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- Joined
- 8 Oct 2004
- Posts
- 2,283
Just something that's been boiling up in me for a good few years now having rented several flats (my 4th about to start next week). Sorry for the long post ahead....
As a tenant, when you sign a Tenancy Agreement (Contract), you are consenting to having moneys deducted from your deposit funds if you slip up during your tenancy. This could be anything from damaging the property itself, staining a carpet etc., not professionally cleaning it when you move out, being late with the rent. etc. Or something that wasn't picked up during the Inventory Check-In. There are tonnes of ways for a tenant to screw up and the inevitable consequence is deductions from your deposit.
Now, as a landlord, when you sign the TA, you are basically obliged by the contract to fulfil every single term in that contract, just like the tenant. This could be providing a working BT line, fridge/freezer and other white goods, repairing stuff if it goes wrong (and it's not the tenant's fault) etc.
But what happens if/when the landlord decides they don't want/can't be bothered to fulfil one of these terms? Nothing! Nadda. Zip. As a tenant, if your landlord doesn't provide you with a working BT line when you move in if it was one of the terms in the contract, you can't do a THING. Not a sausage. You can't turn around and say "hey, I'm gonna deduct one weeks' worth of rent for every term you break", because that in itself would be breaking the contract. And landlords have no deposit for YOUR protection as a tenant. Or if they are obliged to provide the keys on day 1 of your tenancy but you don't get them until the afternoon because they screwed up. Do you get half a day's worth of rent back? No. Or if they are obliged to place modern insurance-safe locks on ALL the doors and windows but refuse to pay for it. What can you do? Nothing. A classic one is landlords not professionally cleaning the flat before you move in. By the time you discover it it's too late to do anything about it so you just move on. They save themselves £150 or so AND on top of this you STILL have to professionally clean it when you move out, or you lose some of your deposit! Basically theft by any other name IMO.
Conclusion:
Landlords = gods
Tenants = puny worms
Put simply, as a tenant you have ZERO comeback if the landlord fails in their obligations. As a landlord you have total power to deduct moneys from the deposit.
In my experience, when you, as a tenant, challenge any deposit deductions, the agency (essentially a panel of people or one person) at the Deposit Protection Scheme, the DPS will most likely either 1) find in favour of the landlord or 2) go halves with the landlord and tenant. Either way the tenant loses. Even when it's not their fault and it can be proven. Yes, this is out of experience. Bitter experience...
Bottom line is that tenants always, always, get screwed in the end. The landlord has nothing whatsoever to lose. House damaged? No worries, just claim on insurance. Something in the property stolen? No worries, just deduct from the deposit. Rent withheld or late? No worries, deduct from the deposit or just kick the tenant(s) out.
This clearly sucks. And by the way I am an extremely responsible tenant. I treat all my flats perfectly and ensure I leave them in at least the condition they were in when I moved in. But often (usually) it's nothing to do with you that problems arise. It's down to the landlord, the agent etc who cocks up or refuses to do their job properly and YOU are the one you gets saddled with the cost.
My proposition to you guys for your input and opinions is this:
Tenants pay the usual deposit (normally 6 weeks' worth of rent here in London). Landlord pays, say, 3 weeks' worth of rent into a deposit for YOU. Both deposits MUST be paid to a totally unrelated non-personal non-business related account separate from both landlord and tenant, for protection.
Alternative solution: every time the landlord/property agency refuses to act on an obligation in the contract that you can prove they had agreed to do, you can deduct one week of rent.
This would all need to be done through a deposit protection scheme of course, as always.
I am sick to death of going through tenancy after tenancy and being screwed by landlords and property managers. On one occasion the PM refused to fix a blockage in the bath. Blockage then burst and destroyed the bathroom floor and the downstairs neighbour's entire kitchen, costing thousands for the insurance companies and both me and the other guy below £100 each for insurance claims! (personal stuff got damaged in the process). Last year our landlord refused to install working central heating, only offering stupidly expensive portable heaters despite being in the contract, then refused to fix kitchen extractor fan, then took 1 week to fix faulty boiler = no hot water or heating for a week. Then managed to get £150 out of us for a hoover that never existed and wasn't flagged up in the inventory at all. And my current landlord registered our deposit in one of his own personal bank accounts, promptly went bankrupt (so we lost £2250 in the process!) and then killed his stupid self by throwing his fraudulent arse in front of a tube train. A fight with the solicitor and we may just get that money back in the end but who knows.
And I have more horror stories of renting but maybe for another time.
Sorry for the epic long post and rant but I can't be the only tenant going through life getting slowly screwed by landlords and property managers and being more and more ready to seriously harm the next t**t landlord that decides to mess me around.
