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?

When I was 21 I was so against renting that I decided to buy a flat with my sister for us both to live in. Unfortunately it was the worst decision we made as we bought right before the recession and were in negative equity within 6 months (£20k now 😩) we now have no choice but to rent it out. Our first few tenants we allowed to decorate but they made such a mess of it. We had to re paint it every time. Each tenant only lasted 1 or 2 years so we were re decorating a lot. One tenant were late on their rent so their deposit didn’t even cover their late payments, never mind the decorating. The last straw was when we let it to someone we knew and they made a mess of it. We ended up getting the full flat freshly decorated neutral with new carpets but put in the next contract that nothing can be changed. We’ve had this tenant for around 4 years now and if she were to message asking if she could decorate I’d definitely consider it but would 100% be asking for an extra deposit.
Unfortunately the bad tenants do spoil it for the good ones.

There are advantages to renting whether you want to admit it or not

There are some advantages for some people at certain times of their life, sure.

But whether you’ll admit it or not, being a lifelong renter is almost always a bad deal. Your landlord profits from your need to have a roof over your head. And that’s capitalism, so I get it.

However someone like miljah makes the very principled point that she finds it immoral that people would be charged more to rent than she would pay in a mortgage, which I applaud her for, because it takes into consideration the huge imbalance in assets.

And you respond with ‘but they don’t have to clean the windows’ which frankly I find callous.

You need to acknowledge that you’ll benefit from others weakness/misfortune/whatever you want to call it. And that’s our capitalist system and that’s how it is. But don’t try and make like you don’t hugely benefit.

@miljah as a millennial who will probably never own a house and who is currently having a nightmare trying to rent somewhere - thank you for your comment and acknowledging your luck. I wish there were more people like you!

Of course rent is more than the mortgage!
A mortgage is not the only bill that needs to be paid

Insurance, management fees are just two.

As if I just said about windows! I’ve acknowledged that LL benefit FFS. I’m not going to get into an argument about capitalism or whether private renting should even be allowed. I’m only trying to show different sides to the argument. Too many people on here are giving the impression that renting is like pure torture and the landlord is just rubbing their hands with glee.
Not always the case on both counts.

A mortgage is not the only bill that needs to be paid

You’ll be compensated more than generously when the mortgage is paid and you own the very valuable asset.

It’s not callous to point out some of those points. It was a weighing up of the pros and cons of paying slightly more than a mortgage, pay more but no commitment. Have a mortgage, maybe pay less but more commitment. Yes there are other issues re renting but I was just pointing out this one

Too many people on here are giving the impression that renting is like pure torture and the landlord is just rubbing their hands with glee.

No one’s saying that. Find me a quote if you want to make that point.

My landlady owns my property outright along with many others. So she is making a tidy sum every month. As i get charged 645 a month, there is little left over for saving.
In a fair society rent should be capped to give everyone a fighting chance.

@LaurieMarlow that's not a good business plan at all.

that's not a good business plan at all.

I’m not talking about business plans but the inherent injustice of it.

It's not injustice. There are bills to be paid. A product is being provided in a contractual business exchange.

If X costs Y to provide then the person using it will need to cover that cost.

There are bills to be paid

My heart bleeds.

Once you've proved yourself a decent remnant plenty of landlords are happy yo let you do minor stuff from putting up pictures to painitg walls as l9ng as you retify at the end of your lease. Garden worlds are also usually welcome too. The problem is manyvtennants go outragep7s things without checking first things can he gets to rectify and tennants have no intention of ever doing This and make no effort to do so so what could he seen as redcoration actually amounts to damage.
For minor things it might be worth discussing with your landlord and adk8ng about painting ypur kids rooms etc as long as you promise to put back aftet.you might need to sign something to agree but itwòuld be worth asking especially if you're long term tenants.

So you're demanding that LL give a damn about your circumstances while saying you don't give a shit about them?

Get a mortgage and have all the stress of having one.
Or rent and suck it up.
Ffs
. Why do people assume that landlords are rolling in it? I assure you the majority are not.

miljah makes the very principled point that she finds it immoral that people would be charged more to rent than she would pay in a mortgage
Well, isn't that the same principle for any service/product one buys? If you buy a meal in a restaurant, you don't pay cost price for the ingredients, but are charged for all the unseen extras, plus a bit. No one expects the vendor to operate at a loss or just to break even. If you don't like the product, you have the option to go elsewhere. And yes, that can/does apply to housing tenants also.

So you're demanding that LL give a damn about your circumstances while saying you don't give a shit about them?

I suspect they’ll be fine. With their assets worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Remind me again what your tenant ends up with?

Why do you have this assumption that you shouldn’t put any of your own money in along the way? I find this bizarre. You want a totally free ride? Cause that’s fair.

I’m talking from a moral POV btw. I appreciate that in a capitalist society it would be unusual not to charge the going rate. However if that going rate doesn’t cover your bills, there’ll be no sympathy from me.

I don’t rent btw. For clarity.

I am a LL and we write into lease that you can paint to colour of your choice but you return it back to white when you leave or you will lose money from your deposit if we have to get someone in to do it. We don't allow pets but made exceptions for rabbits if kept strictly in garden and utility room. Reason for not allowing pets is they scratch and chew and often leave smell.

Get a mortgage and have all the stress of having one

Bizarre statement. How exactly is it more stressful to pay Barclays every month than it is to pay your landlord every month?

Well, isn't that the same principle for any service/product one buys?

Yes but the difference is scale (and human need).

No other widely used product can generate such profits for the owner than a house. As humans we can live without many material goods but we’d struggle without housing.

So private renting is an extreme version of how capitalism allows those who have some money make big profits out of the needs of others.

I understand why people do it and under our current set up it’s needed. Fine.

However I find the whinging on this thread from those who are actually winning big fairly hard to stomach.

@LaurieMarlow I don't rent either. I have one mortgaged house we live in.

But why should all put themselves and their families at financial risk?
LL DO put a hell of a lot of money into the property. Many make a loss.

@SentientPotato because Barclays can get you out a hell of a lot faster than a Ll can get a tenant out if the payee stops paying.

Sentientpotato - mmm well when you own a house you're responsible for repairs - new boiler , leaks, heating etc. Also structural crap. Insurance for everything! The risk of having a tenant do a moonlight flit - which has happened , and they took all our white goods when they did.

Shops sell food for twice the price they get it for, and food is fundamental for life, yet no one complains about "terrible shops".

But why should all put themselves and their families at financial risk?

Where’s all this risk? You can always sell up.

If you go into negative equity (as a result of poor decision making as per the rhetoric of this thread), renting your property out mitigates any short term loss. In the longer term property prices historically rise.

No one’s forcing you to be a LL. If you don’t like it don’t do it.