Landlord Vs Tenant | God Vs Worm

[Dj_Jestar]

Just not the case though mate is it. Because the tenant has zero rights to withhold rent, whereas the landlord has the deposit to play with. It's very heavily biased towards landlords currently. Yeh of course you can get problem tenants but as I mentioned earlier every single issue with a tenant can be solved by deductions from deposit, kicking them out or claiming on insurance. Landlords never lose out, tenants do.

And as I think I've shown in my posts it's really got nowt to do with how good/bad you are as a tenant - I have treated all my flats and landlords with the utmost respect but they constantly try to screw me over. Doesn't matter how nice/clean/efficient you are as a tenant - the landlord can and often will screw you over, even if it's just in a small way.

You've been lucky so far

I thought the deposit protection scheme meant neither party could touch the deposit until tenancy was over?

 

[mothermachine]

I thought the deposit protection scheme meant neither party could touch the deposit until tenancy was over?

That's correct, yeh. It then goes to the TDS for adjudication (should you wish) who then make a decision.

Point is, I cannot make deductions in rent or some other moneys if my landlord fails to honour parts of the contract, but the landlord *can* make such deductions if I as a tenant fail in my obligations. = one-sided.

 

[Scam]

Quite. It is a bit odd that everyone in this country expects to be able to own a £300,000+ quickly appreciating asset as if its some sort of right and as if it suddenly makes them substandard if they dont acheive it.

If you do acheive it, great, but it's hardly a millstone around your neck if you dont.

Sorry, you're wrong. Nobodies expecting to be able to buy a 300k house as their first. A 1-2 bed flat would be lovely. It's called a housing ladder for a reason. Being that FTBs should be able to afford not the 'average' priced house but probably a 1-2 bed flat or house. The problem is that even these are out of reach for most, due to the high prices and deposits. The extreme example being that in my road some idiot just put up their 2 bed flat for 400k. Er.. right. But I live in west London so I accept the ridiculously high prices. Even though it's Zone 3.. and it takes me an hour to get into town..

The not so extreme example would be where I'm originally from (out of London, but still in the south) 1 bed flats are ~150k. The FTB deposit needs to be around 20% of that so that's 30k. If you were saving a pretty good £500 per month towards a deposit (I would if I could), it'd take over 5 years to amass that 30k. Then, if the price bubble continues up you'd probably need to add another 5k onto that, by the time you get there.

To be saving £500pm you'd need to be in a decent job so we could assume you'd be over 25. So you're looking at buying that first home (your 1 bed flat) at age 31. I'm sorry, but that is not a situation that is normal!
Going back to where I live now, average 2 bed flat is 300k, so that's now 60k I'd need as a deposit. Rrrright. (Yes, I know that's an extreme example)

Compare it to our parents.. my Dad bought his first home when he was 22. He said he saved for about a year for the deposit. Sigh. The average age of a FTB was mid-twenties back then, and that's where it should be. Not 37 for crying out loud!

It's exactly like sixty's example. For a housing ladder to work you must be able to get on the first rung almost immediately! That first rung being a 1-2 bed flat. At the moment young people can't, which is just stupid.

The other thing you've got wrong is that in this country renters are seen as substandard. That's half the problem. You've seen it already in this thread with landlords not giving a **** about their tenants. They seem very quick to forget that it's their tenants home, not just a place they pay rent for. I love my flat and I'm very proud of it, I'd be absolutely gutted if my landlords decided to kick us out for some reason. Never-the-less, they could.

The amount of deposit required when you buy a flat these days is basically the same as it ever was to be honest, including before the crunch. On a 300k flat in London you'd need around 60k deposit/stamp duty. Was basically the same 5 years ago. My observation is that the recession has simply made it harder to get a good mortgage, not made the repayments or deposit any greater.

You're correct, but I don't think anyone is complaining that things have changed much in the past 5 years and now suddenly young people can't afford their first home. It's a problem that has come from the steady upwards rise of prices (with big inflations at the end of the 70s and early 90s and 00s I believe) leading to the house prices to earnings ratio going through the roof. In short, house prices have rocketed (I just looked up the annual rise in 1989, it was 33%! [src), whilst salaries simply haven't kept up. Hence, the unaffordability.

This is an interesting link: http://housingleaguetable.org.uk/. Remember it's talking about average house prices, but still. Where I'm from you need to be on 50k to buy your average home.

This is a good site too: http://www.pricedout.org.uk/

 

[ganesh]

My girlfriend and i rent and don't earn a huge amount and owning a house is many many many years away, prices are crazy and the deposits required are ridiculous.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Remember it's talking about average house prices, but still. Where I'm from you need to be on 50k to buy your average home.

