Good or bad experiences of renting? We want to hear from you!

TripleH

Let's see...

First rental in Essex, a HMO, heating in my room didn't work properly, but generally tired house in a very tired area, despite that it was fine.

Then rented 2 bed duplex in Central London, private renter in a council block. Loved it, some issues, yes, but building was going through refurbishment at the time, happily lived there permanently but we decided we needed to buy. Only issue was squatters for 3 months towards the end of our stay who made everyone else's lives hell.

Then rented Hampshire, new 2 bed conversion by bodge job Barry. Half the place was designed for a midget, the rest for a giant (friend had to have a footstool to get in the bath), trim fell off the kitchen units and ended up atop the fridge. Letting agent tried to charge for not replacing bulbs until I pointed out the pack on the windowsill and that the heavy light fitting screwed into a polystyrene ceiling tile that fell on me when changing a bulb, meant I felt unsafe changing a lightbulb.

Then up to the NW, lived in a built to rent 2 bed apartment in the city centre. Cannot fault the maintenance, yes a few teething issues, but as much to do with a building still under construction and new technology. First 8 months was fantastic (Inc 3 in lockdown), then we got pot smokers move in next door. Would do it out the window so everything blew direct into our flat, sprayed fog clouds of cheap aerosol in corridors. This, with long covid meant we struggled to breathe in our flat. The building management fobbed us off (even threatened me to shut up about the issues) so they wouldn't have to deal with the issue. Everyone on the corridor except for them moved out. 9 empty flats for 3 months upwards apparently (with 3 empty for over a year), great business plan...

Moved out the centre to a 4 bed terrace house in the country. Very tired, very cold (was warmer outside than in the lounge). Any issues were fixed quite quickly which was good. It did get silly when the landlord gave away one of our allocated parking spots without telling us (we only had 1 car so was not a massive problem day to day) and then ate trying to claim the chew marks in the kitchen units that were there when we moved in and are from a dog were our cats... as pointed out we never got a check in inventory so good luck with that.

We have owned amongst that and are now owning again.

Kakiste

I've lived in 4 rentals across the last 13 years. 

1st one was my first home moving out from my parent's. It smelt of damp on lookround - when I mentioned this the agent 'found' a piece of watersoaked carpet in a cupboard, blamed it on the previous tenants and explained away the smell. I moved in, turned out the shower vented into the roofspace! And there was rising damp. House had black mould in 3 rooms including bedroom which I cleaned off every few days for 19 months with neat bleach. Stayed in there for 2 winters and had four(!) chest infections during that time. Randomly ended up being friends with the previous tenants and they explained that the wet carpet hadn't been left by them and had also been done to them when they moved in, also to cover damp. Letting agency claimed I had caused the black mould and kept my entire deposit. (before deposits were legally protected) 

2nd- Lovely house, 2 issues we had were fixed on time, unexpectedly given 2 months notice to find somewhere else to live after a year of tenancy as landlord was selling the house- I cleaned it entire house from top to bottom and letting agency tried to keep the whole deposit and claimed the skirting boards needed dusting (!) I complained, showed photos and had whole deposit returned. 

3rd- Stayed there for 5 years due to reasonable rent and location. Landlord stored 4 old and stained mattresses in the spare bedroom which he refused to move for the first 18 months of tenancy as it was" his house so he was going to store his stuff." Basement also full of his old junk (broken hatstands, Smashed TVs etc) 
Refused to return deposit after 5 years of tenancy as carpets were water damaged- I produced email showing that this had happened 8 years previously and had an email from him saying that the carpets would be replaced 'imminently' on first month of tenancy- they were still there 5 years later! I forgot to complain in enough time (my daughter was an infant and it got lost along the way in the move) so the piece of work got to keep the money. 

