Landlord told us to take political poster down

[Thedriftofstars]

We live in a nice rented house. Been here for three years, no problems whatsoever. We both work full time, have two DC. Just your average family and have never caused any problems! We take most minor maintenance on ourselves as well. Have yearly inspections from the letting agents, however last week after the inspection the LA told me the LL wanted to come inspect the property for himself.
So when he came round, he explained he wasn't happy with the Labour Party poster we have displayed in our front room window. DH and myself are both active in our local Labour Party, and do a lot of leafleting, etc, so are known by the neighbours as the go to people for involvement with the party.
The landlord said he doesn't want his house being used to promote politics, particularly when it's not something he supports himself.
AIBU to think he has no right to tell us what we can and cannot display when we pay the rent? There is nothing in our tenancy agreement about it, and he is fine with us having photos, paintings and so on hanging on the walls, as well as letting us redecorate to our tastes!

pple near us were forced to display political posters INSIDE their house, not outside, as that counted as advertising, apparently. they own their house too.
I'd call the ll's bluff on this one...

I love how according to Julie, engaging in politics (which has a direct impact on everyone's actual, everyday lives) is now 'upsetting your landlord with something trivial'. I despair.

off topic still Rebecca but pets in flats is a different thing altogether and more of a pet welfare issue I would say with cats and dogs, but as far as unfurnished properties with gardens goes, minimising risk to the extent of banning all pets, for everybody at the expense of ordinary decent people being able to live adult lives and make their own reasonable choices, is not ok, nor reasonable. You can mitigate risk by taking reasonable, proportionate steps; damage deposits can be increased, clauses for specialist end of tenancy cleans can be written into the contract, character references can be taken, not just lazy computer scoring. Provision will already exist in the tenancy agreement for action to be taken if a tenant is causing a nuisance with a pet or anything else. This is why many evictions for pet contract breaches will not succeed - because a blanket ban is unreasonable and eviction too severe a punishment. Trying to reduce all risk to zero with blanket bans is unnecessarily cruel and infantalizing to decent people who simply want pets for some company.

Nor is having pet-sterile properties necessary - there is a huge demand for pet friendly property so you are limiting the market by excluding pets.

But some people are actually just interested in, or actively enjoy, controlling people as is clear from this thread.

So only homeowners have the right to display political posters on dwellings....?

Does that sound even remotely plausible from a human rights angle?

Don't understand people saying it's the owner's prerogative to tell OP to take it down. Yes it is his property, but the whole point of renting is that he is leasing the use of the property to another party

Of course OP has to abide by the tendency agreement, but as she has said repeatedly, it's not in there!

Once I left a rental property a few days before end of tenancy. The landlord came and slept in it in advance of doing the check out inspection the next day. He knew I had moved out so fair enough... sort of. But I still think he out to have asked ME before doing so, as I was still paying the rent and therefore still entitled to the use of the property!

This thread is ridiculous.

If a political poster will be inciting violence then so could that occupier's relationship or friends etc etc.

Of course it's reasonable to display the poster - they have rented the house out. If they want control over the house maybe they shouldn't put it up for rent!

I can see where he’s coming from tbh and agree with posters who’ve said about vandalism etc. Where I live people don’t generally publicise their support for specific political parties and, yes, having a poster up like that could result in you getting your windows put in or (in extreme circumstances) burnt out. In those circumstances I would take great exception to a poster being displayed which could risk my property and, as PP’s have said, is unlikely to influence anyone anyway.

As unreasonable many people think he is, he’s allowed to ask you to take it down- you just don’t have to do it. If it was a pro-life poster or something else I felt strongly about my property being used as a billboard for I would. Just bear in mind that it’d be a pain in the arse and unneeded expense moving before you buy a house if he does give you notice, and he could make things awkward for you with repairs/maintenance/access etc even if he doesn’t or whilst you serve your notice. You have to be sure this is the hill you want to die on.

Yanbu OP

ll is being unreasonable

Oh FFS Craic it is not reasonable for a person to hide their perfectly legal political beliefs for fear of violent reprisals! That would also apply to religion, sexuality, race! Think about it for crying out loud.

Kinka - as I said, have you ever had to deal with a house where people don't control their pets? Have you had to tell a sobbing landlady who let her home out whilst she was living abroad and had a mortgage to pay that it's going to cost about £5k to clean up and replace ruined carpets and that the tenant has disappeared overseas, making pursuing them impossible or least financially impossible? Have you gone in to do a viewing and come out covered in flea bites? Have you had to sort out plumbing for a 4 storey house after someone refused to let their cats outside and poured their cat litter down the TOILET?!

Pets aren't the problem. People are. It is not "controlling" to want to protect yourself from the type of people who might cause a huge amount of damage. You are assuming that everyone is responsible, which is a nice view but honestly, after 8 years working in resi lettings in Manchester and Liverpool, and then being someone who deals with high end property disputes on a regular basis - they really really really aren't. It is perfectly understandable not to want to take that risk!

Erm @rebeccaslicker shitholes are across the country you know. Not sure what relevance naming the cities has to do with making your point?

Um - they weren't shitholes Annabella. What a shitty shitty assumption to make because I said Manchester and Liverpool. You should be seriously ashamed of that. It just happens to be where I worked.

They were very nice properties where people had brought in pets and not looked after them or the property. The point was that is why landlords ban pets, because if you get an irresponsible owner the damage can be significant and often you can't recover the cost.

Rebecca we all know that there are bad tenants, as there are bad LLs. It is shitty what some people will do.

