How Does Renting Work?

General Chat
21

It would be nice if our system was more like the system in Germany. Granted, I’ve never lived there myself, but I know people who have and they’ve all said it’s so much better. Much more protection for the tenant, you’re not gouged with fees before you’ve even secured the rental, and once secured you can’t be kicked out at short notice. In one case I know of, the local government even stepped in to say “You’ve been overcharged” and forced a reduction in rent.

Granted, landlords may have another view, I suppose. But it seems to work from where I’m sitting.

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22

I argued the fact that it wasn’t fair for them to keep the ‘application fees’ and they told me that it was essentially their labour costs ie. contacting the landlord, filling out paperwork, processing paperwork etc etc.

It was black and white in the contract: “Application fees are non-refundable under any circumstance. Applicants should only apply if they are confident there will be no reason for denial.” something along those lines.

I’m not even going to go into the ‘cleaning’ fees that were deducted after vacating the property. Had to get solicitors involved on that one. :grimacing:

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23

Much less common to be a homeowner in Germany iirc. Renting is the norm, so not surprised they have decent regulation. It’s a much nicer culture for renting in general.

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24

I’m very lucky that I met and got married to someone who had their own house, so I don’t rent anymore. I would have had zero chance of leaving the rental market if I hadn’t.

I was renting up until 5 years ago though. All I wanted was a stable, affordable place to live. I was constantly having to move though. Either the rent would go up a ridiculous amount upon renewal, which was every 12 months (or sometimes as low as 6) or the landlord would decide they either wanted to sell the place or that they wanted to live in it themselves kick me (and flatmates if applicable) out.

I’d just recover financially from the last move and would be forced to go through it all again.

One landlord bypassed the estate agent and sent us a letter giving us three weeks notice to leave because he’d found a buyer for the flat and was going to sell. On that one, luckily we knew the law and made him give us two months.

It was horrible not knowing where you were going to live in 6 or 12 months time and the estate agents (or landlords) would be charging us between £120 and £150 a go at renewal for ‘admin’, which we knew fine well was changing the date on a document and pressing, ‘print’.

I can only imagine it’s got worse.

In my experience (which was 5 years ago now) - you have to express an interest immediately, if you wait even half a day, when you phone back it’ll be gone. Don’t be surprised if they charge you a fee for holding it either.

Make sure they place the deposit with a deposit protection scheme and provide you with the login so that you can log in and look at it and see that it’s there.

My last landlady charged me three months rent as a deposit. Plus fees… She was an idiot. The place was substandard, nothing got fixed and it was freezing cold.

About 6 months after moving out my girlfriend (now wife) and I were sitting watching The Apprentice on TV when one of the contestants is introduced, “She looks exactly like my old landlady… … … … S#!t, that’s my old landlady!” (She lasted about two weeks and was a complete idiot.)