To think that if you private rent your life should not be dictated to by the landlord whose mortgage you are paying

[Nursejackie1]

So many of us are stuck in private renting with no choice paying over the odds, while landlords are making a mint. Most landlords have all these rules that you can’t decorate without permission, can’t even put a wall hanging up without asking. Often can’t or need permission to have pets, have regular inspections. I pay loads for my home and due to that cannot save a deposit. My kids have never had their bedrooms decorated in the way I would like.. having to stick with plain magnolia. Why should somebody else decide whether my kids get to grow up with a family pet or not? AIBU to think that if you are paying somebodies mortgage for them then while you are in that house you should be able to treat it as your own within reason and not have your life dictated to and controlled by them?

Is there no rent reimbursement for those two weeks? That's shocking, and I'm surprised there hasn't been a legal challenge to it.

livelove £550 is about what I pay on my mortgage for my 3 bedroom terrace.

Thanks to gentrification, rent on properties like mine in this area is now £1500. I could not afford to pay rent where I live. That would leave me £400 for everything else

I rent out the house next door, we have rented privately, did not take a deposit but the 1st month rent upfront. The house needed decorating before they moved in ( all the walls are textured paper that is for paint ) we gave them the option of use decorating or they could have 3 weeks free to do it which they opted for. They are wonderful tenants and can paint it what they like but has to be back to cream when they leave. They have hung mirrors, pictures etc.
I hope if we ever have to sell it they will buy it

Haven’t read all the replies butnot all landlords should be painted with the same brush.

We are landlords and the rent we charge hasnt changed in 9 yrs. 9 yrs! And ill tell you what it is. £475 for a 3 bed house. Great house, parking and a garden. The family who rent from us lost their house. They have painted through out, installed a wood burner and the garden is perfect.

@MyInnerAlto
That sounds all very familiar.

My DH wants to move back to his hometown and step into the renting contract my DMil stepped into when her parents died. The flat is part of a housing cooperative founded over 90 years ago.
It's a simple but sufficient flat with a cellar for storage and a loft for drying your washing. The house is attached to the district heating system. And whenever something goes wrong the service is there within the day.

I think it's a bit disingenuous, posters coming on and defending landlords on the basis THEY are a landlord and they are perfectly reasonable and charge an affordable rent. The fact remains that overall, rental prices are not affordable and properties are kept in sub-standard conditions

It’s not disengenuous, it’s people describing their own situations which is fact

My mortgage was £900pm rent was £650. So not all landlords make a mint!

So not all landlords make a mint!

Well no, but you’ll have a valuable asset at the end of it, the payment for which has been subsidised for you by the tune of £650 a month.

You’re taking that hit in the short term because of the long term benefits.

It’s not that short term to let out a flat for 20 or so years. Also the hassle and stress that being a landlord gives is no picnic
I said upthread that I make a loss each and every month with mine. Every time the tenant vacates I likely
Have a month with it empty and then have to pay fees again for the management company to find someone.
I absolutely hate it but can’t afford to sell it at the moment

I think it's a bit disingenuous, posters coming on and defending landlords on the basis THEY are a landlord and they are perfectly reasonable and charge an affordable rent

But then couldn't the same be said of tenants telling us how responsible they are, how well they look after the property and so on?

It seems to me the problem lies in generalisation; we're all individual, and just as decrying tenants purely because they're renting is ridiculous, so is damning LLs on principle because they own the property and the tenant doesn't

I wouldn't have thought this needed saying personally, but still the tired old stereotypes get trotted out

@dontbea Your landlord is an arsehole. Recommendations are at least every 5 years.

As both ex renter and landlord I've always allowed and been allowed to decorate provided all is returned to blank canvas on move out.

Pets are more problematic due to possible damage etc.

I only became a landlord through inheritance with 2 siblings. No mortgage. But after keeping what you need to put by for maintenance, servicing, take off your tax etc. It felt barely worthwhile.

In the end I forced the sale and got out of rented myself. But that rental income would have never helped.