I wonder though, did you take up character references for any of these problem tenants? Or only a credit check and the previous LL (who may have wanted rid of them)? It has always seemed to me that taking up references from more than one previous LL and employers etc would be highly likely to reveal those prone to bad behaviour (it rarely starts out of the blue) and it is something that LLs and agents can reasonably do, and character references/ a letter of introduction used to be the norm. There will be some that can't produce them for a variety of reasons - some legit, some not, but at least it can be discussed. Many good tenants could provide multiple good references.

Recently we had a terrible experience with a LL that cost us nearly £2000 that we could not recover without going to court and further expense that we could not afford (nor recover costs through small claims court) so we lost all the money. We have had many terrible LLs who wouldn't fix issues, entered the property at will etc. Those LL behaviours did not start with our tenancy. However as tenants, we do not have the option of taking up a LLs references to see what sort of LL they are or how they have behaved on the past. Tenants only learn the hard way, and tenants have no choice but to live somewhere and take the maximum risk. LLs however do have the choice of making their money another way. So when it comes to risk management there seems huge disparity to me, and like so many things, even political expression or having children, many people want this to be unfairly weighted in favour and control of the LL.

I won't be continuing this point as it is a bit too off topic, but it is an improtant point to make I think, and it would be interesting to discover what measures you and other agents/ LLs took to reference a tenant's character prior to them taking the tenancy and turning out to be shit.

I can only speak for my agency but we took:

Proof of earnings
Employer's reference
Mortgagee or previous landlord's reference
Guarantor unless certain profession/salary (e.g. the Granada television stars didn't need a guarantor!)

What is an absolute fact is that very few of those things turned out to be accurate predictors of who would still turn out to be shit. I let a flat to a lovely lady who lost her well paying job 3 months in and then turned out to be a drug addict - her dealer absolutely trashed the place when she didn't pay and she sold the furniture for drug money. In that case her dad ended up coughing up as the guarantor, but not every landlord was so lucky. Often the sums at stake are too high to absorb comfortably but too small to recover via the courts, or if you do people still don't pay and then you're looking at trying to send in enforcement officers or get an attachment of earnings.

You can't legislate for that sort of thing. Them's the breaks - there are risks in being a landlord and as you say there are risks in being a tenant too. All you can do is minimise the risks as best you can. For landlords I don't think banning pets is unreasonable for this reason. For tenants - more difficult. google might help, or making sure it seems to be a reputable agency, even if that means a higher letting fee.

Thank you Rebecca. That is exactly my experience as well, and as you say the references your agency took and which are common pracice are not a good predictors of behaviour, and that is my point. That the very basic references taken nowadays are not fit for purpose and are part of what has led to LL becoming more risk averse.

I suggest that where possible or offered, LLs should take a reference from the LL prior to the most recent - that LL will have nothing to gain by lying - it isn't like they are trying to move on a problem tenant.

A character reference is more than does someone do this job and for how long. It speaks to character and behaviour. It is not infallible of course, and is very difficult for people who may have had to move through illness or domestic violence so some discretion is needed, but I wish someone would take us up on ours and give us a chance to prove we are not scumbags simply because we are tenants. And to be honest, being a tenant has done as much to limit and negatively characterise our life as disability has, and I think that is really a sad state of affairs.

Pets are totally different and off topic.

I don’t know about the legal side of things but political posters permanently stuck in the window look tacky and self-important and to a degree, lecturing the public.

Some people don't have a previous landlord though Kinka - it may be their first home or they may just have moved to the uk or they might have had a mortgage first. I agree with you where possible it could help.

There's also common sense - if your house is unfurnished and has a yard, take a slightly higher deposit and a pet should be fine, for example. But lots of people don't have the time or the inclination to apply it! It sounds as if you've known some shit landlords

Are you trying to be offensive by using the word meltdowns in this inaccurate context, or was it accidental?

I think both parties maybe on shaky ground here.

As a tenant you can point to the tenant agreement and say it’s not stipulated that a political poster is not allowed and you’re within you’re rights to leave it on the window.

I also believe that he’s within his rights as the landlord to object to an overtly political symbol on his property and that it goes beyond reasonable enjoyment of the house.

Sounds mad I know but I think he’d win the argument legally.

I don’t know about the legal side of things but political posters permanently stuck in the window look tacky and self-important and to a degree, lecturing the public.

Good god, OneMoreTune, if we were allowed control over our neighbours' behaviour on the grounds that we considered them "tacky" or "self-important", where would it stop?

Sounds mad I know but I think he’d win the argument legally

He would not. It is not in the contract, it is not illegal to display it either. He has no grounds to object.

I think it's a reasonable request.

Are you happy living there? Do you normally have a good relationship with LL?

I've seen a few cases like this before. There was a fairly well known case in London where a tenant stuck up a Pro-Choice poster on their window when there was a well known anti abortion group operating next door. The same argument was used that the tenant had rights and the tenancy agreement was silent on the issue.
The courts found in favour of the Landlord who objected to his property being used to display a permanent message.

It also happened in the run up to Brexit. Landlords have the right to prevent their property being used to display a political point of view, regardless of the tenancy agreement.

If it was a temporary poster (say for an election campaign) I think the tenant would be ok. A permanent poster is different.

Interesting insights from Rebecca who worked in the lettings business so knows what she is talking about.

Absolutely right about the big risk landlords take every time they let their property. We were assured by the agent we use that they want to find the very best tenants for their lls but I am well aware that it's impossible for them to be 100% about anyone despite extensive checks. All we can do is hope we have found a decent couple.

Aviva used to do a landlord's insurance policy and a tenant's policy back when they were Norwich union - they were great. The tenant could insure against accidental damage, say a red wine stain, for peanuts each month, and landlords could insure against loss of rent. Not sure what's on the market now susannah but you could check?