Provision of house in return for services?

Eton_Rifle

kateandpete wrote: »

Do you think the following points to make seem unreasonable?

• we would like them to keep quiet from around 11pm until around 7am - obviously not set in stone, but thereabouts
• what does she know about these people?
• how long will they be staying in the house?
• this is nothing against these people personally and i have spoken to one of them who seemed reasonable
• we are uncomfortable with her just allowing "whoever" to live next door and do not think she should let people (strangers essentially!) live there without a thought for how that will impact upon us

I totally understand how you feel and sympathise but I'm really uneasy about your asking these questions.

If the lady was selling instead of renting, would you be asking these questions of the new owners :

what does the lady know about them, how long will the new buyers be living there, why is she letting strangers buy the house next door to us without a thought for how they will impact us?

See how unreasonable this sounds and the only difference in your situation is the occupiers are tenants not owners.
Just because you are an owner doesn't give you more rights than tenants and you can't reasonably demand information about people just because they're tenants rather than owners.

Do you see what I mean? I'm completely on your side, believe me but you've got to think how these questions wil be perceived before you plan how to address them.

kateandpete

No, I know that and fully agree. We were tenants for a long time before buying this place last year and attitudes like that irked me plenty! I would not view her letting it out in the normal way any different to her selling it. Tenant/owner occupier is not an issue. It was a bit of a kneejerk reaction i suppose to me saying to her "so you've got some new people in then?" prior to discussing the noise last night and being bowled over by the fact that she said that she really didn't know who they were but she'd given them a key.

Actually one of my concerns (not come over very well, i know) is that the state of the house would not be considered safe from a tenancy point of view.

Anyway, i feel much better having spoken to one of them, and have told the landlady that the noise issue has been discussed and hopefully sorted out, but will let her know if it becomes a persistent problem.

kateandpete

Just wanted to add that my reason for checking these points was that i was quite ready to believe that my lack of sleep and suprise/concern at the landlady's attitude was rendering me somewhat unreasonable! I have no intention of doing a bull/china shop and value all of your opinions which are no doubt more rational than mine has been under the circumstances