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?

if you private rent you abide by the rules you agreed.

I don't think buy-to-lets are a licence to print money. Some tenants are very dodgy, and there isn't a massive return anyway

I wouldn't get involved as a landlord, personally.,

Where we live rent hasn’t risen in 19 years.
The issue is that wages haven’t eityer, that’s where the venom needs to be directed ifyou ask me.

Not all landlords do this though. We pay for a decorator to decorate to our tenant’s taste, within reason. She has also chosen carpets, which we paid for. She has a cat too.

We do all of this because she is a brilliant tenant who loves our house and we want her to stay.

Juju666 - is that Bruce in your telly? Nice lounge!

I rent ( used to own but will never be able to again ) and most landlords allow you to paint as long as put the decor back to the original condition.
I have a cat also - I asked permission.
Some landlords do take the pee though. A friend replaced carpets in her flat at the cost of 2.5k because the carpets were shot - at least twenty years old.
When she left the landlord kept her deposit because she did not put the original carpets back. That's pretty disgraceful imo

Agree, long term rental should be more lenient, if you esp if you agree to repaint when you leave. Just had friends leave a house after 10 yrs. Landlord was not happy, as the cheap lino was not pristine in the bathroom, it is fine. It would cost £30 for new and he made a fortune from them.

But op the landlord needs to re-rent after you’ve left - some tenants would paint all the walls in black and silver - nightmare.
As for pets - my youngest DS and I have a severe cat & dog allergy. We’re I to rent out a property I owned I would have to be really struck about no pets. Plus even if you don’t have an allergy - not all landlords are animal lovers and feel that they cause damage and smell . Some landlords WILL like animals though and it will be natural for them to allow pets - you need to sort all of this out before you sign on the line, there’s a choice.

HelenaDove. I'm no economist but.....!

I wonder how many generations it will take of people stuck in rental and in low to moderately paid jobs before people simply refuse to play ball?

Have you asked? Some landlords do allow you to decorate. If it was a fairly neutral colour that you agreed to have professionally done then they might go for that. I say professionally as bad paint job is expensive and/or time consuming to put right.

and re animals 2 out of 3 houses I have bought have had severe pet damage (ruined carpets, damaged doors etc). A landlord cannot tell if the pet is going to be ok and it is expensive to put right, but yes sad that you can't live they way you want to.

I was a landlady for a bit. I was kind to my tenants, I never charged them fees, put the rental way below market value (about 20-30% less). I let them decorate some of the rooms, use the cellar as a music room, replaced everything which broke down (boiler washing machine) straight away. In return they somehow managed to get the gas supply take off the grid, didn't pay the gas bill for 5 years, and even advertised to their friends who took rooms that the rate didn't include gas. It wasn't until I sold that this came to light, plus the remaining tenant who I'd given the flat to for a nominal 'flat sitting' rent so he could afford the bills had planned on leaving me with red bills for every utility and council tax. Luckily I smelt a rat in time. So basically 'nice' landlords often get their fingers burnt, I don't agree with exploiting tenants or taking the piss with the rent, but it there's two sides to why landlords are sometimes tough. I decided I couldn't do it again in the end, felt very let down.

Disagree 100% been a landlady and a tenant and I have had tenants ruin my properties as they can’t decorate or use very bad colours wallpapers and don’t put it back as it was before = costing landlords a lot time and money they can’t afford. Also why do you think all landlords charge way over what they are paying in mortgage. When you rent your property out you ah w to maintain it insure it take a risk at damage being done pay fees to solicitors for contracts etc it’s not a cheap investment
I rented several properties out and many tenants stop laying the rent then you ah w go lay the mortgage still.
It’s not easy money and it’s time consuming.

Sorry if you want a property but one of your own many people worked 18 hour days 7 days a week and raised a family to enable to get a deposit to buy a house.

why should landlords house smell of pets when he or she worked hard to buy it

Do tenants not work hard then? Is it just the superior homeowners?

The reality is that less landlords = less private rentals = increased rent to meet demand of more people chasing fewer properties. Releasing more properties onto the housing market may reduce house prices by a few thousand, but someone who can’t find a £10k deposit for a £100k property will probably also struggle to find £7k deposit for a £70k house.

I’m a landlord and I would be open to redecoration and pets if the tenants proved themselves to be respectful decent people. It is my property and I need to re-rent it again afterwards so of course I need to know what the tenants plans are. I only have one property, not a huge portfolio and yes I am relying on it for my pension so we are not all money grabbing dictators out to make your lives hell. We have to be practical and think of the next tenant.

