Does the landlord have to give notice of changes to rent? Can the landlord enter the rented property without my knowledge/permission/presence? If there's a problem with the power/water/gas do I need to take care of it and be reimbursed by the landlord or do they have to deal with it, if the latter are they obligated to deal with the problem within a specified period of time? That sort of thing.
Once you've signed your rental agreement, mine is a 6 month agreement to start with and then goes onto a 1-month rolling contract for us, 2-months for him (so if we want to leave we have to give 1 month's notice, if he decides to kick us out he has to give us 2 months). For that first 6 months, no changes can be made. After that time they must give you notice and you must agree to them (basically if you don't agree, they're likely to just give you your 2 months notice).
The landlord can't come in without your permission. They need to let you know. Our landlord works abroad for a lot of the year and we have a letting agency managing it for him, they came to do an inspection (they do it every 4 months) but they let us know when it'd be and organised it for a time when we'd be in.
If there's a problem with your water/gas/electric etc, then ring your landlord/letting agency. Ours have their own spark/plumber etc to send to tenants. If it's an emergency, or during a time when you can't get hold of landlord/agency, then yes get an emergency call out. As long as it wasn't caused by a problem that you caused (e.g. you call out a plumber because your sink is blocked and it turns out it's because you tipped a load of fat down it) - then you will (or should) be reimbursed.
You need to keep your landlord informed of changes and get their permission before you make them - e.g. we wanted to switch from sky to virgin media which required them to drill a hole in the wall so had to get landlord's permission for that. Likewise when we got our cat.
Luckily our landlord is awesome - he's perfectly happy for us to do pretty much anything we want and always gets things taken care of really quickly - e.g. the flush on the toilet wasn't working, we rang our letting agency, who have to ring the landlord to get permission before they send anyone in - they were with us the next day to sort it. Our house was his parents' house before they passed away and so he decided to rent it out instead of selling it. It's landlords that have dozens of properties that you sometimes find are less interested in helping their tenants.
You have the right to change your phone/broadband/gas/electric provider without letting the landlord know, or at least, that's in our letting agreement. It's totally up to you who you want to give your money to and your landlord shouldn't be deciding which energy company you use.
Oh and we have to let our agency know if the house is going to be empty for more than 3 weeks (not sure why - we never have been away for that long) - maybe they send someone to give it a quick check.
Wow, what an essay! Want to know anything else, let me know.