It's not like landlords get all the rent.

But there are crappy ones out there OP.

Part of this is typical MN hyperbole, though.

Landlord? Capitalist, exploitative scum. Hand the deeds to the property over to your tenants immediately.
Tenant? Failure who should have 'made better choices'. Starve yourself half to death to scrape together a deposit and doff your cap in gratitude to your LL in the meantime.

I do understand the OP's annoyance at the unfairness of some people having to rent while others own a string of houses and rent them out at the expense of the less well off. And I definitely think the sticks against second home owners need to get larger. I don't agree with buying flats in say Devon or Cornwall to use as holiday homes or lets when locals can't get on the housing ladder.

But if it's my house, it's my rules. And I would definitely have a no dogs rule unless you were happy to pay a deposit in advance for the new carpets I would have to get at the end of your tenancy. The decoration rules are a bit silly though, if you've been in a house a long time the landlord should be redecorating between tenants - I guess there is an argument that this should involve new carpets anyway. A lot of landlords want the money without having to deal with normal and acceptable wear and tear.

The OP is getting a hard time here. I worked hard, but didn't live at home from fairly young and I could never have saved a deposit alone in a rental.

Rental income doesn't just buy an asset for landlords, there are loads of other expenses after the mortgage has been paid, if there even is one.

Tenants seem to want it all their own way. They want to feel like the place they live is 'home' so they can decorate how they want, put up pictures and stay as long as they choose, but (understandably) don't want the real costs associated with having their own home. The things like replacing and maintaining the boiler, plumbing, roofing and guttering, wiring and electrics etc.

I agree that everyone should have a safe and comfortable place to live, but no one has to have children before they can provide somewhere to bring them up for themselves. If people do want to live somewhere that is big enough for children before they have provided it for themselves, then fine, that's why the rental market is good to have around. But don't then complain that you can't have all the benefits of renting without any of the downsides.

@WhiteDust - I've never realised that the landlord is expected to do most of that (the second list), and would not expect them to. We've been lucky to always have decent landlords - we've been treated fairly, been allowed pets, and have usually been allowed to make minor (sensible) adjustments such as wallpaper or wall hangings. But we've also always been expected to report any problems in a timely manner (so check for pests, leaks, loose floorboards), take care of minor DIY and gardening, clear the gutters, check smoke alarms, etc etc. In fact, we have been pulled up during an inspection before because the hedges were not trimmed (in January). If we asked the landlord to repair a door hinge, or change a light bulb, or check our energy suppliers I would rightly expect to be told to piss off! Many of the things you mention are given a cursory check during inspections, but we maintain it the rest of the time, and the checks benefit the landlord as much as they do us.
But the point is, we expect to do these things anyway because we view the properties we live in as a home. We want the house in good repair, properly maintained, and looking nice.

Overall, surely encouraging a tenant to view the property as their home is beneficial to both parties? If you're expecting to rent long-term (or perhaps forever), feeling like you can never have a home of your own and that you have to be grateful for being "allowed" to live in someone's house (as long as you follow the strict and often restrictive rules) until they decide otherwise on a whim is extremely demoralising. And given that's becoming the norm for a large percentage of the population (not just the anti-social wastrels who also somehow are buying daily Starbucks coffees and £30k cars), surely that matters? But it also benefits the landlord - pp have said about people not taking care of things that aren't theirs, but they also do everything they can to discourage the tenant from having any sense of ownership. Surely if the tenant views the place as their home, they are much more likely to treat it well?

NailsNeedDoing god forbid the tenant wants the place they’re renting to feel like their home. It IS their home??!! Or do you think they’re just choosing it as a temporary solution because they actually have a real home somewhere else they pop back to at weekends? People don’t choose to rent because they don’t want to pay to service their own boiler ffs. Yes, I agree rental accommodation is useful for students and people early in their career who might want to move around a bit before deciding where they might want to buy. But then they realise they can’t affoed it because rent has eaten into their ability to save a deposit, so they rent because they can’t afford anything else. Let’s not forget wages have quadrupled since the 80s but house prices have risen tenfold. I think there’s a bit more going on than people not wanting to shell out for maintenance.

