To think lettings agents are cheeky fuckers banking on us not rocking the boat?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

The house I've been renting the last couple of years is currently being advertised again as we're moving on. The agent came round last week to take new photos and do a floor plan, and out of nosiness I went to see how they'd come out on the website. Turns out they've taken some rather nice-looking (well, I would say that) photos, and advertised the house as 'furnished' with a nicely kept garden and a recently updated bathroom.

Except, most of the furniture is ours (the landlord provided a beat-up sofa, an ok table and some rather crappy Ikea side tables, and not much else). The nice garden will still look nice, but an awful lot of it is pot plants we're taking with us. And the 'updated' bathroom wasn't updated this side of the millennium, so far as we know.

I know it sounds as if some of this could be an innocent mistake, but it's clearly not because we told the agent when he took the photos that he'd need to know what furniture was ours and what wasn't, and we said it'd been advertised to us as part-furnished.

Round here, it is common to be told you can't see an inventory until you sign the tenancy agreement (shite, I know). I have a feeling the agents are hoping they can show the place round while we're out. We weren't ever going to let them do that, but now I've seen this advert, would it be very wrong to conscientiously tell all prospective tenants exactly what's what?

Tell them They may not know and it is mis selling if they let the viewer assume the furniture is included - the pictures mean they are 'selling as seen'.

They have made a rookie error and you could have some fun letting them know... and also refusing any viewings, that is refuse ALL viewings. Especially if you don't need a reference!

I work with agents, without them I would have no work. And I HATE some of them. But, as others have said, some of the small local agents are really good to work with.

I know that people can ask, at viewings, which furniture comes with the house, and which is the current tenant’s, but if the details say the place is furnished or fully furnished, people may well assume that all the main essentials will be included - whereas if the details say part-furnished, this should be a cue to ask what is and is not included.

Plus, if the details are incorrect, people may end up wasting their own time and the current tenants’ time doing viewings of properties that are just not suitable for them.

Bottom line, the details should be as accurate as possible, and it looks as if the letting agent @LRD’s dealing with is being at best careless, and at worst deeply dishonest, to try to market the property!

Why do you care? Most people would hate a furnished let anyhow.

I'd assume it was a mistake. When we had signed for renting a non-invited house, we then found it was part furnished, then fully furnished.
As we were coming as students and had nothing, we were delighted, but it was down to a mistake, nothing more sinister.

Why do you care? Most people would hate a furnished let anyhow. Yes, so true. Only about one third of the houses I see are furnished

bored - well, I care because I've had agents mess me around before.

It's part-furnished, so if they hate a furnished let, they're going to hate it anyway. Round here, because a lot of people renting are on short-term contracts or from overseas, it is common to rent furnished houses. You don't want to buy a whole load of furniture if you plan to be in Germany in two years' time.

witch - yeah, but a mistake when we'd been really clear with the agent? I dunno, but my spider senses are tingling a bit.

I do understand your frustration but I also wonder how they are supposed to advertise and photograph the house/flat without your furniture whilst you still live there? Do you expect them to wait until you move out? That is unreasonable as well. Not 100% sure of a solution though.

When we were renting our last flat i was in for the viewings and i kept having to interrupt the agents to say 'no actually that's our bed and no that's our chest of drawers etc'. The people were viewing were saying 'ohh is this staying?' and he was saying 'oh yes yes, it all goes with the flat...'

I'd mention it to the agents or if i was there when they were viewing would make it clear what is yours/theirs.

If the agents want to list the house as 'furnished' and use photos of someone else's furniture in situ they need to add a simple sentence to the listing: furniture shown in photos is not necessarily included.

If i were you OP i'd print off a simple copy or two of a list of what IS staying. Maybe with a small post script about the plants in the garden not staying. If you're about if/when any viewings go on you will be able to hand the potential tenants the list with a nice smile as they leave and say 'here you go, this might be useful to know ...'

Do you expect them to wait until you move out? That is unreasonable as well. Not really. It happens a lot. Many LLs prefer to wait, just in case some work needs doing. They build a void period into their finances.

And how do you resell an unfurnished property with recent pictures - if the house is still full of the Ts possessions?

And, in law, any tenant has the right to refuse any photographing, viewings etc, during their tenancy!

How many times does the OP have to repeat themselves??
They don’t have an issue with the fact that their furniture features in the photos. It’s the description they feel is misleading.
To describe a house with a handful of furniture as fully furnished and to make comments on how attractive the garden is when once the OP removes their belongings it’ll actually be rather bare, are at the very least misleading.
Then to state the bathroom is recently refurbished is an outright lie.
And for goodness sake, stop telling them to mind their own business when all they’re doing is trying to look out for the next tennant! Since when was being kind and considerate a bad thing?
How very dare you OP?

