Is 6 months lease typical?

lol couldn't tell you why but that's a favorite show of mine

Oh, I love it! It's just also TERRIFYING! haha espeically when you see the landlords who are left with their place DESTROYED and have had to battle to get in there to even fix the destroyed property. When you have to pay the high court to get involved, that's when it gets pricy...

I can't watch it at all. I find it excruciating!

Paying a year’s rent up front?  Like giving £15,000 or more to someone you’ve barely met?  Or ,even worse,  to an estate agent?   That’s absolutely insane.  Half the estate agents on the high street are dodgy enough to close up shop and take your £15,000 to Cuba the day after you give it to them. 

Seriously , paying a year up front would be so unusual that it will frighten most people away. There’s pretty strict rules, written and unwritten for real estate and nobody is going to do anything different because that represents risk.  Americans understand the concept of being flexible and doing something unusual to make more money.  British people do not and will react with suspicion and even hostility. 

My advice would be to look at the way it’s normally done and do it that way.  I’m not a pet owner but I’d bet it’s giving a much bigger security deposit.

We tried to do six months up front for a place just because we had it saved and it was a hassle with my husbands work to get him referenced and they flat out told us no.

Oh, I love it! It's just also TERRIFYING! haha espeically when you see the landlords who are left with their place DESTROYED and have had to battle to get in there to even fix the destroyed property. When you have to pay the high court to get involved, that's when it gets pricy...

I'm on the other end of it. Our letting agent didn't hide the fact that the previous tenants got evicted. What I viewed the house as was very different from when we moved in. The landlord lets the agents completely manage it so he never saw the state of it. I cried when I walked in.. it was like I was on that show.

We had to have our tenancy delayed another two weeks just so they could get it cleaned and rubbish removed. It now still needs a ton of maintenance but we couldn't delay moving in.

I mean these people TRASHED the place. They also carved a male private part on my front door. . Guess they went out bitter lol.

But that being said, I know the people didn't get their deposit back so I'm asking for every little thing to get fixed and their doing it.

I think the poor kid at the lettings agent is scared of us lol. I told him time and time again it wasn't his fault but I raised all hell about it. They paid our rent for the first month, our application fees, and the two weeks rent we had to pay to stay on at our old place, all because I wrote a very lengthy complaint in.

I hope none of you landlords ever have to go through that!

Luckily, our landlord is a family friend and our rent went down initially because he never fitted the flat with new radiators like he promised. And it has been the same amount for 2 years now. It may be a tiny flat but it's only £280 a month near the city centre so I can't complain about the size too much.

We only got a new tenancy agreement when I needed to be added for my FLR (M) and it is another 6 month tenancy.

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That's amazing! Our last rent was £375 for a spacious one bed flat. But just needed more space since we took in my step daughter.

Keep the low rent as long as you can bear! Lol so much more disposable income to have

I mean these people TRASHED the place. They also carved a male private part on my front door. . Guess they went out bitter lol.

In my recent trip to Pompeii, I learned that those were not JUST the directionals to locate the nearest brothels but they were also symbols of good luck (or something like that), so maybe they were just blessing the new home for you before making their exit? hahahahaha

Seriously though, that is SOO sh*tty for you AND your landlord...Your landlord should've checked PRIOR to you moving in so that's on them, but that just sounds like a crap situation for everybody involved

Sorry for laughing but that’s pretty funny .  Did your kids see the front door?  Mine would have put it on Instagram before I could stop them.

This is one of the big reasons we don't use a letting agency.  We personally meet our tenants before accepting them.

My husband had to go over to change some light bulbs last week.  He said it looks way better than when we lived there.   

We used an estate agent to find/background check our tennents as these were our first ones and we weren't totally sure what we were doing yet but we did meet them as well to do the walk through ourselves etc. I think it was nice to get to see them in person as it was kind of like the final seal of approval for us.

We like the letting agents our landlord uses, but our landlord and his wife left us a little welcome card in the flat before we moved in.  I just thought that was so sweet.  I never had anything like that in the US.  I guess it's either a really good thing or a really bad thing that flats are often owned by regular people looking for a buy to let income instead of big companies, for the most part.

Yeah for the last 25 years of my life (since age 18) that I've been renting, all rental agreements were for at least 1 yr. The last time we renewed our lease with our current landlord, I actually requested a 2 yr agreement and the landlord agreed with the option to increase the rent a certain small % each year to keep up with cost.

The reason we requested a 2 yr agreement was in our last house, we rented there for 5 yrs and it was great. But Seattle's housing market has lost its mind and the price of houses has exploded over the last 10 yrs and many landlords are deciding to sell their houses and take the big payout. Our last landlord did that and despite having rented from them for 5 years, he gave us 1 month notice. We were so pissed. Luckily I had stock I could sell to be able to afford getting us into a new house quickly. So, when we found this place, we did the typical 1 yr lease to make sure we liked it and since we do, I didnt want to be in the same situation again. I wanted some stability at least for a couple years. I'm happy the landlords really like us and they agreed to it.

So that is why I ask about the 1 yr lease as opposed to 6 months. I hate moving. If I get in somewhere, I want to make sure I'm in there for a while. haha

Now, about Letting Agents: Are they tied to only the houses they represent or are they "working for you" to find you a place based on what you are looking for and they work with all of the other landlords or management companies?   

When I look on RightMove, it looks like each house I've looked at is represented by a different company. So do I contact each of those different companies for each place I'm interested in looking at or do I get a Letting Agent who "works for me" to contact them?

About distance/drive time to/from Edinburgh:  Also, when looking at the map or gauging drive time using Google Maps, I can get an idea about how far out I dont mind living but I thought I'd ask you all to get some real world experience.

I'm used to driving an hour into work during rush hour currently. Normal drive time from where I live into downtown Seattle is about 20 minutes. So based on those drive times, where would you recommend is a good "boundary" from Edinburgh City Centre to look?   Would Livingston be a good boundary point? I'm just not sure realistically during rush hour how long it would take to get from Livingston to Edinburgh. Or maybe the airport would be a better boundary?

What I've found in the UK is that you sign a lease for 6 months and then it becomes a rolling month-to-month after that.

Letting Agents don't work for you - they advertise their properties and you contact whichever agency is advertising a particular property to arrange a viewing for that property.

So, you might see 5 different houses with 5 different agencies, or you might see all 5 with the same agency or 3 with one and 2 with another etc.

Basically it's all on you to do the legwork - the agent will just show you the property and then sort out the paperwork if you choose to apply for it.


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Gotcha. Good to know. Thanks for the info.

When we found a house in Glasgow the letting agent said the landlord would take 150 off the month's rent if we agreed to rent for a year - so I guess six months is typical.  We have 2 dogs and found that unfurnished places that weren't totally new and renovated were more likely to accept pets and houses in the suburbs more than flats.

Sorry for laughing but that’s pretty funny .  Did your kids see the front door?  Mine would have put it on Instagram before I could stop them.

lol she's to young to understand.. but once stood next to a giant one spray painted on a building( it also had stuff spraying out of it)  and said "look!! Take my picture with this pretty tree" I dyed laughing on the spot.

And don't be, it's pretty funny to be honest! Those are the type of things I laugh at!