Thoughts?
(Apart from the obvious one of buying instead! Not possible at the moment).
As a tenant, when you sign a Tenancy Agreement (Contract), you are consenting to having moneys deducted from your deposit funds if you slip up during your tenancy. This could be anything from damaging the property itself, staining a carpet etc., not professionally cleaning it when you move out, being late with the rent. etc. Or something that wasn't picked up during the Inventory Check-In. There are tonnes of ways for a tenant to screw up and the inevitable consequence is deductions from your deposit.
Now, as a landlord, when you sign the TA, you are basically obliged by the contract to fulfil every single term in that contract, just like the tenant. This could be providing a working BT line, fridge/freezer and other white goods, repairing stuff if it goes wrong (and it's not the tenant's fault) etc.
But what happens if/when the landlord decides they don't want/can't be bothered to fulfil one of these terms? Nothing! Nadda. Zip. As a tenant, if your landlord doesn't provide you with a working BT line when you move in if it was one of the terms in the contract, you can't do a THING. Not a sausage. You can't turn around and say "hey, I'm gonna deduct one weeks' worth of rent for every term you break", because that in itself would be breaking the contract. And landlords have no deposit for YOUR protection as a tenant. Or if they are obliged to provide the keys on day 1 of your tenancy but you don't get them until the afternoon because they screwed up. Do you get half a day's worth of rent back? No. Or if they are obliged to place modern insurance-safe locks on ALL the doors and windows but refuse to pay for it. What can you do? Nothing. A classic one is landlords not professionally cleaning the flat before you move in. By the time you discover it it's too late to do anything about it so you just move on. They save themselves £150 or so AND on top of this you STILL have to professionally clean it when you move out, or you lose some of your deposit! Basically theft by any other name IMO.
Conclusion:
Landlords = gods
Tenants = puny worms
Put simply, as a tenant you have ZERO comeback if the landlord fails in their obligations. As a landlord you have total power to deduct moneys from the deposit.
In my experience, when you, as a tenant, challenge any deposit deductions, the agency (essentially a panel of people or one person) at the Deposit Protection Scheme, the DPS will most likely either 1) find in favour of the landlord or 2) go halves with the landlord and tenant. Either way the tenant loses. Even when it's not their fault and it can be proven. Yes, this is out of experience. Bitter experience...
Bottom line is that tenants always, always, get screwed in the end. The landlord has nothing whatsoever to lose. House damaged? No worries, just claim on insurance. Something in the property stolen? No worries, just deduct from the deposit. Rent withheld or late? No worries, deduct from the deposit or just kick the tenant(s) out.
This clearly sucks. And by the way I am an extremely responsible tenant. I treat all my flats perfectly and ensure I leave them in at least the condition they were in when I moved in. But often (usually) it's nothing to do with you that problems arise. It's down to the landlord, the agent etc who cocks up or refuses to do their job properly and YOU are the one you gets saddled with the cost.
My proposition to you guys for your input and opinions is this:
Tenants pay the usual deposit (normally 6 weeks' worth of rent here in London). Landlord pays, say, 3 weeks' worth of rent into a deposit for YOU. Both deposits MUST be paid to a totally unrelated non-personal non-business related account separate from both landlord and tenant, for protection.
Alternative solution: every time the landlord/property agency refuses to act on an obligation in the contract that you can prove they had agreed to do, you can deduct one week of rent.
This would all need to be done through a deposit protection scheme of course, as always.
I am sick to death of going through tenancy after tenancy and being screwed by landlords and property managers. On one occasion the PM refused to fix a blockage in the bath. Blockage then burst and destroyed the bathroom floor and the downstairs neighbour's entire kitchen, costing thousands for the insurance companies and both me and the other guy below £100 each for insurance claims! (personal stuff got damaged in the process). Last year our landlord refused to install working central heating, only offering stupidly expensive portable heaters despite being in the contract, then refused to fix kitchen extractor fan, then took 1 week to fix faulty boiler = no hot water or heating for a week. Then managed to get £150 out of us for a hoover that never existed and wasn't flagged up in the inventory at all. And my current landlord registered our deposit in one of his own personal bank accounts, promptly went bankrupt (so we lost £2250 in the process!) and then killed his stupid self by throwing his fraudulent arse in front of a tube train. A fight with the solicitor and we may just get that money back in the end but who knows.
And I have more horror stories of renting but maybe for another time.
Sorry for the epic long post and rant but I can't be the only tenant going through life getting slowly screwed by landlords and property managers and being more and more ready to seriously harm the next t**t landlord that decides to mess me around.
Thoughts?
(Apart from the obvious one of buying instead! Not possible at the moment).
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