Question for Lettings Agents

[befuzzled]

If a house is being rented out and the tenants are still in situ, owners want to put property on market - is it normal/acceptable for them to come and take internal photographs of the house before you have moved out, with all your personal possessions on display, including close shots of the mantlepiece with large photos of your children displayed on there, and use them in the selling particulars, which obviously nowadays includes publishing them widely acrooss the internet for the world to see?

bump

Maybe I should put this in Am I Being Unreasonable

Are the children really identifiable in the shots? It seems unnecessary to take such a close up shot of a mantelpiece that you can see faces of people in photos.

We put our place on the market while it was rented and our tenants didn't object at all to their possessions being photographed. (They even offered to light fires in all the relevant rooms before viewings and scrub the place down for us, but I appreciate this isn't the norm ) We lived out of the country and frankly what else were we supposed to do? Having said that none of the shots contained close ups of family photos...

No they have no right to enter and do that- it is harassment and is illegal.

yes it is normal to take photos while the tennants are still in the property as they will want it empty for a short a time a possible, and houses always look better when they have things in as it gives a better sense of proportion

why didn't you take the photo's down if you knew the estate agents were coming?

It's normal for the letting agent to give you 24 hours notice that they would like to enter the property. You can say it's inconvenient, you can insist they come at a time you are in. If you let them come when you are not there, they may well take photos for their details. It's perfectly normal.

If you have concerns, ask for the photos to be censored/re-taken.

I didnt know they were coming to do that.

The owners asked to bring round a surveyor to "do the energy efficiency survey" and "measure for floorplans". I was at work. This is all I agreed to. Had I known I would of course have taken all photos down but, irrespective, I don't want my personal possessions and homelife splashed over the internet. As it is, we leave in 3 weeks and have already started packing so there are boxes everywhere, things half emptied out - the photos will look ridiculous anyway. When we rented it it was unfurnished and all the internal shots were of empty rooms. It is an old lady's house, hideous, no work done on it, is a project, money pit house that will be immediately gutted by the new owners - so internal shots of half lived in family home are irrelevent anyway.

I am fuming, especially at the (typical) sneakiness. I have told them if they publish any shots with my possessions or photos in them I will take them to court. Incidentally, they traipsed mud around all the carpets as obviously didn't take their shoes off (was raining heavily), brushed mud over one of my cream sofas which I have just had professionally cleaned, turned the boiler off so there was no hot water for the kids bath when we got home at 7, moved a lot of in the process of being packed stuff, dropped the kids toothbrushes on the bathroom floor and broke their jigsaws which had been left on the dining room table. Bear in mind the estate agent, surveyor whoever was accompanied by the owner throughout, apparently.

They sent us an email in the afternoon saying we had to move "a few things so the photographer could get his shots" (first mention of a photographer)", hope they are back in the right place (some were in entirely different rooms) and I am sending the photographer back tommorow to get external shots of the view from the bedroom windows as, unfortunately, it was snowing today (only good thing about the property) can you let them in - I will send the agent round to do it if I don,t hear from you that you can let them in!

By the way, this thread title should really say question for estate agents as they seem to be preparing to put it on the market to sell, not rent, I assume - you wouldnt do an energy efficiency survey for rentals, would you? (laughable, as it is the least energy efficient house I have ever been in)

Yes, you do have to have an energy effeciency certificate for renting.

As a LL I would still say that they should have told you they were going to take pictures so that you could have taken reasonable precaution to remove personal items and put them away.

I would write a letter of complaint to the manager to let them know someone has been a real idiot(stating the boiler was turned off, etc), and that no, they may not enter the house with out you there. I don't think they have been at all sneaky , I think they have just been very, very thoughtless. I would presume this is a different agent to the one the owners are using already, as they would already have photos. But then again.....

Befuzzled, IME this is not normal. I have bought/sold a number of properties with tenants en situ and I've never included internal photographs (as in my opinion they are an invasion of privacy).

There is a term you should be aware of (and unfortunately many LLs and even more tenants aren't): "right to quiet enjoyment" - to sum the relevant parts up, your LL needs to give you at least 24 hours notice if they want to enter your home, after which they can do if you give permission. And I suspect you wouldn't have done so if you'd have known what they were planning to do. Hope that helps.

Thank you for your input, I am glad to know it is not just me being precious. You are right - thoughtless is the word. The owners are a couple of middle aged women who have inherited a very valuable house (despite it's condition, due to location) and yet all they think about is themselves and the dollar signs flashing before their eyes. In fairness, they replied to say they understood my concerns and have forwarded my email to their estate agent. He has replied saying be assured we will promote the house and not any of the possessions within. We will see.