To think being a tenant is an absolute misery

[nellyelloe]

For reasons I won't go into, we have found ourselves having to rent for 18 months after selling our house. Luckily we are now buying again so this won't be forever.

It has been the most eye opening 18 months of my life, and I feel SO sorry for people that are stuck renting. It has a genuine negative impact on my mental health. The constant reminders that it's not your home, never feeling relaxed as you're terrified of damaging something, the constant rent increases, the inspections. It's a total misery.

Now I do understand there are some awful tenants about who destroy houses, but that's not us. We haven't even put a single picture on the wall, pay our rent early every month and keep the house beautifully.

We have to suffer inspections every 3 months as per the contract. Now I know the landlord has the right to see how the house is being kept but it feels like an absolute invasion of our privacy every time, to have some 19 year old from the estate agents come round and take photos of the house and how we live. Every inspection fills me with weeks of dread even though I know the house is spotless and exactly as we moved into it. I stupidly didn't even think about it but we got our daughter a hamster and during the last inspection were really told off for it and told they would need to seek the landlord's permission as we had broken the no pets rule. After being a home owner for 20 years, it stupidly didn't cross my mind. Luckily we got the landlord's permission and a clause in the contract to keep Nibbles 🙄 I was made to feel like an absolute criminal for it, like I was storing a body in the loft. It is awful that people are made to feel like this over a pet, something that brings families and children so much joy.

The hinge fell off the integral dishwasher as it was old and dodgy. The 19 year old estate agent came round again to see if it was our fault or if it was due to reasonable wear and tear.....it was reasonable wear and tear as the dishwasher is 10 years old but again, made to feel like some careless idiot for a faulty hinge.

We have an app where we go on and pay the (£1700😬) rent and it has a lovely countdown on it saying when our contract ends...it's really unnerving seeing it and knowing they could kick us out at this point and we would have no right to stay, even if our house purchase doesn't complete in time.
Every 6 months, the rent has gone up £100. We are totally overpaying compared to other properties but again, we can like it or lump it. We are paying £300 more a month than we did 18 months ago. Our salaries have not increased. The mortgage on our house we are buying will be half our rent.

Renting is a constant reminder that it's not your home, that you need permission to breathe and you have people round to check up on you like a child has their parent check their room is tidy.

I honestly find it hellish. The housing system in this country is fucked. The renters reform act is now abandoned. I'm so glad I will be out of this soon but genuinely so sad for others who are in it for the long haul.

Totally agree with you OP. My quality of life improved so much when I finally managed to buy my own place. The worst part was never feeling rooted due to the constant threat of being chucked out. I never felt like I really had a home, just a temporary lodging at the mercy of a landlord. It's shit.

@Twolittleloves yep we are the same and rent in Bath- beautiful home, lovely neighbours, nice bit of town - nice landlords too and no we couldn't buy this either - we earned well late in life and hence beyond getting a mortgage - if we need to downgrade at some point then so be it

I'm a LL and I completely get where you're coming from. On the subject of inspections though three-monthly inspections are required under the licencing conditions (many areas require all rented properties to be licensed), and I have to submit reports of the inspections periodically to the Council. I don't want to do it nearly so often where I have good tenants, but I have to.

I'm pretty Sure they are allowed to increase rent only once a year?. You should look into that!

I think some letting agents don't understand the purpose of an inspection. It's to ensure these are no ongoing maintenance issues unreported by the tenant, to check it's not been turned into a cannabis farm and to ensure the tenant is still on side. Every 6 months is reasonable, every 3 is not, but some insurances insist on 3 month inspection timetables.

Fair wear and tear is perfectly acceptable, you don't have to be afraid of scuffing walls and using appliances.

Yup I'm with you op but it's only true if you are a good tenant.

