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?

But it's all about choices isn't it. I'm an accidental landlord, my tenants have been in for 6 years. We do have a big mortgage on the property and the rental doesn't cover this. A few years ago we had to decide if we wanted a second child, or to keep that house. The average cost of raising a child in the UK is £75k up to 18. Enough for a deposit. We chose not to have the second child. That was a personal decision to us, but from the sounds of it you chose to have more than one. Also entirely your prerogative. But something has to give, in this day and age of huge costs it's near impossible to have it all.

All my landlords have owned outright. Also they've all agreed to paining as long as it's a light colour. I just don't bother because I don't see why I'd spend money and time on someone else's home and I think that really where I live now should have been painted BEFORE I moved in. The quality of some rented accommodation is awful.
I've also never had a problem with hanging things. I think you have a difficult landlord and you may be able to find a better one.

Thank you @ilnowyouandyoucannotsing

I applaud people who can afford more than one property and can make money from renting it out - why not? Jealousy is not a pretty trait, OP.

"Turn it around and ask why your landlord should have their house rules dictated to them?"

This is silly. The landlord doesn't have any restrictions on what they can do in their own home.

No! I am going to stick up for you OP! If you are paying someone else's mortgage which is probably a couple of hundred pounds cheaper than the rent they make you pay then why shouldn't you be able to decorate it. Do landlords not want the house to look better? I am so sick of this renting rut that people are stuck in, why can't there be a law brought in where landlords can only charge a certain percent above the mortgage they pay! I pay £665 (landlord has just put my rent up £25 a month as 'things have got more expensive, my kitchen and bathroom are disgusting! Clearly we could easily pay our own mortgage each month it's just the god damn deposit and immaculate credit rating. No that's not the landlords fault but i just wish the shit government would bring in some fairer rules, how can anyone save! Anyway that's my rant done

I’ve lived in my house for 9 years, LL hasn’t painted it once and also won’t allow me to paint

LL’s like that enrage me as they are the reason all LL get tarred with the shitty brush.

I repaint every three years or so, same as my house. Currently my tenant has been there long enough that they paint as and when they want. Even if they don’t paint it back when they leave the money I’ve saved in painting (they won’t take a contribution as they paint themselves, to a high standard, and are happy as the rent is relatively low for the area) last year will cover having to do it when they leave.

Re the longer leases - as a LL I’d be happy with longer leases, but I also think it should be easier to remove non payers. By the time you have the two missed payments then several stages it took me 9 months to get out the one problem tenant I’ve ever had because of delays in court dates and having to go through the stages.

Although unlike many LLs that’s actually the reason I happily take housing benefit tenants as the rent can be paid direct if they get behind. Never actually had to do that as the only non payer I’ve had is one of only two who had no help with the rent at all.

@eggsandwich if expecting a reasonable amount of decisions over my own living space that I am paying lots of money for is being “poor me” then ok.
This thread has really brought the snobs out of the woodwork

BrightYellowDaffodil makes a good point about rent increases. I’ve recently remortgaged a rental property. The lenders were quibbling over the rental income, as it’s a good £100-150pcm less than the current going rate for a similar house.

But we’ve had the same tenant for almost 15 years. If we increase the rent we might price him out of what has been his home for a very long time for no reason.

The no pets allowed is reasonable to me but some of the others are not. We need to address the housing situation properly as we are suffering from the legacy of the 1980s policies, which even with a non-Conservative government under Blair and Brown was not changed.

a tenent could have a clause that says they can do whatever they want to a property, decoratively speaking, as long as it was put back to its original state before moving out, but in reality a lot wouldn’t bother and owners would be left to pick up the bill

There might be some decent tenants out there but they are few and far between. (Hide from flaming). My mum and I were both accidental landlords. We could have kept the properties on, but it simply wasn’t worth the hassle. The deposit scheme means it’s almost impossible to get any money back from necessary repairs to properties between tenants, and I can only imagine it’s worth being a landlord if you own multiple properties and just do them up cheaply. The last tenants my mum had took up the carpet and left it in a heap in the garage, so it went mouldy, painted the beautiful floorboards in the house white, painted the bathroom tiles, let the garden become a jungle......did they fix any of it? Did they hell. The deposit didn’t come close to fixing it. My last tenants asked for a cat. I said no. They got a cat that ruined the carpets, but that was classified as wear and tear. Each room carpet cost £500, so the deposit only covered 1 1/3 rooms. If we’d had good tenants, we’d probably still have the houses. So I totally understand why your landlord might say no.

OP, you complain you can't paint to suit your tastes, but that would cost you money twice: once to paint, once to repaint. OR do you want to save to buy? Which way do you want it?

"Look to the chain of events that led you down your life’s route. "

Led her down a route to renting a home!
You talk as if she's a drug-addled street walker or something. It's NORMAL to rent. About half the population does it.

People place so much value on decorating. Im a LL and my newborn hasn’t got a decorated nursery, it’s landlord cream like everywhere else. We have always had our houses fairly neutral as we have to move quite frequently, around every two years, and we are conscious of the resale or renting out houses we have lived in. I don’t think my DS is missing out in anyway because of this. He has some pictures hanging, which is something we allow tenants to do. The colour of your walls is hardly reflective of your quality of life.

why can't there be a law brought in where landlords can only charge a certain percent above the mortgage they pay!

What about landlords that don’t have a mortgage?

I mean, I’m all for a rent cap actually, some are ridiculous and mine is very similar to the rent for social housing (I’m part of a pilot scheme with my council where if you register with them, have a yearly inspection to see that the place is properly habitable, charge reasonable rent and don’t have a stack of complaints against you they will add you to a list that they give to people looking to be housed that they can’t house), but that proposal doesn’t work as not all ll’s have mortgages.

I'm a landlord and am happy to let tenants redecorate, put up pictures etc, but ask that they return the house to the way they found it. To be fair, if they're there for more than a couple of years then the place would need redecorating anyway, so I wouldn't insist. It might be my house, but it's their home. I think a bit of common sense on all sides should apply.

I generally say no to furry pets, as having a flea infestation after tenants left was a nightmare!

Have also had tenants who left the place in such bad condition that it cost four times their deposit to put right.

yanbu
it's standard in many countries that whilst you are renting it's yours.
that comes with the obligation to leave in a good and neutral condition when moving out though.

@thisisacrazyidea
Why would you spend £500 per room for a carpet? That’s madness. We generally do two beds for £400-£500 upstairs and stairs with laminate downstairs. It’s not crap carpet, we have the same in our own home.

@milktraylimebarrel how can you equate not wanting to ask for permission for every normal little thing to me being full of jealousy? I asssure you I am not. Many vile assumptions being made here. Nasty.

I have been a LL and definitely preferred tenants with pets because they stay longer given the lack of places that take pets.

However I have had to say no on some occasions because certain places it was written in my lease on the flat that no pets were to be kept so sometimes it isn’t the LL dictating a certain point.

As people have said it isn’t the LL dictating whether you can afford a place of your own it is your choices.

If you are renting a 2 bed place and are looking to buy a 2 bed place maybe you could set your sights a little lower and rent a 1 bed or studio and look to buy a 1bed where adults are on a sofa bed and children take the bedroom.

You make choices everyday. A lot of people who own were able to because they made choices to put themselves into a position to save for a deposit.
I think MSE has a calculator where it shows how much you spend yearly if you have a coffee out each day before work or you buy a sandwich for lunch or buy a premium brand as opposed to a supermarket own jar of tomato sauce.

There are comparison sites for everything else.

You are in charge of the finances and dictate how much you spend or where you spend it.

Yabu.
We don't mind our tenants decorating a bit but I'm not having a dog or let people smoke meaning I'd have to replace the carpets and repaint the whole house when they leave.

I've said it before but i'll say it again - You really need to buy a house before you have children. Once you have children, unless your very wealthy, it's very hard to pass the affordability mortgage checks. Furthermore, having children then forces you to rent so that your kids have a roof over their heads, thus creating a situation whereby you can't afford to save for a deposit because you're paying high rent, and even if you had a deposit, you wouldn't pass the affordability checks.

And yes, contraception failures do happen, but twice????? three times ????

Also it's the government's fault for selling off all the social housing. If there were plenty of council houses to rent, then private landlords wouldn't be able to charge so much.

I only have a house due to being in negative equity and not being able to sell it at the time of the crash.

Vote for a government who will look after the poor, not the rich.

Foxmuffin sometimes it’s not about the decorating itself but the fact you aren’t allowed to do it, if you pay high rent for a property and you aren’t allowed to change the magnolia or even hang pictures it can feel like you aren’t welcome there and aren’t allowed to make it your own. Tenants understand the property isn’t theirs, of course it’s owned by someone else, but when you are paying rent and aren’t even allowed basic adjustments to make it feel a bit more like your space even for a temporary period it’s hard to feel like you have a home.

@foxmuffin you may feel a little differently when your child is older and goes to friends houses whose rooms are decorated with superheroes or whatever they are into and want the same. It’s not the be all and end all but would be nice to be able to do it.