Myself, my partner and our two DC had to move 30 minutes away from our home town over a year ago. It was never going to be long term but it’s been longer than we’d like. (30 minutes is nothing to some people but our family are all there and it’s a struggle for us as we’ve always lived in the city)
The reason we had to move to where we are now was due to our previous LL, he put the old house up for sale and we couldn’t find anything in the space of time given (we have a dog) that was in our home town.
Our eldest DC has started school in our home town, it didn’t seem fair to start him at a school near where we are now, to then move him when we moved house.
We recently found the perfect house on the same street as the eldest’s school. Houses don’t come round often in this area and when they do they go quickly.
It came up on right move Friday night, I didn’t get a chance to ring Saturday morning but rang first thing Monday.
The tenants are still living at the house so I got the earliest viewing I could, tomorrow at 3:30pm
I was told I was the first one to book a viewing.
I tried to get a viewing booked earlier but the letting agent said Wednesday was the absolute earliest.
So I get a call today at 4pm saying that the house has been let. We were absolutely devastated, another house won’t come up for another 3 months at least I imagine. I asked how someone had managed to let it when I was told I couldn’t view it earlier, the letting agent said she didn’t know and was just passing on a message.
Now this made me realise how hard it was to find a house last time, everytime we found something we liked and accepted pets we’d get the dreaded call that the house has been let. The one time we were first to give an application in, they didn’t even do it on a first come basis.
AIBU to expect a bit of clarity on the renting process?
How is it someone can get the property first when I was told I couldn’t view it sooner?
How do I prevent it from happening again?
When a house comes up again I want to be ready.