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?

It’s not YOUR property you pay someone who owns it to live there! You sound entitled and kinda inconsiderate!! You could try speaking to your landlord and showing a colour scheme that would be completed by a professional tradesmen rather than DIY and they may consider it? Or having it written into your contract that you return the rooms back to magnolia should you leave? But your landlord has every right to say no and if you don’t like it...move

Perfectly acceptable behaviour of course, Crazymaisienumber9. That’s why I trashed every place I ever lived in while I was renting, after all!

lyra yes that's it. Losing the estate thing.

I thought this was a joke reading it, but unfortunately you are being serious. It is their house, you are borrowing it. You wouldn't argue with a hotel about pets, painting style, room inspections. Some landlords don't make a lot of profit, others do. Either way they have worked hard to gain properties and can do as they please with them. Don't like it bloody lump it.

I once looked at it as an investment since. Would end up with £60 a month after mortgage, fees, insurance etc. That would need to go into a pot in case something broke. It wouldn't even cover emergency plumber visit... And it would probably get taxed too...

Usually I would say it’s taken about 10 years here to change the attitudes, but now people have a bit of a “oh no I don’t pay private rent rates” attitude as opposed to a judgey thing. Especially for the people who’ve just got one of the riverside flats.

It’s also brought down the private rents locally as well as there’s 100+ less renters looking for places so people can be more picky, especially when combined with a pilot project for landlords registering with the council.

A lot of HA rents are now the same as private ones

That’s not going to help anyone. That’s so frustrating.

Here the HA does have more expensive properties, but they’re separate to the social rental ones. They have a mid market rent and are rented to people who wouldn’t get a property through the waiting list.

It is their house, you are borrowing it

It is the OPs HOME. She is paying hundreds of pounds a month for the enjoyment of her home. The landlord isn't kindly allowing OP to live there out of kindness. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to hang a picture or have a pet in your home.

Either way they have worked hard to gain their properties

And there it is again. Are you suggesting that tenants don't work hard? Is working hard exclusive to these hero homeowners?

Usually if all housing was state owned there wouldn’t be a stigma because it would be the only option available!

Fowles you sound deeply unpleasant

YABU. Don't think for a moment if you buy your home there won't be restrictions on what you can do. I've lived in own property where I was not allowed to paint outside windows/doors any colour than white, no pet rabbits and goodness knows what else. Where I live at the moment I can't change style of windows/doors, can't run any kind of business from my home, cannot have chickens, cannot have more than 2 dogs, cannot park a commercial type vehicle, caravan on my driveway, or in any other parking space, erect a wall/fence on front garden and they go on and on. So all is not a bed of roses even in your own home. Have you tried negotiating with landlord on a wall colour you would both agree on?

Agree op. I'm in my own house now but I did rent for years, it is absolutely landlords fault prices have gone mad. Both my parents were bank clerks and could afford a house in zone 5 London when I was a baby, no chance now. House prices are crazy

Whereabouts are you on the housing list? Once you get offered some properties then you will be able to make it more your home.

I don’t think the OPs problem is being able to put pictures up or redecorate. What she doesn’t like is having to ask. Lots of people have said that she should approach her LL and ask. In all likelihood it will be a yes (possibly not to superhero walls but the issue is the op resents having to ask. She wants to be able to do stuff without asking, as if it were her own. But it isn’t her own. If she isn’t willing to negotiate the amendments because she resents having to, nothing will change.

Maybe focus on the fact that you have a roof, and it sounds as though you’ve picked a good area for your children.

There’s far, far worse out there.

If you don't like the way a property looks then don't rent it.

I've seen some hideous things done to rental units. I remember years ago some uni students painting all the walls, windows and ceilings black in an apartment! They got paint all over the carpeting as well and they had no intention of repainting it.

