To tell them to fuck off!!

[Demisemi]

We were recently issued with a section 21 from our landlord via letting agents giving us 2 months to leave our home that we have been in for 10 years.

The past two months have put immense pressure on my DH and I to try and find a suitable house for us and our 3 children. We eventually found somewhere by pure luck.

We are moving next week and had a phone call from our letting agents to say the landlord is now removing the property for sale, will be putting the property back up to rent and when would we be available tomorrow and over the weekend to let tenants have a look around.

I looked on the website and they've the letting price up at £90 more than what we currently pay!

AIBU to tell them to fuck off? I am so bloody angry!!!!!!

Can you offer to pay the extra rent? Are you below market rate and have you had regular increases over the last ten years?

I don't think your landlord has done anything wrong in asking you to leave with two months notice, this is one of the downsides of renting and every renter should be aware of it.

I was also a reluctant landlord when I went overseas and it was a nightmare with my final tenant and the law is heavily skewed to the tenants favour. Obviously you sound like a great tenant, but have seen some comments about law changes and personally I don't think it needs to be any more skewed to the tenants favour than it already is.

If you have not been offered the opportunity to pay the increased rent, then I would not allow access for viewings either, you are not obliged to. They can wait until you are out.

However if you were asked for a rent increase and refused to pay it and if it is a market correction, then, whilst I agree you still should not be obliged for viewings, I think I would. You could always leave the house looking a bit messy ;-)

Why do you think they would go to the trouble of a Section 21 and a possible void period, and lose good tenants, just to get £90 extra a month when they could have just put the rent up?

I see no reason why it wasn’t a genuine need to sell - and then they didn’t need to sell afterall, before it went on the market. Maybe they were never going on the open market - they may have had a buyer privately and now that has fallen through and they don’t want to sell.

It’s shit for you, and I agree with you not doing viewings. But you’re speaking like you think it was personal and I don’t see that it would be.

I think contacts should have a clause that if tenants allow 3 viewings in the last 2 months of a tenancy, they get 20% of one month rent back on exit. (or whatever numbers). Landlord can balance that cost against a void period and tenant can decide whether they prefer no viewers or compensation.

For good landlords I’d happily do a small number of viewings myself, but I don’t think you should feel any obligation to - good or bad landlords.

Oh do do the viewings yourself. Be nice as pie, and when they ask say "the LL wanted to increase the rent so gave us notice, but I'm sure you'll be very happy here anyway".

YANBU. Just refuse.

Ring shelter.

Have been a tenant and a LL - and yes, tell them to fuck off.

You have a legal entitlement to quiet enjoyment of your home. It may well be their bricks and mortar but they've signed a contract for you to live in it in exchange for rent. The fact that they own it does not trump any and all of your legal rights.

They must give 24 hours' notice of intent to visit the property and even then, if you refuse then they cannot enter. The only exception to this if there is an emergency - and that means a "shit there's a gas leak" situation.

Email back (you need this in writing) advising them you do not give permission for viewings, that you do not have to allow them access to the property until after you have vacated, and that you have internal cameras recording within your property and will therefore know if someone enters illegally - and that any such illegal entry will be reported to the police. They won't know whether you are bluffing or not but it should be enough for them to back off.

Have been in this situation before - PM me if you want further advice.

Really sorry but as a landlord who doesn't want to be a landlord I have to weigh in.

No one puts a gun to your head and forces people to be landlords . You didn't want to sell at a loss, but that doesn't mean you're forced to be LL.

Not everyone can sell at a loss. If won’t cover the outstanding mortgage, you can’t sell. So yes, some people do become landlords when they would have preferred not to.

I will never understand why landlords/EAs don't realise how bad an idea it is to try and do viewings with tenants in situ. Particularly if they're planning to re-let, rather than sell. The risk of the property being in a state/dirty laundry all over/current tenants telling prospective tenants how lousy the landlord is and pointing out the damp patches is massive. All it'll accomplish is wasting the EA's time and irritating the tenants.

Not everyone can sell at a loss. If won’t cover the outstanding mortgage, you can’t sell. So yes, some people do become landlords when they would have preferred not to.

Diddums. Still not forced to become a landlord, it's a preference.

I used to work nights and when our landlord/his letting agent wanted to do viewings they would let people into the house with no prior warning. When I objected (nothing like being woken up by strangers letting themselves into your house to awaken the beast) he screamed in my face that it was his legal right.
I then made sure not to go out till my friends came home from work to be there for any viewings, we made it very clear what an absolutely atrocious person he was and pointed out every issue in the house. He didn't let it before we moved out funnily enough.....petty but satisfying.

I will never understand why landlords/EAs don't realise how bad an idea it is to try and do viewings with tenants in situ.

I agree.

I'm a LL, tell them to fuck off.
Seriously, they are breaking the law if they don't give you notice and they can't expect you to be there to show tenants around.
Tell them after you have vacated they can have access for viewings, in the meantime you reserve your right to peace.

I've had tenancy contracts that said that within the last 2 months of the tenancy I had to allow viewings for prospective new tenants and that I had to allow viewings if the landlord wanted to sell.
But I'm not a law expert so don't know if such a clause is legal.
If you are really bothered and they don't take no for an answer contact your council for advice most have tenancy advisors.

I do think its really unfair how landlords in England can basically trample all over their tenants who have next to no rights.

A few years back my landlady wanted to sell, just a few months after we moved in, despite reassuring us she was in it for the long haul. I had a death in the family and had to go abroad suddenly and ended up leaving the place messy as I'd been unwell also. I called the agents and let them know what had happened and explained I didnt want viewings until i returned (a week later). Of course they ignored me, went in without permission and then were livid when the place was not to their liking. This resulted in me having a barney on the phone with the landlady where she told me a bereavement "was not that important". We moved out shortly afterwards but had the last laugh as she was then unable to sell at a price she wanted and ended up losing a ton of money through the property being empty for months on end.

