A Tenant's guide to renting

prudryden

Joe,
A job well done!! I would, however, place a disclamer somewhere in the list stating substantially that a potential renter should be somewhat discreet and not to go demanding copies of mortgage documents etc. If he does, considering the rising rents and the availability of premium rental properties, and rising demand, he may not get a look in.

clutton_2

a "Bond" is another word for a Deposit - and is often used by local authorities - many of whom provide a Bond Scheme - "paper bond" - ie a promise to provide a deposit if there is a dispute at the end of the tenancy.

This Bond does not fall within the remit of the Deposit Protection Schemes as no cash has changed hands.

"don't try to get 100% of the items of this list ticked - or you will be homeless" - very wise advice indeed

JoeA81

Thanks prudryden and clutton. I understand exactly what you are saying regarding taking everything in the guide as gospel, and have add some bold text at the top of the article to warn against this.

Clutton - This Local council bond scheme, sorry I still dont quite understand. Who are the council promising to providing a deposit for, in the event of a dispute - the tenant or the landlord? Does this mean they will pay back this person the full amount of the deposit, even if there is an ongoing dispute? I am assuming that under this scheme the tenant has still payed a deposit?? If they havent paid a depost then how does that protect the landlord? Am I being thick?

MissMoneypenny

prudryden wrote: »

Joe,
considering the rising rents and the availability of premium rental properties, and rising demand, he may not get a look in.

People need to look at the areas they want to rent in. In some areas, the rental market is being flooded by people who can't sell their houses and are choosing to rent them out instead. This has now provided a large selection of quality properties (some BTLs can be a bit rough and ready) and the rents now seem to have peaked in these areas because of supply and demand.

prudryden

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

People need to look at the areas they want to rent in. In some areas, the rental market is being flooded by people who can't sell their houses and are choosing to rent them out instead. This has now provided a large selection of quality properties (some BTLs can be a bit rough and ready) and the rents now seem to have peaked in these areas because of supply and demand.

Agreed! Can only speak for my area. I didn't quite understand your meaning about the rental market being flooded by people who can't sell and decide to rent their homes out- where are they moving to?

prudryden

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:AaxjY2w0UucJ:news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7404947.stm+rent+increases+uk&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk

Hope this works - URL seems a bit long.

tbs624

JoeA81 wrote: »

This Local council bond scheme, sorry I still dont quite understand. Who are the council promising to providing a deposit for, in the event of a dispute - the tenant or the landlord? Does this mean they will pay back this person the full amount of the deposit, even if there is an ongoing dispute? I am assuming that under this scheme the tenant has still payed a deposit?? If they havent paid a depost then how does that protect the landlord?

Joe- Bond Guarantee Schemes are generally offered by Councils, sometimes in conjunction with charities & other agencies. A prospective tenant has to meet certain criteria: usually have a local connection, be homeless or threatened with being homeless, in poor and/or temporary accommodation etc & on benefits/low income, & have little in the way of savings.

The bond guarantee takes the place of an actual cash deposit and offers a written guarantee to the LL that the Council will cover loss, damage or rent arrears up to a max of 1 month (usually) and to a max specific sum, usually around £500. The tenant will usually be required to repay any outlay that the Council is obliged to make under the terms of the guarantee. Some Bond Schemes also include the Tenant paying a set sum over the 6 month tenancy to enable them build up their own cash deposit towards a future tenancy.

tbs624

Just a thought Joe - be nice to see a credit for the MSE Forum users somewhere on that WikiBook page? and maybe you should check with the MSE Admin folk too because:

6. Our content
6.1 All of the content on our site is owned by us or our licensors and is protected by UK and international copyright laws.
6.2 The content on our site includes any information or other material found on MoneySavingExpert.com, including chat forums, articles, databases, graphics, software and all other features of our site. You are allowed to use our content for personal, non-commercial use only. You may make one copy of extracts from this site on any single computer for personal, individual use only, provided that all copyright and proprietary notices are kept intact. Apart from that, none of our content may be republished, posted, transmitted, stored, sold, distributed or modified without our prior written consent.

JoeA81

Thanks tbs624, I now understand the 'bond' thing.

I think you can add a links section to these pages, I will have a look.

But you say I've broken the rules of this forum by posting content that people have written here, as a Wiki? Isn't what Im doing in the spirit of this website? Would anyone from MSE really object to this? And how can the MSE website "own" personal opinions?

tbs624

JoeA81 wrote: »

....... But you say I've broken the rules of this forum by posting content that people have written here, as a Wiki? Isn't what Im doing in the spirit of this website? Would anyone from MSE really object to this? And how can the MSE website "own" personal opinions?

See also:

7. Your content
7.1 Just so that you know, you own any copyright in the text that you post to our chat forums. However, when you post text, you expressly grant us a perpetual, unlimited free license to republish that text on our site and to redistribute/make available and/or sell that text in print or electronic form anywhere in the world as part of an edited compilation or otherwise.

Joe, on a personal level I think that it's good for people to become more aware of how to avoid issues with renting a property by doing things well from the very start, and the more widely that message is spread, the better - but it would maybe have been useful to have flagged up what your intention was in your first post too , and sent an early PM to the MSE admin folk to check. Just because it's on t' internet doesn't mean you should make an assumption - on the one hand reminding all tenants to check the Ts and Cs first and then not doing it elsewhere, ie here?