YABVU! Posts about landlords make me mad as everyone seems to assume that all landlords are evil, money making gits and a lot of them aren't! We have a rental property as it was fortunate that when i met my husband, we both had houses. We lived in one and rented one. We have a mortgage on the rental. The rent covers the mortgage and gives us a couple of hundred extra for maintenance and repairs. Our tenants can decorate how they want, have pets, hang pictures and do anything else they fancy as long as they don't wreck the house and its in a decent state when they leave. We've been very unfortunate to have a tenant in that decided to stop paying his rent nearly a year ago and due to the law favouring the tenant over the landlord, its taken until last week to finally get him out! The house is wrecked and will need around 5k spending on it. Luckily we had landlord insurance and have managed to get 'most' of the rent back but are still out of pocket. In my opinion there are more bad tenants than bad landlords!

As a landlord I view it as, it’s my house but their home..... I’m accommadating as I want good tenants to stay. I’m not a walk over and I say no if there’s a good enough reason to. I allow pets within reason and decorating again within reason.... I don’t come the heavy landlord.....unless I need to....

53rd way, you are contributing to your own problem. Fewer people will rent out, but if they do, they will raise the rent or deposit to cover any possible damage and /or up the restrictions.

Crazymaisienumber9~ may I introduce you to the concept of sarcasm? Of course I haven’t trashed everywhere I’ve lived. Christ.

I personally am totally fed up with my landlord.

He is affable certainly. Conducts absolutely no wear and tear repairs whatsoever. Thanks me if I pay for leaks to be fixed and walls repaired. The worry of day to day things breaking like taps cooker etc cause it's all on me to mend.

I can barely speak to the man.

I think one of the main problems about private renting is that you can’t point out the problems of the system without people taking it as an attack on them as individuals.

Many landlords are lovely. Many of my landlords were lovely. It is still a fucking grim way to live when you can’t even put up a picture frame to make your home feel like your home.

I agree 53rd. Although an awful lot of posters here including the op describe LL as minted, greedy etc, not fixing things properly, sending in cowboy contractors etc and someone said they are arsefucking their tenants all the time. Is it any wonder that LL on here have defended themselves and given examples of how they have been generous LLs?

I owned a property, and now rent - I sold my flat to move in with my DP rather than have the hassle of renting it out. We are clearly very lucky with our landlord. They live abroad, and we pay rent direct to them, although the lease was arranged through an agency.

We’re just going into our fifth year in the house, and after two years asked if we might be able to adopt a cat, provided we deep clean/restore any damage, and the landlord was fine with that. The landlord has actually dropped our rent each year, and we sign a new 12 month agreement rather than go onto month to month. In return, we pay our rent early each month, we look after the property really well, and we flag up any problems/accommodate tradesmen as needed. Our cat actually doesn’t claw and isn’t destructive, but she does shed a LOT of hair, so while I don’t expect we will need to cover any damage, a deep cleaning will definitely be needed to remove her equivalent, despite us buying a Dyson and hoovering pretty much daily.

NurseJackie I agree with you 100%.

Places where renting is more common and not looked down on as a reflection of bad choices on the part of the tenant tend to have a better balance of owner and tenant rights and responsibilities.

Rules are very much on the side of the tenant. I am what’s called in the trade an accidental landlord ie I can’t afford a new mortgage for a bigger property and therefore have to rent myself and let my property. I get taxed on the income, numerous charges including payment towards protecting the tenants deposit (why!) and estate agent fees etc. I’ve owned and lived in my house for 14 years so mortgage is low but ultimately you still don’t really make much money once everything comes off.

We’ve been flexible and allowed pets and agreed to a repaint as long as they return colour to neutral. The rules were not to smoke and put numerous holes in walls but they ignored and trashed my house including having a charcoal bbq on Astro turf! It’s extremely up-setting and so disrespectful to us. They took possession of an immaculately presented home and trashed it. We were left thousands of pounds out of pocket by putting it right and all we got back from the council (who obviously want to cut costs!) said you can’t have betterment & got a small percentage back!! We couldn’t rent the property back out because of the state it was in. So understand for you that you feel the law is against you but on the other side of the fence we felt we had no rights and introducing nothing but long term let’s makes it difficult to get rid of a bad tenant or take back a property you want to sell.

53rd way. Point taken, but as a very ex landlord who was very badly burnt on the one and only occasion I rented out what was my home , and had it returned like a very used and abused public toilet a d subsequently heard an abundance of stories from fellow landlords that would make your hair curl it says it all that I wasnt shocked by what you said and assumed the worst.