A Tenant's guide to renting

tbs624

Geminist - you'll get more responses if you re-post as a new thread. Go onto main HBR&S board and new thread button is up at top left

morocha

hi, ya i am moving out in 4 weeks, the managment has being very poorly, that proorly that the inventory for the house was send to us last december, we haven't signed it, as we have been living here for more than 1 year.. and they just wrote that they just noticed they havent given the inventory to us and please sign it and send it back.

the have arranged for people to come over and see the property tomorrow, there is a mold problem in the toilet, that they masked when we first saw the property, and now it became very apparent as the toilet and my daughters bedroom's cealings are covered in mold, i have to cleaned , it is better but not gone. I guess i am worried about the letting agent to try to retain our house deposit. I am still waiting for somebody to come and repair the awful smell that is coming from the shower-( told them 2 weeks ago).

Is there anything i need to be aware to make sure i get my full deposit back ?

Hraham

Quite a comprehensive check list! Must make a note for when I start renting in the summer!

antoan_vegas

Hey,
Thanks was very interesting for me to read your tips.

Take care.

sue2011

Hello,
My daughter and her husband have been renting their house for several months now. They were assured it would be a long term property but the LL has put the house up for sale. She doesn't want them to move out until they have a buyer and so has not given them notice. They have found a property which they are moving into in 2 weeks time. they have asked to pay less than the full months rent as they wont be in the old property but the LL answer was ' I have a mortgage to pay!' Is this legal?

debrag

Lakelady wrote: »

This may have been mentioned before but keep it in mind.
We have just rented via Reeds Rains, we understood from the landlord the electric supplier was Npower but we were also starting to receive bills from Spark Energy.

Long story short is that Reeds Rains have it in their contract that they can change your supplier and they did. What alot of hassle this has caused.
Just beware.

Our agents have done this to us. The account isnt set-up completely yet - they have sent the initial letter & need more information etc. We are planning to cancel them and I currently have scottish power in my name.

If you stay with them make sure not to lose your meter card as they charge £40 for a new one!

JoeA81

tbs624 wrote: »

Not so much something that has changed but, looking back though the OP, you mention asking a potential LL how many properties s/he lets out and how long s/he has been a LL - neither of these queries necessarily helps show you how "good" a LL might be.

Years of experience as a LL can produce some wily old dogs who have got away with ducking and diving from their responsibilities for a long time. If you check out some of the court cases we have flagged up on the "Evict a rogue LL" thread you'll see that some of those errant LLs had large portfolios of property *and* had been operating as LLs for several years.

Conversely, you can get a new LL with just one property who has thoroughly done their research and will be utterly compliant with their legal obligations.

On a separate note, it may be as well to add a note about Ts actually checking, once the tenancy has started, that the LL *has* scheme registered the tenancy deposit as they said they would ( and are required to do in Eng/Wales).

Perhaps a suggestion too that Ts familiarise themselves with the way the respective Schemes operate, from the info on the Scheme's websites, in advance of the end of their tenancy? We seem to have had a fair few panic posts from Ts who have no idea what the process is, possibly because their LL has failed to pass on the prescribed info. We could also mention that Ts should keep their log on info to themselves - posts too about LAs asking for Ts to hand them over to "speed things up"....;)

I've finally gotten around to actioning this very helpful set of suggestions. It was a bad rental experince that made me start this thread, but I have to admit that I have now swapped paying rent for paying a mortgage, so I am not so up to date with everything that is going on in the rental world. So posts like this from tbs624 (thank you!) are very useful in making sure that the OP stays relavent.

Cheers,

Wemfliete

Dont you need buildings insurance as a condition of your mortgage? Id suggest you need buildings insurance but contents insurance would be the responsibility of the tenant. Council tax, water, electricity and sky bills would be for the tenant to pay, unless you include utilities in the monthly rent. Youll also need all relevant gas safety certificates. If its an apartment, is there also a service charge?

EGR

Thanks for this post. It been very useful! I lived with someone who refused to pay his utilities bills when he went, but luckily the landlord just took it out of his deposit. I was stressing for a while because I didn't want to be left with all the debt.

jgriggle

etty1987 wrote: »

Very good post!
Can anyone help, my letting agency is all of a sudden trying to charge me a 3% charge for paying on a debit card? Can they do this?
Thanks

I just stumbled across this post from last year but thought I'd chip in now in case anybody else faces the same problem. I hope etty1987 resolved the issue.

Yes, technically they're free to charge what they want, just as you're free to not do business with them. However I realise that a lot of the time you have no choice if you've been given notice on your current house and need to find somewhere quickly.

I'm work for a small business and we get charged a percentage of the transaction value for credit cards (about 3% I think). For debit cards we get charged a flat fee of about 20 pence per transaction.

It's understandable that companies working on tight margins may add a surcharge for credit cards, but not for debit cards.

Letting Agents' fees are, however, money for old rope in my opinion. I paid about £250 to my letting agent for various admin fees to cover credit checks and landlord's references.

In return for £250 they did an online credit check which costs them about £5, and didn't even follow up my landlord's reference.

So yes, the Letting Agent is ripping you off. But in my experience that's exactly what they're there to do!!