What photos did they have before you moved in? Why don't they use those if it's only been a few years?

We had ours photographed empty and then use those pics whenever a tenant moves out. We also do leave gaps between tenants to repair and redecorate etc.

Yes. I was fine with them taking pictures. The pictures they used when we saw it were really confusing - they had two sets of chairs around the same table in different photos, that sort of thing - so we realised they were quite old and from two different times.

I reckon if you're a LL, you either need to take photos while it's empty - which we can't do much about - or you need to advertise it as part-furnished. I can't imagine anyone thinks we're leaving stuff like the baby's cot, obviously, but if I were looking at these pictures, I would probably think things like a sofa, a bed frame and the bookcases were included as furnished.

(Oh, and thank you starlit!)

l'm a tenant, and l've been in this house three years. When the letting agent came to do an inspection a few weeks ago, she commented about "clutter" and said she'd mentioned it in her report to the landlord "last year."
That was never mentioned to me at the time, nor has it been all the time l've lived here. She rang me a couple of days later to say the landlord "isn't happy at all" and that she'll come back next month. lf it isn't sorted, it "could mean the landlord won't renew the tenancy in October." She's done every inspection since l moved in.
There's no question of it being dirty - she actually said it was clean, just l seemed to have a lot of stuff. Which l have, but it isn't rubbish or hoarding - there's no built in storage in the house besides the kitchen units, and everything is in storage plastic storage boxes. A lot of what l have is wool, fabric and art materials in the smallest bedroom, and there's an armchair (still boxed) in the living room which is to go outside in the 'lady shed' once my handyman puts it up, which he will soon. The art materials are all going out there too, which she's well aware of.
l just find it a bit strange that l've rented four places since l moved down here, and this is the only letting agent who's commented on it. A friend of mine rented a place through them, and they said the same to her. l just find it quite insulting that someone young enough to be my granddaughter is telling me what to do.
As she said, it isn't dirty, and if l had more storage (which l will have once the shed's in place) it'll be fine. Am l wrong to ask her to copy me in on any emails she sends to the landlord if anything like this arises in future? And to tell me about it at the time, rather than send an email then mention it a year later?

Presumably the new tenants will be asking the agent exactly what furniture is included? This seems like a non issue tbh

Or they might just make assumptions. People do, even if they're the 67th person to comment on a thread and assume that no-one else has yet contradicted their point ...

Estate agents /letting agents are terrible. My friend rented her house house and there were nearly 20 mistakes in the listing, including a claim that the Hyde had a garage (it doesn't) that it was a semi detached (it isn't) and that the furniture was included (it wasn't).

Agent was remarkably laissez fairs about the whole thing and said they never got the owner to check the listing first, as any mistakes didn't really matter. My friend promptly sacked them.

Or they might just make assumptions. People do, even if they're the 67th person to comment on a thread and assume that no-one else has yet contradicted their point ...

HAHAHAHAHA

I would interfere. I want people to be happy and honest.

I completely see where you are coming from. I wouldn't rule out post it notes, myself.

When I rented my first house the bed in it didn't meet fire regs so the landlord said he would sell it to me for £1 which he did in front of the estate agent. He was strangely annoyed when I took it with me 😀

Bored my recently graduated daughter and her friend moved into a furnished flat as they didn't have any furniture of their own apart from bedding and kitchen utensils (God bless IKEA). Now they are earning a salary they may think about moving when their
Lease is up and buy their own stuff.

'Presumably the new tenants will be asking the agent exactly what furniture is included?'

And you can trust the agents to lie. They do it all the time. Then you give notice on your present property and move out, hire a van, etc etc show up on the day and they have you over a barrel, because what are you going to do? You have no place to live and have already handed over hundreds of pounds.

This came up in the thread where a homeowner's husband shouted a potential buyer for opening some IKEA wardrobes, presumably to assess how deep they were. Plenty of posters who didn't do the same and found out the kitchen cupboards were half full of false fronts or half the cupboards were housing pipes, the boiler, the doors didn't close again, all sorts, but well, too late, they had signed the agreement and were locked into the lease.

Good on you, LDR! Tell 'em. Use Post-Its. Keep the key in the lock to avoid the letting agent just showing up for a viewing, thinking your agreement to allow viewings is a carte blanche to show up whenever.

There have even been a number of threads on here over the years from tenants who were chastised by the letting agents for having boxes out and things in disarray during viewings when they were, well, packing to leave.

Bravo, Starlit!

Sorry, LRD, my mistake .