Sod landlord protection wheres the protection for tenants!

seachelle007

We have been renting a house since January and were told that the landlord was looking for a long term let which suited us perfectly, although we were told that we could only initially sign up for 6 months and then let the contract go on to a rolling monthly one, we assumed this was normal practice as with other houses we had rented,. So as you do we brought all our furniture and signed up for our phone/broadband 18 month contract thinking we would be in this house for a good couple years while we saved for a deposit on a mortgage and our wedding in september.
However we received a letter the other week saying that the landlord requires the property back and we have to move out at the end of the 6 months! If this wasn't bad enough we got a phone call from another estate agent a couple days later saying they wantd to come round and take photos as they had prospective tenants wanting to move in!!!:mad:
Now if we hadn't paid our rent on time were troublesome etc i can understand why new tenants would be needed BUT we look after the house properly pay on time every time and after phoning the estate agents who we originally signed with were told that the landlord was 'just' moving agents and it was nothing personal!!! But we still have to move out. I feel so helpless! We have to sell/store all our almost new furniture and we have to buy out our phone broadband contract as we cannot afford to move into another rented property as we have just paid for most of our wedding so are temporarily moving into our parents (great start to married life_pale_)plus we have to pay to have the carpets professionally cleaned which is another chunk of money wasted and takes the mick really!
Just seems to be one kick in the teeth after another!
So bascially what i'm trying to ask is if anyone knows if there is any kind of protection for tenants? as it all seems to be about the landlords getting their rent and dealing with un-ruly tenants but what about us good tenants, all we get is kicked when we are down and there is no reward for good behaviour! On the plus side we did get a £9 refund on our water bill as we pay by direct debit and will have paid too much by the time we move out :j
It does annoy me that renting is so unpredictable and i get that the whole 6 month tenancy is needed but when you move into a house thats advertised as long term you expect it to be longer than 6 months!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated or if anyone has been in similar situations.
Thanks

benjus

Have you tried writing directly to the landlord to ask if they would be happy for you to stay in the property with the new agent? Most landlords would be happy for a good tenant to stay on, while the agents are probably keen to change tenants so they can make a bit of profit.

However, in general security of tenure is a major problem for tenants, and as far as I'm aware there isn't much you can do about it (unless you can find a landlord willing to offer long term a contract). I've had to move twice in the last few years because landlords have wanted their property back.

Alan2020

Sorry to hear that, but you can sign contracts from 6months to 3 years, the rolling contract is a double edge sword, you can leave, landlord can ask you to leave!
I have never bought furniture while renting, always paid the landlord to provide it, yes was expensive, but I could leave with my stuff in just a car!

[Deleted User]

Protection?

You agreed (in the eyes of the law) to x, you were provided with x, unfortunately you asked about y and were assured (by someone with a vested interest in ensuring you sign on the dotted line) that you would get y.

Tenants have a lot of protections (and it's getting better as time goes on). The key is to only expect what you have legally agreed to, you're expecting something that isn't written into your contract. How would you feel if for whatever reason you had to move out at the end of 6 months (change of circumstance or whatever) and your landlord said "oh but you wanted a long term let, you have to stay for at least 3 years"?

It's unfortunate your situation but is not something tenancy laws should be changed to deal with; you should have signed up for 12 months or 18 months if that is what you wanted and when they said "no only 6 months" found a new place.

Also, how does a wedding stop you paying for a new place? No way to pay the deposit? Maybe ask for release of the deposit fast as a gesture of good will and then sign up to a new place after living with parents for a week or two?

Naf

Contact the landlord directly. He may be unaware of what is actually going on in his property; LAs are known to behave underhandedly in order to line their own pockets - they have little interest in anything else.

seachelle007

We were assured this was a long term let, in hind sight we should have got it down on paper:o figured there wasn't really much we could do about it, just annoyed we can't get any money back for our broadband contract as we are only 5 months into it and we paid our line rental up front and can't get that refunded
We weren't given the option of signing a contract with the new agent, although i've seen a house suspiciously described like ours being rented for an extra £200 on what we are paying, thought it was a bargain when we originally rented it @ £650 considering the location, although if the LL is putting rent up would have been nice to have been asked if we wanted to pay the extra!
We have gone for furnished properties before but i can never relax in them as i'm terrified our toddler might spill/scratch something and our deposit taken so prefer to buy our own stuff, at a cost it now seems. Hopefully we can save hard and fast for our own place. Just another lesson to be learnt. Maybe one day someone will come up with a scheme that rewards tenants with some sort of security, or maybe utility companies can offer a tenancy contract so we aren't tied into 18 months at a time.
Thanks for the replies btw :-)

MX5huggy

You could play hard ball and stay untill the LL gets a court order.

seachelle007

I didn't ask for a change in law just wondering what options were out there incase i'd missed something!
We had only just paid a big deposit off for our wedding so finding another deposit quickly wasn't an option, there is also the difficulty of my fiance working abroad in the army so he can't just come back when he wants and sign contracts and i can't get a contract on just my wage. We aren't allowed our deposit back until we've had the inventory checked so can't ask for it to be fast tracked.
I understand what we signed up to, probably naive of me to think that what people say is true, but i like to believe not everyone is money grabbing
Don't think i could deal with the stress of playing hard ball, im too much of a nice person and like to keep within the law

scottishblondie

I'd speak to the landlord directly if I were you, and see if you can talk him round.

If you were contacted by a new letting agent, it is possible the issue is that he is switching agents (perhaps he is having issues with them?) rather than he has an issue with you. The contract I have with my LA states that I have to stay with them for the duration of my tenant's tenancy. If I wanted to get rid of them, I would also have to get my current tenant out of the property.

seachelle007

scottishblondie wrote: »

If you were contacted by a new letting agent, it is possible the issue is that he is switching agents (perhaps he is having issues with them?) rather than he has an issue with you. The contract I have with my LA states that I have to stay with them for the duration of my tenant's tenancy. If I wanted to get rid of them, I would also have to get my current tenant out of the property.

I think that is what is happening as the agency we signed up with said it wasn't anything personal, i thought they were good agents as whenever there's was a problem (damp patch/leak) they got it sorted quickly, maybe it was costing the LL too much as the new agent that contacted us isn't very well known and don't even have a website which is unusual nowadays so maybe they are cheaper.
Oh well lesson learnt, hopefully buying a house will be less stressful.:rotfl:

tbs624

Alan2020 wrote: »

Sorry to hear that, but you can sign contracts from 6months to 3 years..

Fixed terms not restricted to these timespans.