Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Loanranger

But tenants surely just roll one deposit over from the discontinued tenancy to the new tenancy? No need to save up for a deposit. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Last year, a friend of mine was renting a house she could not afford and she understood that she needed to move and so she moved to cheaper area. She had been in that house for eight years or more, good tenant in every way. Landlord did not want to see her go but she simply could not afford it any longer as her housing benefit wasn't enough to cover the rent.
She is a single mum with three children, ex partner in prison, and she is a part time care assistant. She didn't complain about it, just got on with it.

chris_m

Loanranger wrote: »

But tenants surely just roll one deposit over from the discontinued tenancy to the new tenancy? No need to save up for a deposit. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Bit tricky if they have to pay a deposit before moving in and don't get it back until after they've moved out.

Pyxis

silvercar wrote: »

I have to ask: why don't your skirting boards sit on the floor? Given that they appear to be suspended off ground, why didn't you lay the black cable at floor level?

Not mine! Just a photo from t'internet!

Looking at it, I'm wondering if it's some sort of skirting heater? (The photo could be from anywhere in the world).

chris_m wrote: »

Bit tricky if they have to pay a deposit before moving in and don't get it back until after they've moved out.

You're right. They don't get it back until they've left, and that's assuming that there aren't deductions to be made for any damage/losses.

cells

chris_m wrote: »

Bit tricky if they have to pay a deposit before moving in and don't get it back until after they've moved out.

if that is a problem its a problem of them not having sufficient savings. Life (not just renting) needs a capital buffer and fortunately most people have this directly or indirectly

silvercar

Moving to a new area is difficult if your kids are settled in a school. Some people have no access to spare cash for a new deposit and in a lot of areas getting a private rental with no income and no guarantor is virtually impossible. So they stay put and wait to see if the landlord will throw them out and then rely on the council rehousing.

cells

I know of one guy who is a serial non payer of rent.

Supposedly his last landlord let him get away with it for nearly 5 years. Both the landlord and the non paying tenant were or rather are Muslims so the tenant seemed to have played on the Landlords religion of not throwing another brother out on the streets and it seems it worked for a v.long time. I have no idea if the tenant was getting HB and pocketing that or really did not have the means to pay and was not receiving any benefits

Its quite sad as that man has quite young children. He is now renting somewhere else and has stopped paying the rent there too. I suspect he may not get the same lenient response as his last LL


Sometimes people are their own worst enemies.

cells

PasturesNew wrote: »

If you can find somewhere that'll accept you, you pay a holding deposit (£100-200) so "it's yours" while they do the credit checks etc. Credit checks are then up to £175/person. Then, they want a deposit 1-2 months' rent up front - on/before moving in day. And the first month's rent.

Then you've usually an overlap with the last place too (1-2 weeks if you're lucky, a month or more if not).

You get your deposit back within 3 weeks of the end of the last tenancy, if there aren't any issues or clawbacks on it.



With 3 kids and working part-time she's actually got quite a lot of money moving through her hands to be able to "play with" in the short-term... plus the ability to save some up over time if she chooses.

A single person, say, with only £70/week coming through the door for the dole doesn't have the flexibility/ability to create savings. Say.

No matter how they paint the picture, the incomes through a single parent household are large. They do have the ability to shave corners off things, etc. e.g. if they're putting aside, say, £20/week towards Xmas, (£1000/year), then by Sep/Oct they'd have nearly £1k just for that "sitting around". A single's never going to have £20/week spare to even do that.

She's probably got £2k or more moving through her account in any month... if not more.

When I last rented, I had a quick "tot up" of the money I had to pay up front to get the key. With the holding deposit, check in fee, deposit, month's rent up front, credit checks etc, I needed about £2,500 (from memory), for a 1-bed converted garage space.

is buying any cheaper?

In London its about
£2000 for solicitors
£500 for valuations
£30,000 for stamp duty
£5-10k selling fee

And non of that is refunded when you move on. Plus most places need some work before they are liveable too (unless you paid a premium for a newly refurbed just move in place)


I wish it were just £2,500

Edit: Should be £15k stamp duty I was thinking of stamp duty for second homes. Still its nearly £25,000 in fees and none are refunded. If the home is kept for 25 years that is £1k a year every year. If a tenant rents the same place for 25 years what will the annual cost of the agent/other fees be? £20 a year?

Pyxis

It's not just the initial costs, though.


Over 25 years, your monthly mortgage payment reduces drastically in real terms, with inflation, whereas the rent you'd be paying is still the same in real terms.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

Re stamp duty ... you've quoted £30k. That's a house buying budget of £800k!

That's ... er ... not really "normal", for most people, is it. That's just you.

That's a sneaked in, hoped I wouldn't spot it, but I did: POSH ALERT!

Don't any oiks buy £800k houses, then?

PasturesNew

In short, where we wandered from was:

Silver said: tenant/can't afford it.
PN said: can see why they're stuck even if they want to move they can't because it's more expensive to move than it is to pay the rent you can't afford.