I rented my house out when I moved in with ex in a rental. 2.5 years I never did an inspection and never upped the rent. Only bothered tenants for the gas safety checks. Tenant got two pets without asking- I would have said yes but wasn't asked. They completely redecorated again without asking- again I would have said yes but perhaps would have liked them to at least strip the wallpaper that is not my taste before they left. When I gave notice I said I would wait 6 months+ if that's what they needed as I felt terrible asking them to leave what was their home- when they got a new place 2 weeks later and gave me literally days notice I sucked up the loss of rent before I moved back as that was morally the right thing to do.

Meanwhile my renting experience was as you described yours to be. To top it off my son is autistic and has violent meltdowns and smears gross stuff. The damage he did in a rental was so stressful. Now I'm back in the property I own and he can trash it and my only thought other than caring for my child in distress is 'pants that will cost to fix' not 'ahhhh what will the landlord/agent say!'

I don't feel the answer is in more rules for landlords however as we need the homes to be rented not put landlords off. But the 3 monthly inspections should only be if a yearly inspection shows problems not par for the course

I think you should speak to citizen's advice bureau - our rent didn't go up until the end of our 2 year contract not at 6 monthly intervals. I think that's the point of a contract. I'm not sure they can do this.

Private renting: Rent increases - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Anyone who says housing associations leave you alone has clearly never rented from Sanctuary Housing

You have a crap lease - why did you agree to those terms?
Mine is inspection once a year. No increase for the term of the lease and limited to X per cent if renewed. If anything doesn't work the landlord (me) fixes it as it's very hard to prove they did.
You've been had.

This is my experience too but only in last 5 years and I have rented for many more years than that....hoping to buy next year. Nevermind permission for a hamster. I had to ask permission to have a child in the two bed property when I was pregnant as there was a clause saying no children unless permission. Faced with the prospect of searching for a new rental when pregnant sent my anxiety levels up! Also its so personal. This year they decided they wanted to increase the rent by £175 a month but couldnt as clause in contract had a percentage limit so they wanted me to sign a new contract. I was brazen enough to refuse and they decided on £40 (top limit in contract) instead...with the warning there will be a substantial increase next April.......landlord barely does repairs so Im not worried, I am a good tenant and I doubt he wants the bother to look for a new one as he would have to sort the whole house. Think the increase is pushed by my letting agency as well rather than just the landlord. I hate inspections, they ignore the repairs needed and berated me over a few weeds on the drive I hadnt got round to yet. Sorry that was long! But wholly agree in some circumstances its not great.

Our landlord is a genuinely lovely bloke who accepts the bare minimum number of inspections to keep his insurance happy and doesn’t hassle us at all. Any repairs that have been needed (which are very few) have been done quickly and without question.

Both agents he’s worked with have been friendly and approachable but we still hate being tenants.

Every mortgage rate increase has us on edge, every time our lease comes up for renewal I loose sleep worrying about if he’s going to have to sell or not. It’s a really stressful situation but we’re lucky we’ve got such a good landlord.

YANBU. Compared to the renting nightmares I've heard from many many friends and family, we had a decent landlord/agent, but even then things broke, leaked etc and were never fixed despite us asking for years. The house just looked tired, but we weren't allowed to freshen it up even with just a neutral/white paint. You could never really make the place your own. You could never feel really secure.

Unexpectedly, agency inspections were the worst though. I appreciate why they're done, but I found them a huge invasion of privacy and really infantalising. 2 or 3 times a year, we'd get 24 hours notice before a random stranger let himself into our home and looked around (we asked for more notice, but they said they couldn't do it). Often we were out at work so couldn't be there. More than once we were away on holiday when we got the notice of inspection. Awful.

I feel very sorry for younger people these days who may be stuck renting for the majority, if not all, of their lives. Renting reform is desperately needed.

In my experience it's the difference between renting through a letting agency or not. We had an excellent landlord for 5 years- after the first year he asked if we wanted to deal with him directly and ditch the agent and we agreed. He didn't put the rent up in 5 years, got all repairs done almost immediately, and returned the deposit in full. A good bloke, who just wanted to make a reasonable amount of money from his property.

