Question for LL's - Long contracts??

tbs624 · 16 May 2012 at 10:16AM

ilovecheese wrote: »

My husband has only just finished planting out the spring, summer, autum and winter bulbs, it such a shame we might not be there to watch them flower

For that reason Ts should plant up bulbs in pots and sink the pots into the ground, taking them with them when they go and leavig the garden as it orignally was.

tbs624 · 16 May 2012 at 10:25AM

N79 wrote: »

There comes a point where a short void is worth it without being greedy.

Thanks for your response N79.

However, the OP has said that the rent is already high for the area which would suggest that a further increase, as psoposed, has a definite"greed" factor about it

N79 wrote: »

Also, in my experience, several smaller rises cause less heartache than on large rise say every 4 years as people don't factor in the 3 years of 0% rises to see that the average rise is reasonable. Most people just don't work that logically with numbers.....

The OP's LL, on the face of it, does not work logically - she currently has in situ someone who seems an exceptionally "good" T - if current T goes, not only is there the possibility of an expensive void there is also the possibility that a new T may not only turn out to be one who fails to pay on time but one who will be calling on the LL for every little repair, rather than seeing to it themselves at their own cost

ilovecheese · 23 May 2012 at 9:09AM

Hi everyone

I thought I would give you an update!

Received a letter from LL saying she would raise rent to £795 for 6 months then after 6 months raise it to £810.00, as the agent she uses has told her he can get £825.00 for it! (well he would! If we move out he gets more money!)

We invited the LL to come over for a cup of tea/glass of wine and a chat? (She lives 5 minutes away) she declined this saying “I am too busy but you can phone me”.

I call her and tell her: we want to say long-term, we don’t want to move, the rent is too high, and she agreed to raise the rent from £770 to £795 for one year then review it in a years time (I know she will probably raise it to £825 in 12 months time).

During the phone call she said (and I quote!) “I am getting very irritated with this situation” because we won’t roll over and pay more for the property than its worth. Yes it is a nice cottage, but it only has one usable bedroom, it’s next to a really busy road, with no transport links or amenities!

So yesterday we registered with 3 agents, with a budget to £875.00 per month, which will get us 3 bedrooms, a drive and garden, because of the cesspool and oil, paying £875.00 for a normal house is the same as we pay now for a one bedroom house!

Pain that we have to move, but there is no point in staying when we have a LL who is not willing to listen and is just getting annoyed with us.

I hope she enjoys paying her re-letting fees!

We have told the agents we are not interested in houses that have been on the market for sale, or houses where it was the LL’s house but they are living abroad. We are only going to look at houses where it is a genuine BTL, we are not going to re-decorate (if it is not to our standard we will ask for LL to pay or not take it)

Oh the joys of renting

silvercar · 23 May 2012 at 9:21AM

One of the reasons you will find it difficult to get a tenancy longer than a year is that a lot of lenders will only allow landlords (on their BTL products) to give a tenancy of a maximum of a year. So if the landlord did offer you longer, in breach of the mortgages T&C, you could find yourself with less security than a shorter term.