Rental Houses - Painting

Randomly, and only because I was rather proud of the state we left it in, I asked my husband to record a final walkthrough of our old rented house.  Maybe this should be a thing that everybody does.

(We didn't have to use the video for anything, as the landlady was beside herself with how nice we left the place, and happily returned our full deposit.  I only wanted the video to look back on where we lived for the first 4 years of our relationship.)

I'm not sure how other's do it but I believe (and I may be wrong as it might have just been the initial walk through), photos were taken and notes were made by an independent surveyor we paid for and - I believe  - they do an entrance and exit survey (but I could be confused and wrong about it).

I'm not sure how other's do it but I believe (and I may be wrong as it might have just been the initial walk through), photos were taken and notes were made by an independent surveyor we paid for and - I believe  - they do an entrance and exit survey (but I could be confused and wrong about it).

You are correct.  It's called an Inventory and loads of detailed photos are taken.

Sirius, I think you'd be shocked at what REALLY happens with landlords and deposits. 

If the tenant doesn't do their due diligence with photos after they move out - it can be BAD.  Loads of people with shocking experiences on the Expat groups.

Landlords get away with a lot.  The UK laws are NOT written in the tenants favor no matter what the government may try to tell you.

And sometimes, even if you do due diligence, if you have an evil cow of a letting agent/landlord they will still rake you over the coals. I am soooooooooooo glad to be done of renting. 
I did have one absolutely excellent landlord who was amazing. It was a Gumtree advert and he was brilliant. 
I also rented a room once, in a house that had 6 bedrooms and a kitchen.  It was me and five guys. However,  due to nature of the HMO, you never knew who you would find in the kitchen the next morning.
It was dirt cheap and it was perfect for what I needed. She didn't give a toss about deposits or the state of any of the walls or kitchen or anything from a tenant, but she did do regular ongoing maintenance and decorating, and had a cleaner come in several times a week to clean the bathrooms and kitchen (thank goodness, because the majority of the housemates were not good at cleaning up after themselves!!). So I actually really enjoyed renting a room ,even though I never thought I would. 

Re: Wallpaper.  You get stunning types of wallpaper now and many of them really add style and class. We've tossed around doing wallpaper in our house, but haven't come to a conclusion.
My in-laws are in a constant state of redecorating their house (this seems to be their hobby) and they're currently in a wallpaper phase and it looks really good! 

Re: Wallpaper.  You get stunning types of wallpaper now and many of them really add style and class. We've tossed around doing wallpaper in our house, but haven't come to a conclusion.
My in-laws are in a constant state of redecorating their house (this seems to be their hobby) and they're currently in a wallpaper phase and it looks really good!

I like wallpaper and a while ago I looked quite intensively, but I have yet to find anything that I would be happy living with.
Every now and again, I'll see something lovely in a picture online but when I look into it, it's like £350 a roll!    And the vast majority of the rest of it is just vile!

Any suggestions of where to get nice looking paper that won't break the bank?

I like wallpaper and a while ago I looked quite intensively, but I have yet to find anything that I would be happy living with.
Every now and again, I'll see something lovely in a picture online but when I look into it, it's like £350 a roll!    And the vast majority of the rest of it is just vile!

Any suggestions of where to get nice looking paper that won't break the bank?

My wallpaper broke the bank.  It was £40 per square meter.  The kids know they are not allowed to touch it!!! 

Sirius, I think you'd be shocked at what REALLY happens with landlords and deposits. 

If the tenant doesn't do their due diligence with photos after they move out - it can be BAD

  It's so much more than that.

Loads of people with shocking experiences on the Expat groups.

Landlords get away with a lot.  The UK laws are NOT written in the tenants favor no matter what the government may try to tell you.

It's nothing to do with "what the government may try to tell you" and is all about the Housing Acts. I've been involved with a lot of people with deposit disputes over the years and not once did the landlord "get away with a lot". Gone are the days in England and Wales, of the type of landlord who sees the security deposit as their money.

The tenants a few months ago that I helped, had a letting agent that thought the landord had the right to have £100 of the security deposit but the landlord did not get a single penny.