4th (current) - Been here ages- longest rental. Only issues are that landlords are travellers who openly admit that they don't take any notice of the 48 hour notice rule etc, so they just turn up whenever they are passing. (His explanation is; "It's my house, I'll do what I like") However they like us for keeping the house clean and tidy and always paying on time. Letting agency are terrified of landlord (I think there's history there) and won't ask him to do any repairs or they say 'we'll get round to it' and then 'forget' to ask. However as he gets on well with my husband they now have an arrangement that if my husband can fix the issue he does and deducts the material costs from the rent and if it's beyond his ability, the landlord sends one of his friends round. Due to that arrangement stuff does tend to get fixed really quickly- however letting agency are beyond useless. It'll be very interesting to see what happens to this deposit when we eventually buy a house and therefore move out, but I've got digital and printed photos and a video of the house the day we moved in (from the experience with the other 3 previous houses!)  

Murphybear

We’ve rented quite a few, I’ll you the worst 2 bits 

We moved to Devon and rented a new build on Dartmoor.  Lovely house, tiny kitchen.  The contract said “no water beds”.  We queried this with the agent because he’d hit the jackpot, we had a waterbed.  After we’d been there a week the landlords came round, it was tenant find.  They said we would have to get rid of it.  They proudly boasted they were solicitors.  We didn’t tell them we were franchised letting agents with access to one of most knowledgeable tenant/landlord solicitors in the business.  So back and forth correspondence for a few weeks.  Whatever their expertise was it wasn’t lettings.  Our solicitor wiped the floor with them.  By this time we decided to move closer to the business so we mutually agreed to end the tenancy.

a few years later after we’d retired we rented a big but low rent  house on a farm near Dartmoor.  What we didn’t know was that the landlord who lived next door was the biggest **** ever.  Our water stopcock wasn’t in the house it was in a separate room which he kept locked.  He turned our water off at 1.00 am.  It was in the winter and he was concerned that the pipes would freeze because we weren’t heating the house properly.  After talking to the council, Shelter and the CAB to confirm he had committed a criminal offence we invited him round to see how warm the house was.  It had 3ft solid walls, the heat didn’t escape. He threatened me and slapped me.  I called the police and a lively policewoman came round.  He issued a section 21 which was incorrectly completed by the agent.  It didn’t matter as we wanted to move ASAP.  The council sent someone round to talk to him and advised him that they would prevent him letting the house again if he carried on the way he had.  I checked Rightmove frequently, the house never appeared again.  

We found a lovely over 60s community that has a 3 bedroomed house which they couldn’t let.  Most of the tenants were single so couldn’t afford it. Happily living there 4 years later. 

Our experience was that serious problems were rare and most landlords and tenants were very good.  However very bad landlords are unlikely to use a letting agent. 

VictoriaSullivan71

MSE_Sally said:

Let us know about your experiences of renting, from finding a place to live, moving in, living in a rented property and moving out. 

My son has just been stung by a lettings management company, mainly down to his youth and inexperience and, dare i say, stupidity! 

He is at uni in London and was looking for a house share nearby. Every  time he looked at one he liked it was gone straight away. Needless to say he panicked and found one that looked ok and was asked to put down a holding deposit as it wasn’t ready until the beginning of February. 

He asked a few times to go and view the room and was fobbed off saying they could only do a virtual viewing. He never got this. He asked who was already in the house share and was told 2. Girls and 2 boys aged 20-25. Total lie!

On the day he went to pick up the keys there was a discrepancy with the guarantor paperwork so he would have to pay 3 months rent upfront to get the key which he paid. He had already paid a £650 deposit a few days before.

we arrived at the house share to discover it was an absolute hovel, the front door doesn’t shut properly or lock, no fire doors in the building or any certification, the kitchen was falling apart, the bathroom was damp and shower not sealed or grouted properly, it had, apparently been leaking for months. The house mates were all men over 40. The place was filthy but obviously that’s down to the housemates.

My son stayed 4 days before we moved him home! I spoke to the management company and they said to terminate the contract he would be charged £350 plus any days he stayed. 

So my question is this, can they do this? The house is not fit for purpose so surely they have broken their contract of maintenance. I want to fight for him to get all his money back but not sure if that’s even possible? We have all the messages and emails where they have blatantly lied about the property and refused a viewing! Everything’s in writing.