Letting agencies
 

I'll be glad to see the back of these scum when I buy a home, although my experience has varied from good to awful. The best was a small operation with just a few properties in a small town/village, the worst with a major chain in the City centre.

I went into their office the other day to chase up my deposit, had a glace at the list of fees pinned to the wall...and it was a long list...I can't remember exactly but £400 to chase references or similar, all sorts of fees left right and centre.

I had vacated my flat after cleaning it pretty good, although I would admit one or two thing weren't spotless such as shower/bath drain hole and the skirting boards.

Of course the inventory clerk goes around with a digital camera and makes a pdf document with every speck of dirty captured in 4k glory. I feel it's probably impossible to avoid the need for a 'professional clean', so for skirting boards and drain hole it's £130 plus £40 'administrative fee'. Obviously I'm not too chuffed about this but it could have been worse.

I might have mentioned ages ago about the broken sink which fortunately they didn't dispute with me. In my favour I could prove they had known about it for over 3 years (and not repaired it), and I had photos from 2014 to 2017 showing the cracks progressing, but still they could have been true a$$holes and called my bluff on it. Going to small claims court would have been a pain.

Same with carpets and upholstery cleaning. I was thinking they might do that but they didn't. The place has been sold so the sofas will probably be binned I think.

They also missed some minor damage to the paint in a door frame I caused and where my swivel chair's castor wheels had worn through the wooden floor's wafer thin varnish. I was surprised how well furniture polish 'fixed' this :D but then I think it should have counted as natural wear and tear and maybe did.

Congrats for having your own pad, owned by your good self.

In my opinion, most letting agencies, landlords etc. are exploiters and work for their own benefit only. Now you don't have to be their b1tch and have all the control re. having your roof over your head in your own hands. I wish you a very happy liberation. :thumb:

Don't forget the clause of reasonable wear and tear. Alot depends on T's and C's as well. We've had one who was really picky (to the point we threatened to counter bill him for a larger sum then he was arguing work we had done).

Best one was we were told we needed to get the place professionally cleaned, yet they fully admitted it wasn't done before we moved in and was listed on the inventory.

Other LL we had was great, few bit of wear and tear but they were fine with it.

Just pot luck

Exploiters my ar$e...
Get real.
A landlord does it to put food on the table like anyone else.
Im sure Turbo goes to work for herself ,not anybody else.
What a ridiculous statement to make
Im currently spending £k,s repairing a property that some scrote has decided to leave in an unfit state to say the least.
Part and parcel of being a Landlord I guess and no sympathy required but come on make some valid statements instead of showing your warped sense of hatred for someone trying to make a living. Letting agents are there for the Tenants and the Landlords so I don't see why they get such a bad press. They provide a service.

Ive only used private landlords but when leaving houses ive always not paid rent when leaving to the same total as deposit and any upfront rent paid. This way if they try any false claims for damage etc they are no longer holding your cash to just take it from. Also if they dont like it it takes longer than 60 days to order eviction so you are in no danger for the final month or so of tenancy.

The difference is that Turbo actually works for a living, you take food off your tenants table.

Rent = unearned income.

Service? lol.

You still go by the nickname "Coco"
Bitter and Twisted.....

Not really. I just see a grubby business of human farming as what it is.

I had a landlord who took 4mths to repair a lock on the rear door because the locking mechanism failed. even though I was paying him over a £1000 a month for the place, I was unable to use it for that period of time, meaning that anyone could of got into the place via that faulty door. I found that with a lot of landlords, they only wanted to repair things when it suited them, I'd always do things such as unblocking the toilet etc, but when it came to other things such as the boiler not working properly they did it when it suited them, but not thinking about the tenant.

think you missed the bit about some LL are good some are bad, just like tenants ;)

I have to properties that I let - very much an accidental landlord in both cases.

Touch-wood my tenants have been great so far. I considered using agencies with the first property but the ones I spoke to were fairly docile individuals so I decided to handle things myself.

I make sure the tenants know from the off any issues, they call me straight away.

One girl left and her daughter had damaged a carpet which needed replacing. She'd been a good tenant and it wasn't much to replace so let it go.

The 2nd property didn't have heating upstairs (converted bungalow) and as I knew the house and the previous owners had their children bedrooms upstairs I said to the tenants see how you get on, if it's too cold let me know. It was, so within a week I had a heating engineer laying and fitting new rads upstairs and all the pipework.

The lad and his GF are also first time out from home and had a few teething issues with heating and electrics which on two occasions were arguably not my responsibility to pay for but I let it go. No point being pi55y over a call-out fee.

Every forum I use there are strong opinions on either side. The venom from some folk is astounding and the way some tenants act - with-holding rent etc for no real reason - demanding a reduction for minor issues etc just reinforces the bad rep tenants and landlords get. I think much of the anger is not necessarily due to the tenants action but more the actions of the agencies employed.

Personally, it goes both ways. Landlord plays fair with you, you play fair with them. Play silly buggers and it's no wonder there's resentment on both sides.

As above, there's bad landlords and bad tenants, some people rent their home out because of circumstances, not money. Also, most landlords have been tenants once. It's also true that if you have paid for something yourself, be it vehicles, tools or a property, you tend to look after it more carefully than if you have rented it.
My family home is rented whilst I live in a caravan ; my tenant burnt the carpet in front of the stove, having removed the rug that protects it. It's 5 years old, previously unmarked, pro cleaned, expensive wool, cost to replace to me is £1100..... She only has to contribute £ 200.
So there's two sides to each argument.
However, I do agree that letting agents are generally pretty useless, both as tenant and landlord.

Don't be so aggressive and touchy, and you get real. :)

First of all, I said 'most', not all.

Read others' posts to understand how landlords and letting agencies exploit their tenants.

Yes, service is a service, but some are more ethical than others.

Everyone works for oneself, but some have better and more ethical ways of earning for self than others. Drug dealer and supplier also does his/her drug dealing/supplying to put food on his family table, so shall we call it a great way of earning money? No. Two days ago a terrorist killed innocent people for his own agenda. Shall we call it fine, because he was doing it for himself and his ideological partners? LOL.

Now please do not pick a half-head argument with 'How can you compare these things to letting agencies and landlords' etc. Try to grip the 'very need to satisfy self and alike, by exploiting others' in those examples.

About sympathy etc., get real again LOL! How many landlords do you see with sympathy for others? :lol1: I haven't known of one who has waived the rent for some poor tenant for a month or two, because that tenant was struggling. Instead, I've seen such tenants being taken to court by such landlords.

Only a couple of days ago, I heard on R4 that a single woman with a kid is taking a landlord to court on discrimination because he wouldn't give her the tenancy. Great service! :freak3:

Let me add that there are some very bad tenants, too; with no respect for the landlord's property. It's seen a lot with student accommodations. Even then, most student accommodation landlords are pre-prepared for all this, they know how to leech the money out of poor students for the destruction and perhaps from their insurances etc.

Service, my @rse! :cuckoo: