advice re moving house

[may2017ttc]

Hope this is the right place to post this!
So at the moment I rent (and will be renting forever probably, which I'm fine with). I'm going to start trying to conceive in May, and the lease for this flat is finished in October but I've been told I can continue the lease as I'm a good tenant with no arrears/etc. I'm now trying to decide if I need to move or not as there have been some problems with this flat. Pros and cons list below, what do you think?

Pros

1. No stress/extra money of moving (especially as I’d have to move with a baby bump hopefully)
2. Generally happy here and cats are used to it
3. Feels a little big at the moment but perfect size for me and a baby (it's a 1bed but I sleep in the cupboard at the moment as the cupboard is basically the size of a room and the actual bedroom is huuuuge!)
4. Great nursery round the corner
5. Very cheap (£395pm, would be paying £550pm if I moved)
6. Good travel links into city centre
7. Hard to find a flat that is cat-friendly with a prepayment meter and is housing benefit friendly, my current place ticks all boxes
8. They are flexible with lease and are willing to let me stay YEARS! so very secure home, others might not be as secure/flexible

Cons

1. Not in area I want kid to go to school (that is 5+ years away but thinking about child not knowing people when they start school as they were in nursery in another area and how that might affect them)
2. Live on a main road (want to start letting cats out when they're not kittens)
3. Too cold, especially for newborn (no central heating and letting agent refusing to replace heaters- this is my main issue)
4. Shitty letting agent
5. High maintenance to clean, kitchen MUCH bigger than it needs to be but with next to no storage space
6. Terrible cooker in kitchen and they won't let me replace it despite me offering to pay for it

If I were you, I would look around what is available in your price range that fits your needs and go from there. You might find something better, you might not. Make a list of what you absolute musts are and start from there.

Are the heaters (storage?) As you rented the place? Do they all work?

If so....that's why it is cheap.

Who owns it? That is the entity with whom you have a tenancy.

Yes, heaters are storage. They also generally don't work and are a bit rubbish. It is rented and yes that's probably why the flat is so cheap. I think I've decided to move out when lease is up purely after an incredibly cold night, reminded me how freezing it can get! Thanks all :)

If you have storage heaters they should work - has someone covered them and blown the fuses? Advise landlord. Get on correct tariff. Confirm are wired to low rate circuits.

And then move. ☺

Go onto a rolling tenancy so you aren't locked in. Start looking for somewhere else. Best of both worlds!

Sounds like the issues here immediately are the letting agents, not the landlord. Do you have any contact with the landlord? The cooker point seems peculiar, if you've offered to pay for it, and the heating should be fixed too.