I'm not sure why this is such a bad thing. Not everyone can or should own a house - it's hardly a bad thing you need to be reasonably succesful in order to do so. Remember, £50k between a couple is potentially £30k for one and £20k for the other. These are frankly quite average earnings - owning a house should be a sense of acheivement not a tick in a box.

 

[steinooo]

Quite. It is a bit odd that everyone in this country expects to be able to own a £300,000+ quickly appreciating asset as if its some sort of right and as if it suddenly makes them substandard if they dont acheive it.

This sounds like something straight out of the conservative party. Very negative. They're all very keen on trying to make us feel "lucky" to be in the situation we are in, and that things could be much worse. I.e. You should feel lucky to have public services etc.

I think there's nothing wrong with the British people wanting to own their own property, in fact it's very positive and indicative of people being keen on bettering themselves. It's a great aspiration.

 

[Moley]

This sounds like something straight out of the conservative party. Very negative. They're all very keen on trying to make us feel "lucky" to be in the situation we are in, and that things could be much worse.

You seem to forget that it was the Conservatives who first gave council tenants the right to buy their homes from the council and effectively started this whole entitlement issue...

 

[Nodiggidy123]

I'm not sure why this is such a bad thing. Not everyone can or should own a house - it's hardly a bad thing you need to be reasonably succesful in order to do so. Remember, £50k between a couple is potentially £30k for one and £20k for the other. These are frankly quite average earnings - owning a house should be a sense of acheivement not a tick in a box.

i disagree. i feel its every ones right to be able to own their own home of some sort if they work hard.

50k between a couple is as you say average earnings. i think the problem arises that when the couple have children you lose a big chunk through either staying home to look after the kids or childcare. so its only 35k-40k instead.

i also feel that the sense of achievement should come from the size and location of the house.

 

[Scam]

I'm not sure why this is such a bad thing. Not everyone can or should own a house - it's hardly a bad thing you need to be reasonably succesful in order to do so. Remember, £50k between a couple is potentially £30k for one and £20k for the other. These are frankly quite average earnings - owning a house should be a sense of acheivement not a tick in a box.

I agree, 50k isn't a huge amount between a couple and probably fairly easy to achieve. That's interesting socially though, because you'd essentially have two career people together. Another way of swinging it would be to say that both partners must be working fulltime to afford that average house. Was that normal 15 years ago? I honestly don't know.

 

[hurfdurf]

Oh look, people from privileged back grounds preaching how it isn't a right to own a home, colour me surprised!

I am lucky enough to have had some success in life and own my own place at 23, before then I rented and in my student days witnessed first hand how tenants can very easily screw over a landlord, be it by not paying over 8 months rent or leaving the property in such a state that the combined deposit of 6 people doesn't even begin to cover the damage done.

The housing situation in the UK is ridiculous, we have rules set up that promote purchasing and renters are not protected like they are in countries that does support renting for life, and yet the prices and ability to purchase a house is nigh on impossible for current first time purchasers and barring violent revolution I doubt its going to get much better.

 

[rypt]

Why do you think you deserve more than being able to rent? Maybe a change in your generations attitudes as regards an expectancy to own property in life is required instead.

Or perhaps if this country actually built proper apartments that you can buy we would not be in the housing mess we are now

Equally if our economy was not built ont he back of property bubbles.

 

[Tony343]

What a thread!

My partner and I have been renting for the last three years. We're both in our forties and met about four years ago. Both of us had moved on from failed relationships and are not in a position to buy - not unless we win the lottery anyway

At our age a morgage is not something we want round our necks for another 25+ years, and by renting we are now in a nice (2nd) property we could never have afforded via a morgage anyway.

However, due - somewhat - to the cold snap we had over December we suffered really bad damp in the porch and a walk-in wardrobe off the main bedroom.

Enough that the outside wall in the wardrobe has now discoloured with mildew + our summer clothes in the back wardrobe by the time we realised We only found out by luck because we don't use the back wardrobe for anything but storing the summer clothes. The water was dripping of the ceiling inside the wardrobe.

It turned out that the vents to both had been blocked, and the walk-in wardrobe has no heating in it (which we knew), but didn't realise how cold it would get in there.

Anyway, we put an oiled filled rad' in the walk-in wardrobe to dry it out - which it has done - and contacted the agents we have the house through, explaining the problem.

Their answer - keep the windows open! I'm like - WTF!

As we are both out working during the day, let's void the house and contents insurance, invite the burglars in, and listen to the frost cracking on the duvet in the morning

Seriously though, what sort of answer is that! I can't believe such an unprofessioanal... ooops I mean unprofessional response.

My partner took the call yesterday and now I'm writing an email in reply. Though having to think before I vent on it and be more professional

 

[KillBoY_UK]

Without treading over the finance side of things.