They tenants' thought they would have to pay half of that and they should have, but the landlord didn't know much about the laws of their business and therefore used a letting agent that knew even less. If the landlord had asked for the £50 and not got greedy, I doubt the tenant would have disputed it as they felt they owed that.

Those expats you speak of, might need to go on the correct forums for advice when they get a bad landlord; there are many good landlords on those forums. This is done because the more bad landlords there are, then the tighter the Housing Acts get for landlords.

TBF a lot of the bad landlords we see, tend to be the  "me too buy to let" landlords that we have seen pop up over the last decade or so. They don't bother to read the laws that apply to their business, but ignoance is no excuse in the eyes of the law.

After a bad experience in our first rental when moving to the UK I made it my mission to get 100% of our deposit back for the second and final rental.

The POS letting agent tried it on of course, but I had done a lot of research on the renting forum at Money Saving Expert. Got all of it back. 

Some hints are in my signature.

After a bad experience in our first rental when moving to the UK I made it my mission to get 100% of our deposit back for the second and final rental.

The POS letting agent tried it on of course, but I had done a lot of research on the renting forum at Money Saving Expert. Got all of it back. 

Some hints are in my signature.

I hope that was me that helped you.

The landllordzone is another forum that has good landlords posting.

Sirius, I think you'd be shocked at what REALLY happens with landlords and deposits. 

If the tenant doesn't do their due diligence with photos after they move out - it can be BAD.  Loads of people with shocking experiences on the Expat groups.

Landlords get away with a lot.  The UK laws are NOT written in the tenants favor no matter what the government may try to tell you.

I should have added here that I have been on both sides over the years and seen how the laws have changed to be in the tenants favour, because they have had to.

We went from being landlords for years, to seeing the other side of the coin when we met a bad landlord.

That landlord thought that if he moved his mother in with him, he could let her property to students and make loads of money. He didn't understand that letting a property had different safety rules, or perhaps he didn't have the money to comply with the laws. He had let the property for a couple of years without anybody pulling him up on this.

Because he refused to carry out some minor repairs that we asked for for the students when we saw his let, that would have only cost him about 4 or 5k, he ended up with 14k of repairs that the local council ordered him to carry out. 

I don't feel sorry for any landlord when they get thousands in repairs as this should be built into their business plan as the good landlords do, although I doubt he had one.

In England, even years ago with my first let; every tenant can call in the council to inspect the property to ensure it meets the standard of letting. The council then instruct the landlord to carry out repairs on every thing they find that does not comply with the laws. If the landlord does not carry out these repairs within a set time, then the council will do the work and bill the landlord.

What we have seen is the change in the laws and more to come in, to combat the rise in the "slum landlords" as the bad landlords are now called, that have arrived over the last decade or so.
e.g.
-the law to stop landlords avoiding their repairs by threatening to issue the tenant with a no fault S21 to make them leave, if they ask for repairs to be carried out.  That was known by the slum landlords as a “retaliatory S21" to avoid repairs. The law had to come in to stop that, even though a S21 is only a notice to quit and the tenant does not have to move out by the date the landlord has said.
-The deposit protection law to end the bad landlords who thought/think they can keep what they want to from a tenant’s deposit. The fines the landlords now have to pay to their tenants if they didn't use a scheme and that having to pay their fine to their tenant, really upset some of these as they would have rather pay the fine to the local council than their tenant
-the law to end the holding deposit being used as an extra deposit and keeping that money in their own account. Or the landlord not having the sense to check their letting agent had kept that money in their own account instead of returning it to the tenant when they move in, as they were meant to do.
- the laws that now make a landlord a criminal even though they don't know the laws and thought their letting agent did.
Etc

Other new laws can also affect landlords, not just the Housing Acts and not compying with these can sometimes make the landlord (not the letting agent) a criminal. e.g. The Immigration Acts. Ignorance is no excuss in the eyes of the law.

I agree that those laws had to come in. 

I don't agree with the elimination of fees for applying for properties.  I agree with it in principle as the fees were out of control.  But all it's going to do is increase rents as there ARE costs associated with getting a new tenant in.   

I still think there is a long way to go to improve the quality of basic living standards for rents in the UK though.

I don't agree with the elimination of fees for applying for properties.  I agree with it in principle as the fees were out of control.  But all it's going to do is increase rents as there ARE costs associated with getting a new tenant in.   

