Are there any decent landlords out there?? Really?!

[narmada]

Oh, I know there must be really, but .............nope, it's no good, I need to vent.

Just left out rental of 6 years. Reasonable working relationship with landlady. She usually repaired essential things when they completely broke. To keep the peace, we overlooked the complete lack of routine maintenance, the persistent damp issue and the painted shut windows, being asked to buy our own replacement fridge when the supplied one broke down when I was 39 weeks pregnant. The usual stuff....

And then the usual return-the-depsoit- shenanigans rears its ugly head.
We spent 2 days cleaning, a whole day rug-doctoring the carpets etc etc etc, but fessed up to running out of time (asbestos crisis in new house, two kids under 3, groupon end-of-tenancy clean offer withdrawn, arghhhhhh) and offered £200 quid to assist with final hoover, removing cobwebs, etc etc etc.

They are asking for more than double this as payment. God, I am fed up, but I'll be buggered if they are just going to treat us as cash cows. Of course, they are multi-squillionaires - I know I know, oh so irrelevant, but why is it always the same old story??!

Grumbles off and looks for .

poppercondria - but if you supplied the microwave, it IS your responsibility to replace it if it dies on them; just as it would be your responsibility if the fridge, washing machine or cooker dies. You can't pick and choose what you're responsible for, and you're not doing them a favour by replacing it - maybe you shouldn't have' left it there' in the first place.

Shocked by some of these stories. We've just replaced the dodgy boiler in our house, costing nearly £2k, even though the house has just gone under offer and we'll be selling it in a couple of months (hopefully!). I couldn't bear the thought of our (very lovely) tenants having temperamental hot water - felt horrendously guilty about it!

Am a firm believer that you get back what you give out in these situations. We've been very lucky in that we've always had lovely tenants in our properties, but then I think we've also been very appreciative of them and perhaps that has come across. Having a responsive and caring landlord makes a huge difference to whether someone a) takes care of the property themselves and b) wants to stay there; in my experience.

I am a nice landlady.

my tenants did not even pay a deposit, so I am defo not thinking of keeping it.

also have not raised the rent for 5 years.

am a mug really.

I once witheld my last month's rent cos I just knew the LL wouldn't return the deposit - told him to keep it. Left the flat immaculate and spent a whole week fettling
This can be a good ploy if you are worried about this issue

I know there are sone decent ones Oyt there

But nope mines a complete bastard . Bathroom ceiling still missing ( wad meant to be done month I moved in that almost 2 years ago

Ensuite bathroom turns out it's never been connected to water mains .
Called LL warning him that pump to upstairs toilet sounding iffy bit nope not been out to sort cue bathroom full of raw sewage which I cleaned up have turned pump of at mains so no bathroom at all

Boiler is s fecking joke always goes of last month or so think you add if up we had 2-3 days if it working so that's no hot water and no heating tyvm with 4dc plus I'm disabled Electrics half plug sockets switched are stuck jn middle so live no earth

Eketric regulary goes of needs resetting at the mains switch . Light bulb blowing see above to why I mean in kitchen 4 spit light bulbs I replace and always same 3 blow within 24 hours . Bathroom light that does not go of constant flicker . Inbuilt freezer never worked , fridge intermittent

No servicing done at all no electric certificates etc no smoke alarms ( brought my own )

I hate this place can not edit till I move end of month

Oh and tent always paid on time, once it was 2 days late as I was rushed into hospital he kicked up fuss never been offered discount when no heating etc .

I have brought couple plug in radatiords but this morning my house 5.c ffs hope the bastard wanker is happy

And feeling I'm going be fighting for my £1800 deposit back too

Anyone who is having problems, just remember that since 2007 deposits have had to be held in an independent scheme IIRC. The landlord can no longer unilaterally decide to make deductions from the deposit - these need to be agreed.

Scary so there is a tax concession, then . My suspicion is that our ex LL is trying to claw a few hundred back from us to pay for the maintenance that by rights she should be paying for.

thehumancatapult your landlord sounds absolutely horrendous. sb6699 . Did he/ she really say that to you? What a complete shit.

I am a Landlady, bought the two houses with mortgages by doing cleaning jobs - I fix everything and treat my tenants nicely. That said, I have had two tenants in a row who have left a couple of thousand pounds worth of damage as well as rent arrears (between the two of them I am 11k down!!!!!!!!!!!!)- it cuts both ways you know. I don't like the constant inferences that we are all loaded and making a mint from down trodden tenants. I bought these houses as long term investments for my children. One DD in particular has LD and so I need to make her future secure either by housing her or giving her an income.

FWIW I only take people on HB (because I have been there and know what a difference it can make to have a good home) - Councils will not pay rent direct unless they are already two months behind so people like me are thin on the ground.

Oh he is and he has made it clear he will not be spending out to fix the boiler since I'm moving out

But to tired to fight it I'm counting down to the move

The thing is TheHumanCatapult he has to have the Landlords Gas Safety Check done anyway - and get if fixed if he plans to relet. I cannot understand it at all as the work on the boiler is tax deductible. Some people are just bastards and happen to the Landlords too.

We have a nice landlord. He repairs things straight away and he respects our privacy. Our previous landlord was similarly nice. Landlords are not all bad.

TBH, if I am leaving a property I would expect to have carpets professionally cleaned and not quite finishing cleaning elsewhere I expect will cost more than £200 to put right.

brandy no Gas as were oil fired and he gets round it as amongst other things he is registered to service them not that jhe ever does do it .

I will have carpets done though do have pictures taken day i got the keys of the heavily soiled carpets , misisng ceilings , copies of emails asking for repairs .) But my pride would stop me hanfing it over in a bad state
one point environmental health had to be called in as tank was sited wrongly and could not get oil delivered and he refused to put right_ .

but im counting down now

Narnada - it's not a concession - there are allowable things that one can put against the taxable rental income (and the list is on the HMRC website and is stringent), but you have to have done the work to offset it, as at any time HMRC could ask to see proof that the work was done and paid for.

I would also add that all this does is either reduce the tax due, or in our case, increase the yearly loss we make by letting. You cannot offset a loss against your income tax for instance, so you either pay full tax on your letting income, or after the deductions have been made, or no tax if your outgoings exceed taxable rental income for that year, and losses can be rolled forward to offset against the next year.

I am a fab landperson, but look at it this way.

You say you ran out of time, 2 kids under 3 etc, well, the landlord may not have time, may have kids, may not be able to avoid the void caused by cleaning running over. £200 sounds a lot, but if you've been there six years, it could well cost a lot morte than that to sort out.

You should keep your part of the deal. And whether or not the landperson is loaded or scrabbling to pay the mortgage is neither relevant nor any of your business.

hullygully I would completely agree with you if a) the place had been professionally cleaned at checkin - it wasn't b) if the carpets were spotless at checkin - they weren't. We said we would contribute upfront to the additional cleaning costs. £200 is plenty - really, it was very clean save for cobwebs and some dust on hard to reach areas.

The galling thing is there is a planned letting void to allow her (finally, and at letting agents' urging) to get some decorating and refitting done, have some new hardware in the kitchen and bathroom etc. What really irked me was that she tried to charge us for replacing damaged worktops (damaged at check in 6 years ago, not by us) when she was in any case planning to replace them at her own cost as part of a refurbishment. To me this is just patently unfair.

I would have been happy to contribute to re- cleaning the carpets but inventory check-out clerk clearly stated that they have come to the end of their working life through fair wear and tear - they are 10 years old at least, light cream, and were extensively draft marked when we moved in.

They did absolutely no running repairs during our time there - e.g., no exterior maintenance which caused us all manner of problems like periodically overflowing loo, damp from water penetration, etc.

ok!

Hope you took pics and had a signed inventory when you moved in?

If not, make sure you do next time...

Hully, I have a signed check-in report, photographs and a check-out report from the Inventory Clerk but I'm still having to go to TDS.

The LL has submitted his own photographs which show the damage "we" caused but obviously he has went in their afterwards, drawn on the walls himself, then taken the photographs!

I can only hope that TDS realise exactly what he has done or I'm stuffed

oh poor you. You should be ok if everything was signed by the inventory clerk.

I'm a nice landlord.

It does cut both ways though, you can get really bad tenants who trash the place and then leave owing you thousands of pounds you will never get back.

I am very lucky as a landlord though and have never had a bad tenant. I have very good tenants who have all been there for years. I will bend over backwards to sort out any problems for them and haven't put the rent up for years, I want to keep them happy so that they don't move out.

I do think though that all things considered, the balance of power is in the landlords favour and it's tough being a tenant.

I think some of them aquired a habit of charging tenants about £200, no matter the condition of the property, and still feel they are entitled to that.

My recent landlord was another who persisted in doing any fixing he deigned to fix himself, despite being the worst person I've ever seen at diy (he just did not give a stuff really). When I objected to having £260 deducted, based on a pack of lies, his agent said that all previous tenants were charged the same. Even the lady who lived their before me and had ocd, so kept everything immaculate.

So I threatened court, and got my deposit back in full.

I am quite sure the nasty little shit considers himself a good landlord.

God, I have so many stories about my ll, I can't even be bothered to write them all down.

I mentioned some of the problems on a thread before and was actually accused of neglecting my dcs by continuing to live there.

A couple of the worst are he turned up shouting and following me round the house for cutting back a hedge "without his fucking permission" - it was in our contract to maintain the garden and I had to phone the letting agent to remove him.

He refused to phone a heating engineer when the boiler broke down again and phoned his mate who had googled the fault and was giving him instructions on what the pc said he should do. When we complained to the la that he could have blown us up we were told "at least he's trying to fix it this time"!

best of luck SB66

these mean spirited landlords who get off on the power they have over their tenants make life hell for so many familes

I was watching a C4 programme on empty homes and they kept banging on about housing associations having to redecorate etc to make empty houses acceptable to tenants

narmada - your later post puts a different gloss on things.

If the LL is unfairly trying to charge for damage and you have the original inventory to prove that it was noted then the LL has not got a leg to stand on.

Take them to TDS if your lease was signed after 6 April 2007. If before that date you are in a much less strong position and would have to go to small claims court to get your money back which frankly for a few hundred pounds is not worth it.

Mmm - in the same way in which there are shit tenants out there (and there are), there are shit landlords. Personally I get professional staff to do all the repairs, event minor ones, within 48 hrs. and Faster than that for more serious issues like the boiler. Annual maintenance is carried out without fail, and I never raised the rent in 3 yrs (despite the general increase witnessed in the local area). However, I would charge tenants if they did not have the place professionally cleaned at their departure - and chances are it would cost a lot more than 200 pounds - I used to pay about 100 pounds to have a professional clean of the carpet in my first flat, which was only 60 sq m - and that was more than 8 years ago!

The argument re: wear and tear does not really stand - you get wear and tear anyway even if the tenants leave the place mega clean. The fact that there is a tax allowance would still require the tenants to leave the place professionally cleaned (as I have in my contract ). The fact that they do not have a mortgage is irrelevant too - they may use the money to fund another mortgage - you simply do nto know.

Also, if you stayed in that place for 6 years (kids and cream carpet? You are braver than I am) - in general I do not think it's unreasonable for the landlord to expect that you have (at least) the carpets professionally cleaned once in a 6 year stay.

At the same time, your landlord does sound like they are taking the piss with the service they offered - they are obviously incompetent (at best!). Given than they are amateurs, the threat of going through court might be enough to make them desist (I probably would in their situation... Not worth the hassle). On the other side, if you do so and they want to proceed you will have to make a good case: do you have proof of the complaints you have made to them over the years and how they were dealt with? About the fact that the place was not cleaned when you moved in? These would help...

Sorry - just seen your update that you do have the inventory check-out on your side. I think they are just trying it on - I cannot see how they will win this on TDS... I am not sure how the small claims court process would work though...