Please forgive me for venting a grievance, but I’m wondering what some of you might make of this situation.
My family was asked to move because the landlord had decided to sell. We weren’t given a formal section 21 or anything just told.
We’ve now moved, and before even returning the keys or the landlord inspecting the property, they’ve re-listed it on OpenRent for double the price and used photos they asked us to take this week for their “peace of mind”.
I’m not shocked as we recently had a feeling this might be happening, but we were never asked if we’d be open to a rent increase, rather told it was being sold and this came just after we’d been given the okay to pour hundreds of pounds into redocorating.
It just feels like a really dirty move on their part.
It would have been decent of them to at least offer you the option of paying the higher rent, however I suspect that as it was double your previous rent then you would challenge it. They must have suspected that there would have been resistance (and why wouldn’t there be if doubling it). They have gone the fail safe route.
It’s idiotic of them to have had the rent so far under market value.
I would just take satisfaction in knowing you have had a good deal for as long as you have and move on, there’s nothing you can do.
I did have a feeling that might be the case, but was hoping for that decency. It’s the lying and allowing us to improve the property & then asking us to take the listing photos that just feels really dirty. An insult to our intelligence, at least.
For the area, we were paying what seemed a very appropriate amount, but I understand that landlords have other costs to cover… I can’t imagine anyone who comfortably has double to spend each month even wanting to live on that street, though.
We’re in a much better place now and paying near double, anyway.
Allowing you to do the improvements seems especially out of line, they could have stopped this. (I am assuming they weren’t to correct any wear or damage). And the photos is very cheeky.
This shows the importance that landlords should be increasing rent gradually and regularly as it can fall behind market value, forcing moves like this, however, some landlords have faced huge less predictable cost increases ie mortgage deals ending and new rates being massive by comparison.
Maybe they will be in for a surprise and they have over priced it.
Definitely not just wear or damage, no. And we really did spend a fair amount, even hired a professional decorator to do the work, as we were told we could stay longterm and were given permission to go ahead with everything, then complimented on how tasteful it was.
Believe it or not, they wouldn’t have had any resistance from us. We understood that the market had changed and even offered to pay them more while we looked for a new home.
I don’t mind saying that we’re pretty great tenants.
Only one other property close by has come up at a similar price in the last 6 months or so, and they did end up reducing it over time. This new amount feels rather ambitious, but only time will tell.
It’s disappointing that things played out the way they did, sort of souring our opinion of the landlord and property manager (who we thought the world of), and tarnishing our memories of the house, but we truly are in a better place now and we’ll move on.
Not Scotland, unfortunately. That said, though, I don’t think I’d even want to pursue it if we could, there’s enough comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in finding their behaviour cheeky.
Update: Their new asking price did prove rather ambitious! They’ve had to reduce it twice, to not much more than what we’d been paying and we’d happily have paid more. Can’t imagine it was worth it for them, in the end.
The vast majority of the time I’m in support of landlords here, but this particular one was pretty dirty, unfortunately.
