Bats in the belfry, windows are jammed - London flat renting, deposits & landlords

Ha. It was directed more at Stonehedge's confident reply than the ask!

(I still want photos)

What sort of insurance covers this type of eventuality?

Yeah. Good question. I'm imagining some kind of policy for landlords who rent to the more interesting demographics.

But yeah.

Swingers' Insurance?

I mean the photos will be lols.

I for one can't wait to see them.

Is this not the price of doing business? I mean landlords are always telling us they risk their hard earned capital to put a roof over someone’s head.

This IS the price of business.

There are 'professional' landlords.

There are amateurs looking to make a quick buck out of the housing crisis.

One can absorb the cost into the business the other means their pension pot reduces.

Meh. I'm glad I'm out of having to rent now. But it did mean leaving the Sarf to T'Norf to get something under £100K.

I don't regret it one bit.

Is this not the price of doing business?

In the same way as having a factory burned down might be something you'd consider as a factory owner. It's a risk. But it can be insured against under malicious damage or similar.

If anyone can think of better/additional places to post this I'm all ears:
BBC Radio Positive Thinking
[Disclaimer; I was at Bristol University with Stephen Burke.
We lost touch as he went into serious politics,
but, now exchange the odd email].

Freely admit I've messed up by
a) renting from a mate
b) not getting something in writing

That said.

I sold my place recently, with a new place in the process of being bought
It lined up with a friend buying a place and vacating their flat
I rented their place for the last 6 weeks, paying market rate (less usual agent fees)
All just agreed in WhatsApp (so a record at least)

They've said they need the place back in 3 weeks time.

This fucks me up massively as I don't yet have a date to exchange/complete (soonish, but no chance by mid feb)
I'm also away for 2 weeks at start of feb, so actually this is morelike a 1 week deadline for me.

They're saying they need it back
I'm saying it's not adequate notice and that there needs to be a proper notice period if that's what they're going for
(they did say they were looking for people, but likewise I'd said I'd let them know re: exchange dates - so it was flexible both ways, or so I thought).

Bit fucked off. Suspect they are too. Would like to not lose friends, but also don't really want to have paid 2 months of rent and then got shipped out short notice and having to find another stopgap plus more moving costs

You hold all the cards here, I suspect you just do not know it!

Assuming you are in England...

https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/tenancy-types

Doesn't matter that nothing is written down, you have an AST and it falls under the AST rules.

https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/your-landlord-wants-to-end-your-tenancy

So it looks like minimum you should be given eight weeks notice - and that's only possible if your mate followed all the rules.

There are other grounds for repossession that have shorter notice periods that are only valid in the 'fixed period', they are typically used when rent hasn't been paid though.

So question is what to do...

First have a chat with CAB.

I would demonstrate my understanding of the law and the seriousness of this situation, then negotiate for a longer period but one that still looks like it benefits your mate, i.e. six weeks.

Depending on how much you trusted them, I would also be tempted to fit a new lock.

Or, take the non legal route. Sit down with them. Explain why you're miffed, and listen to their side. And find a compromise.

I've provided the information they need to do that effectively. Without knowing your rights, an unscrupulous person - and it sounds like they could be like that, I mean, who gives their mate three weeks notice after six weeks! - would simply not compromise because they don't care, do not feel they need to, or do not know how this works.

You hold all the cards here, I suspect you just do not know it!

Had a quick read up before posting and agree that I likely do.
Landlord is a lawyer by day so I suspect they know too.

Sitting down with them tomorrow to chat.

The assumption was always that it would be relatively short term. Convenient for them as they get a tenant immediately after they move out (and they were able to push back the start date a couple of times to suit them). Convenient for me as I would be able to move somewhere local in the gap between selling and buying.
It's going from murmurings about end dates and 'how how this sort of time work for you' (to which I'd always said I couldn't be sure yet but I'd make sure to give them proper notice when I did know) to a firm end date of 3 weeks.

Definitely prefer to avoid the nuclear options, but also a bit pissed at the potential money wasted and inconvenience.

Why are you paying market rate if your not getting market rate rights?
If he sees you as essentially just flat-sitting, you shouldn't be paying at all.

Curious as to why they need the flat back for what I assume is only 3wks?

We rented / semi-house-sat for a mate, while they were travelling, and the move out was a bit of a sensitive point. But then they owned and we were covering their mortgage and looking after it as much as anything.

Ah no - they bought a new house and moved out of the flat. They are going to rent their flat through an agent but because the dates mostly lined up with my house sale then I moved straight in with the intention of then giving them a heads up when I got an exchange/completion date and then they'd let it as normal. So they're never moving back in, but sounds like they have longer term tenants lined up and would like to kick me out to make way

Obviously I'm going off your version but it is a straight up dick move. I get they want to lock in their long term tenants, but they've had the cashflow benefit so need to work with you.

Don't think it would be unreasonable to ask him to refund you in full for the hassle of moving again at such short notice to accommodate his long term lease.

Can't have his cake and eat it...

@duncs any update?

Ended up getting the last 8 days or so of the month's 'rent' back and moving my stuff out.

They apparently didn't view it as a tenancy and felt the flexibility worked both ways. I pointed out that selling my place in November and planning to move into somewhere in mid-late Feb meant that I would reasonably expect that I'd be staying there for roughly that period. And that I'd said I'd give a month's notice at the minimum so I though that at least the same would be expected. That it's worse than useless to move everything into a flat, then move it out again and have to find a second alternative for a few weeks.

I've no doubt I could have dug my heels in, made them cancel the longer tenancy and then given them the month's notice. But I wasn't massively keen on doing that then being on holiday for 2 weeks with all my stuff in a flat knowing I wouldn't be around.
So I'm irritated and a bit inconvenienced. I'll stay at my girlfriends in the meantime (which I was mostly doing anyway tbh) so I'll likely save money.
So we're agreeing to disagree... kind of. Not worth the hassle of disagreeing I think is more the state of it. Probably wont ask them for any more favours though.

They apparently didn't view it as a tenancy and felt the flexibility worked both ways.

Huh. WAC.

great 'friends' they are

Unfortunately these are the sort of situations you find out who are 'friends' and who are 'mates'.

So, I hope @duncs didn't send a xmas card to them last xmas.

Unfortunately these are the sort of situations you find out who are 'friends' and who are 'total fucking bellends'.

There you go. Say it like it is.