Landlords as neighbours

[Nmchnger]

We were unexpectedly evicted (no fault eviction, landlady suddenly decided to sell up) after living in our previous property for over 10 years. In Yorkshire (as it appears in most of the country) the rental market is a nightmare at the minute and we struggled to find somewhere, it did look for a while like we were going to be homeless but at the last minute we found a beautiful house on a lovely street.

It was all done through an agency. When we turned up to view the neighbours were in the garden and we had a brief chat. It now transpires that they are our landlords and told the agency not to disclose this. I love the house and due to the necessity looking back I don't think it would have made a difference, but I sometimes feel like we're under constant surveillance and I do feel a bit duped by the agency. AIBU to feel like we should have been told?

We had a similar situation and it was awful. First 3 years was ok but they would walk around the property uninvited and unannounced but the final year was awful.

Would walk in to the house when they felt like it.
Send parcels to the house.
We ended up calling the police multiple times due to harassment and intimidation from them.

We wish estate agents had disclosed before hand that they lived opposite.

Final thing really did it for me. Day we left, min we removed our last vehicle we drove past after collecting our child from school. To see her walking out the house. Before we handed keys back.

Wasn't a surprise when we then were told of "damages" and charges for those. Fortunately we did a walk through. Reported to police and our response to estate agents said that. Soon as the office opened we had our deposit back within the hour.

What a thread!! I rent out multiple properties (they were all homes). My worse nightmare would be to live next door to my tenants: I am attentive and sort issues within 2 hours etc, but I don't want them to be seeing me daily.

Having said that, one property is a prime property and only being rented out as a relative died from Covid, so not really rental, which means I am even more hands-on with it, so it would benefit me (and tenants) to be living next door to them. I even just spent 2 weeks living in it, in between tenants to ensure everything was still working perfectly and place remains immaculate, as it should /be.

It’s like having to sit next to your boss when hot desking, you have to be on your best behaviour (and can’t eat Quavers at your desk or make a call to the vets etc). You sort of feel watched over.

YANBU.

As you say you're in England (Yorkshire) you should not have been charged an admin fee, as these were abolished for tenants a few years ago. Maybe look into that, it is not legal. Unless you mean the deposit?

We found on a tenancy after moving in that the landlord lived next door. We complained to the agency who we had rented from for several years, and were told that the landlord liked his privacy, that's why. We were bound to find out quickly anyway, as he liked to (try to) deal with maintenance issues himself and there were a lot.!

Letting Agents will always put the landlord's wishes ahead of the tenant's, as its the landlord who is their client, legally. Not to the extent of breaking the law, hopefully, but sometimes it can be borderline.

That landlord was pretty unpleasant really, I would really try to make sure we didn't end up with a landlord neighbour again. With a nice responsive one, (but not over intrusive) it would probably be less of an issue. But still.... we value our privacy too!

Ex landlord here, I understood that by law you had a right to know who the landlord was/is including the address?

No, the landlord is the main payer. If you intend paying the rent, and not running riot, I can’t see the problem.🤷‍♀️

It's not creepy at all they are letting through an agency so have every right to be anonymous it's for their convenience. some tenants knowing the landlord lived nearby could constantly harass them so it works both ways.
If you're a decent tenant you've no need to worry

Yorkshire? It's not two detached houses next to each other is it?

Im
an agent and many years ago we had exactly this same situation. Landlords didn’t want tenants knocking on their doors at all hours with issues so we managed it without tenants knowing. It’s landlords choice and it never caused an issue.

You do have a right to know an address for the landlord, but unfortunately this can be just 'care of the letting agents', so you'd be none the wiser. You can also find out who owns a property by getting the records from the Land Registry, although this involves a charge (about £6 five years ago).

Not correct. You have a right to have an address to service notices to but no legal right to know their home address. Their name should have been on the lease though.

How did you find out that the neighbour was your LL? If they didn't tell you themselves, then I expect it is because they want you to use agent and not bang on door if there is a problem.
Or they might be weird..... hopefully it's first!

Isn’t it? Illegal to charge a tenant fees

Our landlord is our neighbour and they are lovely, they are no problem. We rented our house and we rented a bigger one. We discovered it was the neighbour who was the landlord after but they are lovely. The rental is actually through an agency so anything is through them really, occasionally we'll ask them directly about stuff like when we for a dog. Also when they had to put the rent up they spoke to us first. Our kids go to scouts together and it's really nice. The other thing I would say I'm more conscious about reporting anything that's broken but that's just me.

I think it is likely to be less them wanting to watch what you are up to than just not wanting their tenants to have too convenient a way to ask for things. If they use an agent they want that detachment.

YANBU. I lived in a flat with the landlords living above us. I hated it. They were perfectly nice people but I felt unable to relax and they absolutely did raise small issues that wouldn’t have bothered other neighbours but I didn’t feel able to point out anything we considered unreasonable as I would have with a normal neighbour. Also, we once tried to raise an issue with them about noise and it was brushed off and we couldn’t push it because they owned our flat.

Obviously see how it goes because everyone is different (it didn’t bother my DH as much as me, for example) but make sure there is a break clause in the contract and keep an eye out for other properties, just in case!

YaNBU to be annoyed about this and if you've paid the agent fees I would complain to them. Everyone knows full well that you would prefer to know if your LL was living next door. If someone dies in the property they are obliged to tell you. Was their address not on the tenancy agreement you signed?

Especially since they spoke to you under false pretences. You thought oh great friendly neighbours when really they were just snooping.

I don't see why they ever told you. Surely they either want to keep it quiet so you never know and its not awkward or they are upfront about it. Telling you after the fact is very strange behaviour, almost like they are warning you to behave.

I would probably look for somewhere else for the end of this tenancy

Sort of same position…but I looked up the owner on land registry before viewing (it was on open rent and I suspected was a scam) so I knew. And honestly the nicest landlords and neighbours I’ve ever had. I certainly wouldn’t be put off by this. It’s in their interest to keep you happy as if they don’t they’ll soon know about it. I think it’s a great thing. Compared to previous landlords who’ve avoided me / shirked responsibilities/ left me waiting for basics (locking me out / heating not working etc etc

We had the landlords BOSS as a neighbour!!.he was an absolute that too, I'm sure he offered our landlord a parish if he evicted us

Twat I meant, he was an absolute TWAT

I actually have a bad experience with this (funnily enough also in Yorkshire). We went to view the property and loved it so we went ahead. We found out a few days after moving in that it was a very click-y street (only 8 houses). The neighbours left a note on the door to say we’d love to get to know you add us on Facebook type thing. Anyway it turns out the landlords have just moved out of the house and the neighbours were all friends and used to text them ‘oh there’s a dog in the garden’ and they’d say yes that’s been approved ‘for the last 2 nights there’s been another car on the drive’ we got asked in convo with the landlord who had been visiting and I told them it was my brother visiting from out of town.
it just got too much, we CONSTANTLY felt watched, whenever we went for drinks at a neighbours our landlords were there so we ended up isolating ourselves (they were lovely but always asked questions about the house, ‘oh we never our bed there’ type comments) and it was awkward when we had reported problems and they hadn’t gotten back to us after a few days but were next door having drinks 🥴
We ended up moving out…

As per other comments, Tenants Fees were abolished in England in 2019:

Tenant Fees Act - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

So if you've paid an admin fee, you need to make it very clear to them in writing that they need to immediately refund it, quoting this legislation.

In terms of who the agent work for, they work for the LL, not the tenants. Their loyalties should be with the LL. The LL had every right to ask the agent not to disclose that they were next door, particularly if the agent will be fully managing the property, as no LL wants tenants knocking on their door constantly for non-urgent repairs/maintenance.

I understand how you feel about meeting them unknowingly today, but they have a large investment to protect and they obviously had no qualms about you, or else they wouldn't have agreed to let the property to you. As long as neither of you become intrusive toward the other party, I don't see what the issue is here.

Your landlord has to disclose their residential address on the tenancy agreement. What address for your landlord was given on your agreement?

Lived next to LL for about 3 years. We were a bunch of 20 something single women, plenty of parties, late nights. Not once did it bother them. The house was leased to us (same group of friends) for about 10 years in total, we’d come and go but a new friend would take the vacated room. We were good tenants, clean tidy, paid rent on time, fixed things ourselves. They even decided not to increase the rent when we said we couldn’t afford it. They were an older couple raising their young grandchild. They knew they could have got way more rent by evicting us but I think they liked having us next door. The only time we saw them was when the husband did our lawns.

We never once contacted them as landlords, yes we popped over to borrow a screw driver but anything property related went via the agents.