More persons in my rental property than I thought

chewmylegoff

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I deleted that as it was wrong.

Theres obviously a pack of landlords here. You are welcome to your views.

Personally I think the whole premise of calling children cretins, and wanting them evicted ASAP, while wanting all the rewards of renting out a property, is just a little sad.

except the OP didn't say anything like that. he didn't use the word "cretins", nor say anything derrogatory at all as far as i can see. maybe i've missed something, but to me he appears to just say that he perceived an additional risk of damage from having children in the property, so he didn't want tenants with children.

furthermore, he's not wanting "all the rewards" without suffering the risk. he's said he would rather take a void than have children in the property.

Graham_Devon

chewmylegoff wrote: »

except the OP didn't say anything like that. he didn't use the word "cretins", nor say anything derrogatory at all as far as i can see. maybe i've missed something, but to me he appears to just say that he perceived an additional risk of damage from having children in the property, so he didn't want tenants with children.

Read the line before what I said.

"Obvious a pack of landlords". Therefore wasn't aimed at the OP specifically.

Pennylane

real1314 wrote: »

So, the problem is the number of people. And it's fairly clear that they are not all kids.
Are the kids filling the wheely bins, drinking and smoking? Or is it actually the adults that are causing the problems?

Whilst deciding to not allow kids at a property might be an acceptable viewpoint, to some degree, it's not a logical one. Kids will only behave as the adults allow them to.
It's the adults you need to be concerned about - how they behave / what they think is ok; not the kids.

You're right. I got a bit carried away there. These are adults (just one infant child) I'm talking about. I was just trying to get my point over that some people on here were being very aggressive towards TravellingMan and making out that tenants are blameless and LLs are terrible and that just isn't true.

Imp

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I deleted that as it was wrong.

Personally I think the whole premise of calling children cretins, and wanting them evicted ASAP, while wanting all the rewards of renting out a property, is just a little sad.

You forget that tenants are serfs who must seek their landlord's permission to procreate.

Pennylane

It's interesting that if you are looking to book holiday accommodation - say a cottage or a mobile home - you will very often see "No Dogs" or "No children" along with "No Smoking".

I remember several years ago we had 2 dogs, 2 kids and I was a smoker and to satisfy all our needs was no easy task. A few places would take 1 dog (which you paid extra for) but it was a real job to find one that would take 2. A few caravan sites will keep some caravans aside purely for dog owners.

We've stayed at Center Parcs and they will only allow one dog per villa and that's just for dog owners too.

Some would take a dog but no kids and I enquired why they wouldn't take children and reasons were varied. Some had encountered soiled beds, damaged upholstery and ripped wallpaper. Others were really old properties and they felt the premises were unsafe for small childen or maybe had a pond in the garden or some other safety issue.

PasturesNew

Pennylane wrote: »

It's interesting that if you are looking to book holiday accommodation - say a cottage or a mobile home - you will very often see "No Dogs" or "No children" along with "No Smoking".

I remember several years ago we had 2 dogs, 2 kids and I was a smoker and to satisfy all our needs was no easy task. A few places would take 1 dog (which you paid extra for) but it was a real job to find one that would take 2. A few caravan sites will keep some caravans aside purely for dog owners.

We've stayed at Center Parcs and they will only allow one dog per villa and that's just for dog owners too.

Some would take a dog but no kids and I enquired why they wouldn't take children and reasons were varied. Some had encountered soiled beds, damaged upholstery and ripped wallpaper. Others were really old properties and they felt the premises were unsafe for small childen or maybe had a pond in the garden or some other safety issue.

With holiday homes though, they have just 2-3 hours between one person leaving and the next arriving, during which time they have to get the place perfect again. It can be tight at the best of times, so try adding in fixing stains/breakages/smokey whiffs, piles of dog poo and it just can't be done.

pamelamalcolm

Never trust an agent... See?

sp1987

I think the personality of the occupiers is of as much concern as the tenants themselves.

We viewed an ex show home property (built about 3 years ago). It was occupied by two doctors the agent said, brilliant we thought, it will have been kept well and they work such long hours that they would not be busy sitting around making a mess, lol.

We walked in and it was like an atom bomb had gone off inside. There were easily 3 or 4 bin bags full of beer bottles/old food/everything on the worksurfaces, we didn't look inside the fridge or inside anywhere. There was mess everywhere, it smelled really, really bad (yet no children smell or dog smell and it was not even faeces/sick, it just smelled like it had not been cleaned in 10 years despite only being built for 3). It was so poorly kept that someone had upturned a huge shredder full of shredded paper onto the bedroom carpet (bit late to be looking for something you have accidentally shredded, no?). Oh and they had no covers whatsoever on the beds with none drying/washing. Lol.

All I can say is it was the worst kept property I have ever seen. The agent said 'oh this can be cleaned' so although I admired his positivity, I don't think I could have moved in knowing how bad it had been, even if he was able to remove that lingering smell and skip full of junk. They clearly had not visited the property before as he was utterly shocked the amazing tenants had ground zero'd the showhome. He then moved on from his introductions of 'lovely furniture, peak condition' to 'look, it's sunny outside' and 'it is not far to walk to the shops and bus stop'. I've never before or since felt sorry for a letting agent.

Moral of the story; on paper the best tenants you could wish for, in reality they lived like wolves. In fact wolves would probably have not drank so heavily or upturned thousands of small bits of shredded paper.

The 'professional couple' opposite us now seem pretty similar. They only seem able to leave the house at 9pm (half intoxicated) and can only return at 4am totally intoxicated. Not sure if their front door is on some sort of timer and there seems to be a minimum entry requirement of 4 people.

ruggedtoast

Travelling_Man wrote: »

Wondering if anyone can offer any advice on this issue. I rent a two bedroom property out in the UK while working abroad, I don't want any children or pets in the property as I will probably return to live in the house at some point.

My agent was aware of this requirement and found me a new tenant from the beginning of March. I ( and the agent ) had been under the impression that the tenants were an adult couple, but when the agent went round to sort a small maintainence issue, she found two children there with the couple, despite the tenant having left the space for children blank on the application form. He then apologised and said that he thought he only needed to fill in details for the adult tenants. The tenant does not speak English as a first language but can communicate perfectly well in it and works for a British company as a software engineer, the agent tells me.

Needless to say I am very annoyed. The agent pushed through the new tenancy very quickly but this was only as my previous tenant needed to leave the property, and I agreed to release him from the contract early providing the agent could find someone else.

I do feel that the agent could have been more thorough in their checks and that more clarification could have been sought, as the agent was fully aware that the tenant did not speak English as a first language.

Now it would appear that I am stuck with this tenant until end August, at which point I certainly won't be offering a renewal, but is there anything I can do in the meantime? How is the legality of the rental contract now? I honestly would rather leave the house empty than have children in there.

Many thanks for any advice offered.

And this pretty much perfectly sums up why the private sector is not fit to be relied upon to offer widespread accommodation to people in the UK.

Flyboy152

PasturesNew wrote: »

Loads of adverts round my way for houses etc state "no children". I phoned up an agent last month to ask about a place and she stopped me at the start of the conversation to ask "Any kids, smokers, DSS?" indicating that if the answer were "yes" to any of those the phone'd be hung up.

If this is true, this is someothing that needs to be dicussed with your local hosuing office.

The Department of Social Security has not been in existence for many many years.