It didn't seem to work like that in Scotland when they brought in that law, despite what some landlords and letting agents in England said on the consultaiton for that new law. Landlords can choose the letting agent that has the lower fees, whereas a tenant can not. If a LA wants to keep being a LA, then they need to attract those who have properties to let.

It also helps the law that had to be brought to end the  “retaliatory S21" that the bad landlords tried to use to avoid thousand in repairs/bringing their property up to the standard of a let, that they must carry out if they have let the property.

Rent rises first started to climb when the then government brought in LHA instead of Housing Benefit, as LHA figures were published and the landlords then used those to raise their rents accordingly. It was obvious when that happeneded, what was then going to have to happen. The LHA rates have now frozen to avoid landlords using those as a guide to what they should charge. As in, using the same method that was used to make rents rise, would now be used to reduce them.

When I look on the forums and see the eye watering debt some of these "me too buy to let" landords have taken on, I wonder how that featured in their business plan with their mortage LTV recall clause. For some, it wouldn't take much of a drop in house prices for a mortgage lender to use that clause and ask for more money to raise their LTV.

I don't feel sorry for any landlord when they get thousands in repairs as this should be built into their business plan as the good landlords do, although I doubt he had one.

Thousands in repairs after how long? And from a brand new refurbished property or one that has already seen other tenants? And are we talking all types of repairs that may come up?

Because we definitely have different opinions on that matter. A few hundred in repairs between tenants unless they've been there for YEARS would seem reasonable to me. A few THOUSAND sounds ridiculous to me and certainly not something we would be "built into a business plan". If you're saying that after 1 year - for example - you can expect thousands in damage that you should just plan for that you may have put in brand new before the tenant moved in, I would be asking you what type of properties you're renting out because I cannot imagine there even being thousands that could be replaced after 1 year's usage in a flat. If you're talking about thousands in a big portfolio of a landlord who is a landlord as a "profession", then I guess I could understand, but not all landlords are only landlords. Just down to a difference in opinion I suppose.

Thousands in repairs after how long? And from a brand new refurbished property or one that has already seen other tenants? And are we talking all types of repairs that may come up?

Because we definitely have different opinions on that matter. A few hundred in repairs between tenants unless they've been there for YEARS would seem reasonable to me. A few THOUSAND sounds ridiculous to me and certainly not something we would be "built into a business plan". If you're saying that after 1 year - for example - you can expect thousands in damage that you should just plan for that you may have put in brand new before the tenant moved in, I would be asking you what type of properties you're renting out because I cannot imagine there even being thousands that could be replaced after 1 year's usage in a flat. If you're talking about thousands in a big portfolio of a landlord who is a landlord as a "profession", then I guess I could understand, but not all landlords are only landlords. Just down to a difference in opinion I suppose.

If you looked at the laws for landlords, which I assume you would have done as you have a BTL business, then you would have seen that how a person chooses to have a house that they are living in as they are buying it, is not the same as a house they let. A business has to keep to the laws.

Local councils will inspect a house for the tenant if they don't think the landlord has has kept to the laws and this has always been the case since I bought my first property many years ago. What stopped many of these tenants, was the worry of the landlord tying to stop them from going to the council by threatening to issue a S21 "notice to quit"  and the costs of LA fees for a new property: both of which has had to be taken care of under the new laws.

If you looked at the laws for landlords, which I assume you would have done as you have a BTL business, then you would have seen that how a person chooses to have a house that they are living in as they are buying it, is not the same as a house they let. A business has to keep to the laws.

Yep, we did not buy our house to "live in it" we bough it to let. We keep very much to the laws. My point is that THOUSANDS of pounds seems high to factor in for repairs but I'm not sure what you're considering repairs, etc., hence my question.

Yep, we did not buy our house to "live in it" we bough it to let. We keep very much to the laws. My point is that THOUSANDS of pounds seems high to factor in for repairs but I'm not sure what you're considering repairs, etc., hence my question.

I suspect it's more a slum lord situation.  Moldy, falling off plaster walls and ceilings, boilers that don't work, bathrooms that are shitholes, etc.  Not thousands in repairs due to a tenants actions.