I rent a house out and I allow pets but have had all my carpets destroyed and doors chewed. It costs me loads of money to replace all that stuff.
Everytime a tenant leaves I have to redecorate and recarpet the whole place and it can cost thousands.
I don't make any money on the place, I'm just renting it out until I can sell it and buy another home in the place I've moved to.

@NailsNeedDoing perhaps keep your sweeping generalisation to yourself. How do you know how many tenants would or would not be happy to take on all the associated costs that come with having a home of their own - but are unable to actually do that because they cannot buy a house in the first place? How do you know the circumstances of a renter who has children and rents? Maybe their circumstances changed and they were then not able to own a home.

I also shocked at the amount of posters who think landlords have nothing to do with many tenants being unable to become homeowners. Of course buy to let affects the housing market!! You need to read up on this if you genuinely don't understand because it may well alter your perspective.

And to the OP, you are not being unreasonable. You pay to live in that house and it should feel like home. No asking for permissions to hang a shelf, no inspections. I wonder how many landlords would be happy to have someone wandering around their home checking up on them?? The fact is, for many (not all) landlords, renting is about business, not about people. So protecting their asset (the house) is always going to come first over the dignity and happiness of their tenants.

I agree tenants should be able to make a rented house their home . A bit of paint and a few picture hooks are hardly a big deal . Longterm tenants should be allowed to have at least one pet.

I managed to buy my property as a single parent because I made the choice to get an education and work experience before having children. After having children, I went ba k to work FT. I then beczme a single and continued to work FT and go for promotions. I became a landlord when I met my partner and moved in his property.

I started as a 'nice' landlord. Prospe tive tenants asked if it was OK to have two dogs promising they were well behaved and cleaned. 1 month after moving in, they asked if they could paint the lounge. I was it reticent as it had been done professionally but agreed on the agreement it would be repainted to the same standard. They were grateful.

They were there 18 months. During that time, they painted ALL the rooms. Whe they left, giving me.o notice, they only repainted the living room. However, they had painted it a dark grey colour,and done such bad job, it covered the fireplace, the skirting boards the door. When they repainted it magnolia, they only put one coat, so the grey showed under and again, covered the fireplace, doors etc...

As or the dogs they'd ut a dog flap out of the back door without asking and the garden was digged, flowers xistroyed etc...

So tell me OP, if you were the next prospective people to rent the place, would you be delighted to move and have to repaint the whole house, stripping the old paint, install a new door etc... because you know I'm a nice landlord and you value such landlords? Or would you e pe tto move into a nice and safe property?

The latter I assume which is why 18 months later, I spent again over £1500 to undo the damage? Deposit you say? No such luck because thry didn't pay the past two months being there so the deposit made up for only some lost rent.

So indeed, after that experience, I asked for no dogs and no painting. Rich you'll think, enough to afford to lose £2000 every couple of years? No because I keep the rent at the lower end of market value and after I've paid for 40% tax on it, insurance, ré tal agent fees and the mortgage, it is a tuslly costing me. So yes, it allows to pay the capital, just about, but I am certainly not putting money in my pocket each month.

I rented for 10 years before I became a home owner so I know what it is like, but it only motivated me to make all the sacrifices I could to be able to become a home owner and decorate my house as I wish.

Various posters have commented that it's wrong for landlords to make a profit on owning more than one property. Why on earth would they go through the hassle of letting a house if there wasn't some sort of monetary gain in it?

And to the poster who said they couldn't move to a different rental property (where the rules about decor/pets might be a bit more forgiving), because it was too expensive to fund new deposits and removal costs, with the greatest of respect, that would be a drop in the ocean compared to the costs associated with buying a property.

I don't make any money on the place

This seems to be a common theme on this thread and I’m a little sick of the disingenuousness.

You’re building up a substantial asset. In the long term it will be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.