It was then a bit of a shock when we moved to a different town, had to pay significantly more rent for a tiny flat than we had for the previous house, and had to be inspected every few months. We had endless hassle with a rental washing machine they had installed which kept breaking down. Plus when we moved out (in a rush, the day lockdown started) they charged me £20 to put up some curtains I'd taken down and had cleaned but didn't get round to putting back up. Twenty quid!

No I completely disagree, these insecurities lie with you, I have rented and never ever felt this way.

My son and dil rent . They will never own a home and they don’t want too . They do not feel inferior to anyone else . As a matter of fact they love it . They don’t need to pay land rates , insurance, pay for any maintenance and they don’t want to be tied down . Not in England so tenants here can have pets and pictures on the wall too . They disagree with your post entirely.

We haven't rented for 14 years, but I used to feel very rootless and homesick, and regularly pig out on junk food, and remember the DAY that we picked up the keys to our own flat, I felt settled for the first time and all of that stopped.
For someone with my personality type, I need to know a property is 'mine' and I can make any changes I like and not get booted out at a moments notice.
I'm don't imagine all renters feel like me about it though.

Yes it’s shit OP. Unless you’re young and fancy free (and even then you’ll likely be ripped off, landlords keeping deposits etc). If you’re older
or have a child or children or ill health it’s even worse. Having to keep moving, inflated rents, tenancy fees, demands for Guarantors, sub-standard housing, useless or unscrupulous or aggressive letting agencies … I could go on.

It’s also amazing the shocking state of many places that landlords are happy to rent out where I live in the south. They have no pride or respect, it’s just a money making exercise. I was shown places you wouldn’t keep a dog.

I had one decent private landlord in all that time, a vicars widow. She was so lovely and also relaxed. It was far from a palace, but ok and she didn’t charge the earth.

I live in a HA flat now. The estate is a bit rough unfortunately so it’s far from perfect, but at least I don’t have the extra expense, constant hassle and insecurity of private renting.

I rent and thankfully that's not my experience. We've only had one inspection and one increase in the past 10 years. This 100% feels like my home. I think there are good landlords and equally awful ones. We pay several hundred pounds under market value but we've also put a fair bit of money into the house -new floors etc.

We've been landlords too. Our tenant never had their rent increased in the 7 years she was there and she paid well under market value because she was a good friend and didn't earn a lot of money. The peace of mind that she was looking after our property was worth it.

Sorry your having such an awful experience.

So what? They are just doing the job they are paid to do. Do you think there should be a law saying that a property manager shouldn't be under 50. What strange notions some of you have.

I rented for many years in three different countries and it was a real mixed bag. I'd say the only consistent thing is that any landlord I've ever had will inevitably fix or replace anything in the cheapest crappiest way possible. On the whole I didn't mind renting as it meant I could be flexible moving around when I had had enough of somewhere. I finally bought a house when I had found somewhere I wanted to put down roots, and I very much enjoy the differences in home ownership, from being able to make home improvements, to being able to hang pictures. I do not miss inspections, but they did force me to clean the house properly! But the best thing about owning over renting is that, aside from interest rate changes, your mortgage decreases in real terms over time, while rents (generally) only go up. Where I live there is a huge housing shortage and rents have gone through the roof since we bought (as have house prices) and I am very grateful that we aren't at the mercy of a rising market any more.

It can be dire. My DD experienced 3 sets of terrible landlords in 2 years in London. One simply refused to do any repairs, the second refused to admit there was an issue with raw sewage coming into the flat from the upstairs neighbour. The third put the rent up 20% after 6 months.

But I also have 2 friends who are landlords and they are brilliant at it, and respect their tenants.

It seems to be luck which is outrageous when you are considering that these are peoples' homes that we are discussing.

I had a landlord who used to let himself in but he said it was ok because he let me know - yes by texting once he was at the door, and going in even if I was out! I hated that bloke. Also the letting agents who completely changed their attitude towards me when they found out I was looking for a house to buy and wasn’t the skint single mum they thought I was. Parasites the lot of them!

If the OP’s experience was anything like mine (over and over) then they didn’t have any choice-you get to a point of desperation where you have to accept any conditions

Well that's not even comparable then!