Please help re flat deposit

clutton_2 · 2 September 2006 at 11:59AM

renting out property is a long term investment, i always knew that i would make no money at all for the first 2 years (but i do make sure that all my houses are of an excellent standard before tenants move in) - as the initial buying costs are quite large.

It is getting increasingly difficult to find property which is attractively enough priced to be able to make any sort of profit on the rental, as house prices have shot up, but, rents have not.

I'm not complaining, just putting the other side of the picture.

Mrs_Optimist · 2 September 2006 at 1:07PM

Clutton, didnt think you were complaining - just interested. There are an awful lot of posts on this forum from would be landlord who see it as a way to make a quick buck and have absolutely no idea what they are doing!

clutton_2 · 2 September 2006 at 1:35PM

i have heard of many inexperienced BTLers who fall foul of the Landlord/Tenant legislation, which is stacked way in favour of the tenant.

My builder, for example, bought a property in partnership with someone else, who refused to use my "tenant finding / management services". They rented it to one of their labourers, who moved in and did not pay one single penny. Due to their own inexperience, and financial incompetence, and because they had not used a particularly good Tenancy Agreement, they were not able to get him out for 9 months. It cost them nearly £4000 !!!!!

An inexperienced investor who had bought this one house for BTL would probably have been repossessed also.

A salutary lesson.

liz545 · 5 September 2006 at 3:40PM

redmandarin wrote:

I understand why you wouldn't have felt in a position to keep the last month's rent, liz and I fully empathise. But I do feel a bit injured here, as you seem to imply that I'm not quite as honest as you are! I'm a hard working, up-standing, taxpayer who, like you, Eager and many others, can't afford to be ripped off by the unscrupulous!

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you're dishonest; I think the thing is that I've always been told that you should pay your last month's rent, as otherwise you're likely to get lousy references from the LL who thinks you're dishonest. I guess the thing is that until recently I've been very concerned with playing by the rules, in the hope that the LL would play fair too. And that's why it sucks so much that he's being so unfair - it's wounded my (maybe naieve) sense of decency! But if I was in this situation again I can't say I wouldn't withhold the last month's rent. Do you think your current LL would try to keep your deposit, or is it just a pre-emptive measure?

pavlovs_dog · 5 September 2006 at 10:01PM

whats the latest eager learner?

jaws77 · 8 September 2006 at 10:34AM

Any updates EL?

EagerLearner · 11 September 2006 at 9:40AM

Hi all - sorry, I was managing a conference last week and only just got back - (I need to take my brain out, squeeze it, and pop it back in - soooo tired!).

Not much news except that letting agent have responded to court claim stating they deny it all and copying verbatum all the legelese in their previous letter onto the court response form.

I just want it to be over with really. To add insult to injury (having all this going on I mean) we also completely lost our computer 5 days ago - an electrical problem on the C drive means the pc can't 'find itself' when it boots up. A guy came round but there is no hope - we have lost 3 and a half years of photos, including wedding, holidays, poems, my budget planner. Some of the holiday snaps we can re-scan, others like family photos I was e-mailed are prob lost forever. And as companies that recover data charge so much (he said they charge £300 min charge), we can't do it. We will now have to pay out £500 for a new pc.

Harrrrumf.

tigs78 · 11 September 2006 at 8:27PM

Thanks for the update on the deposit saga...

Have you tried posting on the techie forum with regards your computer problem? There are some real experts on there, I managed to retrieve some digital photos that were 'lost' with their help.

irnbru_2 · 11 September 2006 at 10:03PM

EagerLearner wrote:

We will now have to pay out £500 for a new pc.

Buy a new hard drive.

tomstickland · 11 September 2006 at 10:44PM

Buy a new hard drive, keep the old one and see if you can connect to it.
Always back things up.

Please help re flat deposit

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