Difficult landlady

Sara,

She is more trouble than she is worth, move out.

The rental market is flooded at the moment with properties as the owners cannot sell. This is depressing rents, not increasing them. Either look for somewhere else the same size and offer 10% or so less, or look for somewhere bigger and offer what you pay now.

I have just rented a 4 bed townhouse in Buckinghamshire for 2 years for £1300 PCM. This time last year it was renting for £1800 PCM.

There is absolutely no need to put up with the sort of service she has given you. I'd suggest she is going to get a shock when she tries to re-let at increased rent as well ;)
 
i'd start looking even if it's just as a back up plan, also gives you some leverage as you dont have to worry about being homeless.

then tell her you're not paying the increase as the house is shoddy and you're breaching the contract with the leaking roof. she'll loose more trying to replace the tennants in this current economic climate

MW
 
I've already "saved" 15 properties on Rightmove - will be having renewed discussions with the housemate tonight.

We're of the same mind that we don't want the hassle of a move, but this woman is pushing it and we don't really want to give her any more of our money.

It's funny, it comes in waves, one moment I'm thinking "sack it, let's move!" and the next I'm just annoyed that I've been uprooted AGAIN.
 
Might be worth looking on Globrix as well, I find it nice to see where the houses are on a map, although I was looking in an area I wasn't familiar with :p

If you want to stay for 12 months though I'm sure most landlords would jump at the chance of having secure tenants for 12 months rather than 6 'in the current economic climate'.
 
SKILL said:
If you want to stay for 12 months though I'm sure most landlords would jump at the chance of having secure tenants for 12 months rather than 6 'in the current economic climate'.
Click to expand...
Mm that's a thing, going for 12mo gives good bargaining power. Thing is, we were pretty unsure about going in for the whole 12 last year (even though we did), doing 12 this year is even less sure... but ehn, probably likely.
 
sara said:
Mm that's a thing, going for 12mo gives good bargaining power. Thing is, we were pretty unsure about going in for the whole 12 last year (even though we did), doing 12 this year is even less sure... but ehn, probably likely.
Click to expand...

Sign a 6 month contract and just renew after 6 months? I expect most agencies will be flexible - the one's I've dealt with have been. Our last contract was an initial 6 months with a rolling 1 month notice period after that.
 
I can see where you're coming from, moving is a bit of a pain, I'm moving on saturday, at least this time I've got a van so don't have to rely on family with decent sized cars to help :p

But moving is far preferable to having an annoying landlord imo, my landlord here is completely tight and incredibly awkward, really don't like him, although he is at least contactable :p
 
If you do move, I doubt she'll be able to rent it out to anyone else in that state, so she'd be down a lot more than a couple of months rent...

Moving out is probably the worst thing you could do to her IMO! ;)
 
Haha, yes, she's being incredibly stupid. She seems to be completely unaware of what her actions are doing. Nightmare. She refused us a rolling contract preferring a 6 or 12-month renewal, I suppose because she doesn't want us to go too soon.

And THEN she says she wants to increase the rent? With all this stuff outstanding?!

I just don't get it.

I've put up with it until now as she generally doesn't bother us. I've let the roof issue slip because in all honesty it's a minor irritation (until more tiles decide to fly off in a strong breeze, I suppose). But the nerve to ask for more when she's so rubbish at keeping the place in good repair is shocking.

I wasn't out to get her. Wanted just to keep the status quo for a while.

Now it's starting to look more and more likely that we'll move (have spoken to housemate at length, she'll talk to her solicitor uncle who specialises in housing tomorrow, and I've shot off several emails requesting viewings), I think making life a bit crap for her might teach her a bit of a lesson!

Bit ironic, her wish to increase rent because of her 'personal circumstances' is exactly the trigger that's going to put her into financial trouble!

Ha-haa! Buh-bye!
 
if you've now decided to move you might as well throw in a cheeky offer saying you're thinking lowering the rent due to personally circumstances :)

MW
 
Recorded delivery letter, stating that if the roof isn't repaired within 30 days you are moving out, with a nice reminder of how much she will lose out with trying to find new tenants. Worth a try?
 
Well, an update.

We've basically decided to move, so on Weds night I requested a load of viewings from Rightmove and Gumtree.

Yesterday and this morning I've fielded a truckload of calls; we've got two viewings tonight and 7 in quick succession tomorrow from 10am until about 2pm. All in the same walkable area thankfully!

Prices vary from 525 pcm to 675 - we currently pay £640 for a 2-bed maisonette, no garden. Same area. All are two-double-bedroomed properties (so they say), some just a flat - the more expensive ones are 2-bed terraced houses, or have gardens, etc.

The letting agency got back to me, they are sending a recorded letter to the landlady saying they will not increase our rent, and will offer us a 6 month tenancy renewal BUT with a release clause allowing us to give a month's notice of our leaving at any time.

UNLESS she gets back to them within 5 days. If she does, and kicks up a stink - well we're off anyway! But it's interesting to see what might happen next...
 
Make sure that the landperson of your new property isn't a **** and you should be sorted :D

Oh, and well done on making the decision, it can't have been easy flipping back and forth.
 
Last edited:
Shame to hear about your problems Sara, we've never really had any bad landlords but did end up moving house more than once per year at one point for 3 years.
Finally bought a place now.

Try not to get too stressed with the move - treat it as a chance to look forward, and hopefully move to a nicer place with a landlord that actually fulfills their obligations.

As others have said, she plainly wont fix the roof, or the bath... and plans on getting as much £ out of you for as long as possible. Time to teach her a lesson and get a nicer/cheaper house into the bargain!

Good luck :)
 
Knubje said:
Oh, and well done on making the decision, it can't have been easy flipping back and forth.
Click to expand...
Aye. Hard enough one person feeling indecisive but there were two of us trying to be polite to each other's wishes trying to make sure we didn't do something the other totally didn't want to do.

Oh, another viewing on Monday! So that's 10 in quick succession, I've had to plot them all on a map, and draw up a grid with requirements/desires to tick/cross as we go.

It's quite exciting really :)

We plan to get ourselves sorted to jump in somewhere when we have a couple of weekends left at the current place. Then we have lots of time to shift all our stuff and clean up leaving the place immaculate - seeing as she's in breach we should get all the deposit back, but it's not worth giving her anything left to gripe about...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom