Money Moral Dilemma: Should we push for a rent reduction or show 'forbearance'?

meknowalot-51

At least three of you moved into the house and found it to be in poor state,the landlord is not refusing to sort it but rightly saying he can't.What you should all do is clean it all up and agree a price with the landlord,even fix what's broken if you can,are you all working or sat around?Negotiate by starting at 25% reduction and end up at about 15% or more if your lucky.You could be suprised how he reacts because it's one less problem on his books and if he wants you there long term then it's in all your interests to get along.Don't  go down the aggresive route.

richard10002

I am a landlord and have had various repairs and replacements carried out since the start of the lockdown. Tradesmen are allowed to carry out maintenance work if they want to, and are asked to.... they obviously have to follow social distancing rules, and so do the occupants. I would say that your landlord has no excuse for failing to resolve your issues due to the coronavirus situation, and there could be some mileage in reporting him to Environmental Health if things are as bad as the original post suggests.

Obviously, if he has made every reasonable effort possible to get the work done, then that could be an excuse..... but he obviously has not.

I believe that, if a landlord does not attend to things that need attending to, a tenant could arrange for the repair/clean, and withhold the cost from the rent - I'm not absolutely certain of this, but it would be hard to see a landlord issuing possession proceedings because of this, and equally hard to see a judge granting possession.

BTW: Like other landlords here, we don't live in a big detached house in the country either!!).

SXX

njt1907 said:

. Private landlords are decreasng in number rapidly so enjoy dealing with them while you can before you start having to fight for council houses and long waits for poor quality repairs. 

and I would add - that if it weren't for private landlords (yes those people who are ordinary people who have worked extraordinarily hard to have a second property - usually for future pension purposes), a lot of renters would be stuck because they do not qualify for social housing and cannot afford to buy their own home.   So until you can afford to buy your own home, show a little respect for your landlord because most of them are decent people. and sure landlords cannot evict for 3 months, but they can and will afterwards.

ventriloquistdummy

SXX said:

njt1907 said:

. Private landlords are decreasng in number rapidly so enjoy dealing with them while you can before you start having to fight for council houses and long waits for poor quality repairs. 

and I would add - that if it weren't for private landlords (yes those people who are ordinary people who have worked extraordinarily hard to have a second property - usually for future pension purposes), a lot of renters would be stuck because they do not qualify for social housing and cannot afford to buy their own home.   So until you can afford to buy your own home, show a little respect for your landlord because most of them are decent people. and sure landlords cannot evict for 3 months, but they can and will afterwards.

Imagine writing this post out without recognising the link between people hoarding homes and millions of people not being able to afford to get on the housing ladder. The reason "a lot of people can't afford to buy their own home" is in large part because private landlords are buying up housing stock and pushing house prices through the roof. In the meantime, I'll continue to show the same level of respect to my landlord that they show me - none. 

Jimjimmini

The landlord is more than capable of getting someone in to fix the issues, despite the pandemic, it is your basic right as a tenant

SXX

ventriloquistdummy said:

SXX said:

njt1907 said:

. Private landlords are decreasng in number rapidly so enjoy dealing with them while you can before you start having to fight for council houses and long waits for poor quality repairs. 

and I would add - that if it weren't for private landlords (yes those people who are ordinary people who have worked extraordinarily hard to have a second property - usually for future pension purposes), a lot of renters would be stuck because they do not qualify for social housing and cannot afford to buy their own home.   So until you can afford to buy your own home, show a little respect for your landlord because most of them are decent people. and sure landlords cannot evict for 3 months, but they can and will afterwards.

Imagine writing this post out without recognising the link between people hoarding homes and millions of people not being able to afford to get on the housing ladder. The reason "a lot of people can't afford to buy their own home" is in large part because private landlords are buying up housing stock and pushing house prices through the roof. In the meantime, I'll continue to show the same level of respect to my landlord that they show me - none.

How many people do you know who are hoarding homes - I don't know any.  Based on my experience, anyone who has a second property is not hoarding it - they are renting it out until they retire as there is a pretty good chance is that the second property is their pension fund. There is no law against that.     They are simply providing a roof over someone's head in return for rent until they retire.  And just to reiterate - private landlords REALLY are decreasing in numbers and once they sell up to someone who is going to live in the property (as opposed to renting it out), there will come a time when there is less rental stock available. So unless the Govt really does build all those houses they promise to build, there will be a shortage of rentals.

Jeremy535897

If you remember back to before 2007, the reason so many people could buy houses was that house prices were rising and interest rates were low. Lenders took comfort from the fact that if buyers defaulted, they could recoup their loan from the sale of the property for more than it cost, hence the 100% and more LTV loans. Buyers just paid the low rate of interest and relied on house price increases to allow them to trade down in the distant future to pay off the mortgage capital. You could halve house prices and still most people could not afford to buy one, because in such a falling market the banks would only lend at most 50% of the (reduced) value, and poorer people would never be able to afford such a deposit, as well as the capital repayments. You would also put millions of house owners into negative equity, and destroy the economy. There will always be the need for houses to rent, and councils can't provide it all themselves.

RedDwarf82

njt1907 said:

Your landlord is almost certainly a normal person with a job, debts and a conscience. If you get on the phone and ask he'll probably do what he can to resolve the situation.

Wouldn't it be nice if this would be generally possible? I suspect the relationship between tenants and landlords, and the popular image of landlords, would greatly improve if tenants could just get the phone number of their landlords.

But what most of the time happens is that there is an agency in the middle. This by itself already introduces a "chinese whispers" problem. Communication gets inevitably worse when you put an extra step between two persons.

And then you have the problem that there are a lot of BAD tenancy agencies. And the landlord doesn't even have a way to know because the only people knowing how bad the service is are the tenants and the tenants have no way of raising complains about the agencies with the landlords. So those bad agencies are kept in there, sometimes literally lying telling to the tenants that is the landlord the one not replying to them, which further worsens the image tenants have from landlords (and landlords from tenants).

mrpunk50

Who knew that the MSE forum was so well-stocked with grumbling landlords working night and day with a song in their overburdened hearts as they warm up their nest eggs? Nice to have such an impartial audience for tenants' queries. 

Gspree

mrpunk50 said:

Who knew that the MSE forum was so well-stocked with grumbling landlords working night and day with a song in their overburdened hearts as they warm up their nest eggs? Nice to have such an impartial audience for tenants' queries. 

I would have thought responses from landlords would probably give the best insight in to what this tenant should do? Why would anyone other than landlords know exactly what can be done during this lockdown?

I'm not a landlord but do feel for them with the extra fees they've been shafted with over the last 4-5 years. The majority who complain about them are usually polar opposites with their finances; prioritising spending over saving/investments.