Daughter at Uni looking for house for her second year help!

[fatbottomgirl67]

Daughter is looking for a house for second year with friends. Found one they like and are having a second viewing tomorrow. All bills, wifi and tv are included, Half rent july and Aug, Are there any questions they should be asking? Student showed them round and said landlord is a good one. Is there anything we are missing?
Tia

MrKlaw
DS looking at this too. Contract seems ok and deposit is held in an official scheme (will still get him to take photos of communal areas and his room). They do mention having a single naked person to handle the deposit which seems ok

This made me snigger very childishly

Argh named

Kuponut i will be there when she moves in and if they're not in place I will buy and fit them myself. Thank you x

Look to see if the Council publish a list of registered HMOs. With five bedrooms it legally should have been registered. This means that the council will have confirmed that there are heat alarms in the kitchen and smoke alarms on each floor. The gas safe engineer doing the annual gas safe cert should check that there is a carbon monoxide alarm.

The inventory clerk should note all three on the inventory and check they are working, as it is the landlords duty to provide them.

However ...carbon monoxide alarms walk and tenants block other alarms or the batteries run out. Check them yourself. They usually have buttons you can test.

The landlord needs to provide tenants with a current gas safe cert, a certificate showing their deposit is held safely and some sort of right to rent leaflet. There really ought to be a detailed inventory. Demand alarms and a gas cert and get them to read the contract and the leaflet and go through the inventory and annotate it and inform ll/letting agent of the differences.

Also before they move in check who the utility providers are and where the meters are. Broadband often needs to be ordered in advance if you want to change. Or the contract may say that the ll has to approve switching suppliers or installing cable.

Dcs have always had individual Yale locks on their bedroom doors so they couldn’t access other rooms in the houses they’ve rented (with friends).

Lizzie, as a landlord, I would be unhappy about letting a house to a group with individual locks. If only for fire safety reasons. I dont think this individual experience is in any way universal, or desirable.

This is just our experience over 3 properties, 2 in Bristol & one in Norwich.

In my experience (2 different student houses) individually lockable rooms are the norm. This has the benefit of additional security against burglary (only easily accessible areas are communal kitchen/living areas) and therefore reduced insurance premiums.

I was only trying to be helpful, but stand corrected by the MN experts.

And yes we did pay the rent a year in advance. Clearly another fail! (Though in fairness some of my student tenants have done the same.)