and we have no intention of moving in the foreseeable future. our land lord wants a long term tenant and has told us he doesn't want to sell and likes us, and wants us to stay.
so i am unclear as to why we need to renew the 12 months contract every year, it seems like an unnecessary administrative pain and cost, and so i suggested to the landlord that we go to a rolling tenancy. she said, fine by her, i said fine by me, and i said i would let the letting agent know.
when i spoke to him the next day (as he wasn't available and called me back), he was really quite aggressive, telling me that a rolling contract wouldn't 'suit' my land lord and that he had changed his mind as he (the letting agent) had explained the kind of risk the land lord would be exposing himself to if we went onto a rolling contract, as we could just leave anytime, and that's what tenants do when they want to leave when they feel like it. I was like ok, but this all seems crazy - we want to stay long term, she wants us to, i don't see the point of 12 months contracts. he didn't really explain what the difference was and was really hammering his points home without listening to me, i felt. this escalated into a discussion into why i wasn't happy to have had another unexpected bill and he really took offence - was i unreasonable to have raised this? it ended up with him saying that if we stay another year he will waive next years fee, but he was really huffy implying i couldnt afford 'fifty quid' and that it 'barely covered his costs'.
we've always got on really well with both letting agent and land lord and im upset that i may have put the spanner in the works of an other wise good relationship. i managed to end the conversation posively and I said something like 'you know, its ok for me to ask a question about something like this, and its ok for you to say no, that wont work'
i've been anxious all day since the conversation and dh and i have had an argument about it as id like to text our ll and say, you know, we have no intention of leaving and i'm sorry if you got that impression. help.