In France, private renters can usually have a pet - DIL has a dog and 3 chickens. You can decorate how you want and hang pictures etc. dgd has fairy stickers all over her walls. you just have to return the house to it's original state (usually white walls) before you get your deposit back

Sorry if you want a property but one of your own many people worked 18 hour days 7 days a week and raised a family to enable to get a deposit to buy a house

Many many people work very long hours in very low paying jobs and aren't able to save the hefty deposit to buy their own. Again, you seem to be insinuating that tenants are workshy scroungers and homeowners are hard working heros. Why is that? Does it make you feel superior?

Look for a better landlord. We had a fantastic landlord when we were renting who let us decorate how we wanted and we had a pet in the garden, which was a mud pit when we moved in but looked like a proper garden by the time we left. Good landlords do exist, they may be few and far between. We struck gold with ours.

Also, many landlords allow decoration as long as you return house to the way it was previously. So if you want to hang frames or art, you must pay to have the holes covered and room painted. Makes sense to me as these things cost money and why should the landlord cover these expenses? We rented for many years until we could finally afford to buy. Never hung art etc bc I couldn’t be bothered to pay or sort it out when we left.

If you are willing to sacrifice your deposit to cover the costs of re-decorating after you’ve left as well as the costs of decorating to your tastes, then you could try to negotiate with your landlord.

Are you paying an insurance policy or additional deposit that will cover all damages and cleaning to remove the smell and wear and tear of having a pet?

There are costs associated with the choices of decoration and pet ownership and it WBU for you to expect to have your rented accommodation exactly the way you want it if you weren’t willing to bear the responsibility of setting things back to the way the owner wants it after your tenancy was up.
If you are willing to remedy things to their satisfaction after you’ve had things your way then you could try to negotiate, but the owner still has every right to say no.
The owner may be scrimping and saving to make sure their tenant has everything in working order and may not have the spare cash to put things right after a bad experience with a messy teanant. There’s not that much money in renting out properties. Many women do it to maintain a small degree of financial independence after taking time out of employment to look after kids. Landlords aren’t all greedy fat cats living the life of luxury.

Yabu. My friends are landlords. They’ve gone without holidays etc over the years to be able to buy a rental property to secure their children’s future. Theyve made many sacrifices to be able to afford it. The rent they get hardly covers the mortgage and any repairs, general upkeep etc is paid for separately. They redecorate the property every 2-3 years. They’ve had bad experiences of letting tenants decorate and them making a hash of it. Not all landlords are in it for the money.

Look for a better landlord

How? Seriously, how? You have absolutely no idea what the LL is going to be like until you're in the house.

The greater need for private landlords arose when a past government sold off the council / local authority houses. If people are choosing to put their money into or taking a buy to let mortgage out on a property in order to rent it out to someone who needs a home I think they are entitled to lay a few ground rules. It’s not all roses for the landlords as they have maintenance costs, new licence fees in certain areas, management fees for finding tenants and looking after the legal/financial side of things and costs of cleaning up when tenants leave the place in a mess or choose not to pay. Thankfully most tenants are excellent however some spoil it for the majority - hence the ground rules.

I had a friend who rented out their house when they moved onto a new one.

It actually cost them more to rent out in the end. In spite of not being supposed to the tenants decorated the house in the most ridiculous fluorescent colours. They also managed to destroy a boiler that was 5 years old, my friends overheard them arguing about whether they should tell them that they had blocked some outlet or other, problem is they both denied this so they had to pay for a new boiler, rapidly followed by the replacement of a destroyed 3 year old oven. They did absolutely nothing with the garden which was left overgrown and covered in dog mess, and they were not supposed to have a dog and denied having one. They lost the deposit but it didn't anywhere near cover it.

On top of that, we do some work for a LA. We go into previously rented properties and see the mess that has been left behind. People have also actually ripped all the cables out of places, we do telecom and TV cabling for them and the things we see do not bear mentioning. Someone actually managed to pull a cable out of an aerial, pulling the aerial over but leaving it hanging, this was done from the loft.

And you wonder why people put restrictions on what you can do? It is the only way to get some sort of reparation against what people do to the places that are rented out. If you don't block people from decorating, how can you claim out of the deposit for getting it back to a reasonable state?