I wouldn't mind renting if I didn't have check or make sure XYZ thing was ok with the landlord before I do it. I love my pet cat and was gutted when I had to leave them at home with my folks when i moved out as the vast majority of landlord/letting agents don't allow things like pets or even sometimes simple a redecorate of the rooms.

In my eye because of this and the general feeling its not yours its some other chaps house/flat I feel like your renting a place to live not a home no matter how good the landlord is and I had mostly good.

Still flatshare has its merits I've met some great peeps that way, like my last flat mate who worked for the same developer as I did (but on a different project) was an ex Greek army tank commander lol! and there we were most weekend watching HD amine on the living room wall with a 1080p Epson projector. Ahh good days.

Maybe one day I can get a cat again

 

[dazzerd]

Why do you think you deserve more than being able to rent? Maybe a change in your generations attitudes as regards an expectancy to own property in life is required instead.

You're missing the point. No one is saying we deserve anything more than being able to rent. The fact is that it is harder than now than any other time for most people (without parental help) to get on the property ladder.

The issue is that younger people now have less opportunity to buy a house than previous generations because of inflated and unrealistic house price growth over the past 20 years. This is especially true if you live in the south east of england.

 

[dazzerd]

I agree, 50k isn't a huge amount between a couple and probably fairly easy to achieve. That's interesting socially though, because you'd essentially have two career people together. Another way of swinging it would be to say that both partners must be working fulltime to afford that average house. Was that normal 15 years ago? I honestly don't know.

eh? you do realise that 75% of the entire UK population earns less than 30k?

median earnings is actually about 20k at the moment. The mean is circa 25k.

Common sense to me suggest that a couple earning average salaries should be able to afford an average house.

The problem isn't necessarily mortgage repayments for some people it's actually getting capital for deposits in the first place which is difficult to do when you already paying high private rents.

 

[rypt]

The problem isn't necessarily mortgage repayments for some people it's actually getting capital for deposits in the first place which is difficult to do when you already paying high private rents.

Exactly, we are in a position where rent is actually as much as a mortgage would be, which is just silly as rent should be much lower

 

[mothermachine]

Exactly, we are in a position where rent is actually as much as a mortgage would be, which is just silly as rent should be much lower

Indeed, although in reality rent is actually usually slightly higher than mortgage repayments. silly isn't it, really. backwards perhaps.

One thing that's not been mentioned yet is that, ok, say that you earn 30k and your partner earn's 20k, well that means that you wouldn't be able to go into the mortgage equally most likely. likely event would be that you could put up say 15k towards deposit and she could put up 10k. Personally this wouldn't be acceptable to me. My partner has far more savings than I do because she's 5 years older, even though I earn slightly more than her. I have no intention of going into buying with an unequal share in the property. Just leads to issues down the line.

My father was earning something like 20k per year back in 1985 when he bought his current house for 24k at 36 years old. It took him 1 year to save for the deposit and the repayments were less than it would cost to rent back then. Oh, and he got something like a 95% mortgage... Nowadays he's earning 35k but the house is worth 450k and the deposit on it would be something like 70k+. The numbers just don't work.

 

[jamief]

Quite. It is a bit odd that everyone in this country expects to be able to own a £300,000+ quickly appreciating asset as if its some sort of right and as if it suddenly makes them substandard if they dont acheive it.

If you do acheive it, great, but it's hardly a millstone around your neck if you dont.

And feeling animosity towards their "elders" who have managed to buy property is pathetic, imo.

 

[M0T]

Quite. It is a bit odd that everyone in this country expects to be able to own a £300,000+ quickly appreciating asset as if its some sort of right and as if it suddenly makes them substandard if they dont acheive it.

If you do acheive it, great, but it's hardly a millstone around your neck if you dont.

The real question is should houses be a rapidly appreciating asset? The rental point only works in areas where rental properties are available - In small rural areas with very limited rental markets rising house prices displace low income families who have generations worth of history in the area.

 

[sixty]

Hey folks, here's an idea...

How about we whittle down those massive 'force projection' MoD budgets to the amount necessary for a defence force, enable complete transparency and accountability in government and public authority / body dealings, stop subsidising (saying this as a person who works in a failing business model!) failing business models and initiatives, and start pumping the massive cash excess we'd end up with back into health, housing, education and science!

Then we could start building modern, sustainable, highly efficient and affordable 'apartment' style properties for the masses. Despite what anyone says, I can't see why, with the will and effort required, we can't all have a place to call our own even on this slightly overcrowded little island. Not to mention the improvements that could be made to schools, health care and just about every other 'positively impacting' system and service...

We, collectively as a society and as a species, have out priorities all wrong and it will only make the Earth a worse place to live on in the long run. It makes me desperately sad to imagine the legacy we are leaving the young people of the next hundred years.