A preference?
No, a necessity for my ex boyfriend.
House in massive negative equity.
Couldn’t sell it at any price.
Literally - it went up at auction with no reserve, no buyers.
It was on the middle of a very bad estate, where (at the time) you could walk into the housing office and out again almost with keys.

Couldn’t live there as couldn’t get work.

Renting it out was the only way to stop it being burnt out or seriously trashed by local kids.

So he let it out to a woman who kept the housing benefit to herself most of the time.

And in the meantime, trashed the place anyway - when she moved out, we saw things like felt tipping her initials and love hearts on the walls like a 12yo might on a pencil case.

All this while my ex saw about £500 in the full year, and we were skipping meals and had no heating as we couldn’t afford it - paying the mortgage and our rent.

We split, but not long after that he got a job abroad, dropped the keys into the local building letterbox with a note saying “you have it” and did a flit. Don’t know how successful that was.

Trust me, he never had a preference to be a landlord.

I will never understand why landlords/EAs don't realise how bad an idea it is to try and do viewings with tenants in situ.

That seems to be a double edged sword:

Some LLs just want/need to get the next T in, to minimise the rent gap - so they will pressurise both LA and T

Some LAs want to get the next set of fees in, so they will pressurise the Ts and LL

The best LLs/LAs I work with work themselves into the position where they can afford the gap, show Ts around as soon as the property is vacant, and has been cleaned and cleared, and explain the works being done. Most Ts understand that process.

But some can't afford the gap, for squillions of reasons. If they are sensible they are upfront about it and try to get the Ts to allow viewings. But there are grumpy buggers on all sides, so it isn't always possible

Sorry, that sort of wandered on a bit

Trust me, he never had a preference to be a landlord.

He did. He could have dropped those keys off long before he did.

*No one puts a gun to your head and forces people to be landlords hmm. You didn't want to sell at a loss, but that doesn't mean you're forced to be LL

Still not forced to become a landlord, it's a preference*

Bank wouldn't allow us to sell as other two bed apartments were selling for a quater of ehat we owed. We have four kids and there's no lift there. It suited us when we'd just got married and then until two kids but given that bank still won't let us sell dose just pay the mortgage for the rest of its life? We really had no choice and it's been hell. We pay tax and management fees and our rent doesn't fully cover the mortgage. We've had people trash the place, phone calls in the middle of the night about noise, DH has been threatened because we had people of another nationality there. We've had stuff stolen and people not pay rent and refuse to leave when they'd been hellish and we'd given them four months warnings. We've had some nice tenants too but generally it's been shit and all we get told are how lucky we are we have a property even though we rent ourselves and now will never get another mortgage. Things aren't black and white

it seems very strange that they would kick you out for a 90 quid rent increase without at least offering it to you first. They will lose the whole of the first 4-6 weeks rent in agency fees, plus whatever gap in tenancy they end up with.

Idiots. Screw them.

@Vickster99 plenty of people on this thread do know the law and yes, that clause is illegal...

OP it's really simple. If you don't want them doing viewings, put in writing that you don't give permission for viewings.

I'd be interested to know what happens if they ignore you and enter with their key to do viewings regardless?

I don't think I could be arsed changing the locks myself, but if you suspect they may enter without permission and you know someone handy you could do this. It would make the estate agents look like right mullets with the viewers, which could be satisfying.

Disclaimer : also a reluctant landlord here. After 3 sales fell through, and we lost 2 onwards purchases as a result, rather than lost the third we withdrew equity as out onward deposit instead. Didn't want to do this at all but 18 months of fanning around trying to move at the same time as doing IVF meant we needed to make one thing in our lives easy.

I'm hopefully exchanging on the sale next week, at a loss of £50K compared to what we'd have got if any of our sales 2 years ago had gone through. So thanks Brexit. But at least the flat is headed to a FTB who will hopefully enjoy it. And we made ~£15K rent over the two years which somewhat offsets the loss

To be Honest, I also can't see why they would go to all this trouble to put the rent up. They could have done it much simpler.

As such, either there is another reason they wished to evict you. Either they did have an immediate need to sell, or you aren't the ideal tenants you maybe think you are. But it would be very odd to serve an eviction notice just to do a rent increase.

I will never understand why landlords/EAs don't realise how bad an idea it is to try and do viewings with tenants in situ

This has reminded me of a rental I viewed once. The tenant was present and DP asked why they were moving. They said the owners of the flat above were really noisy and they couldn't take it anymore . The face of the letting agent was something special. Of course, they could have been lying but we weren't going to risk it. We've also been asked the same when we've been at home during viewings.

There have been people on here who've had LA's enter with viewers whilst they, the tenants, were in the shower, in bed, sat eating breakfast. I'd go to the trouble of changing the lock barrels.

Oh do do the viewings yourself. Be nice as pie, and when they ask say "the LL wanted to increase the rent so gave us notice, but I'm sure you'll be very happy here anyway"

Ooh yes, kill them with kindness

The tenant was present and DP asked why they were moving. They said the owners of the flat above were really noisy and they couldn't take it anymore. The face of the letting agent was something special. Of course, they could have been lying but we weren't going to risk it.

Even better! terrible neighbours, smelly drains, people partying all night in the summer.

She said that they have keys and will just let themselves in if not convenient
You have rights as tenants. I'm pretty sure she cannot just let herself in without notice and your permission. Check your lease and see if there is a clause about giving you notice before entering the property. Is there such an organisation you can report this to?