Hello,
I have been renting a fully furnished property for the past year and a half and my landlord is now asking to remove furnished items from the property without replacing them as he wants to take them to their own property.
Are they allowed to do this?
Thanks.
Does the contract say furnished?
Is there an inventory that references these items?
They need to replace if property was offered as furnished (as opposed to if they just said you can “borrow them” untill they need them)
Hi Mark,
Yes the contract states furnished. The landlord never did an inventory. He has also left an incredible amount of personal items that I’ve had to live with for the past year and a half that I’ve asked him to remove.
He is arriving tomorrow to take these items away even though we have insisted he must have a like for like replacement if he is doing so.
No, he can’t do that. You are renting the furniture. If he wants some of the items he has to negotiate with you and replace them to your satisfaction.
Or potentially give you a reduced rent so that you can provide your own items to replace them with the money this will release.
What are the items?
The lesson here is: never rent a property (esp a furnished one) without an inventory.
Yeah I have mentioned that I am not comfortable with this without a somewhat like for like replacement of the items but he has told me he does not need to do this and is coming to the apartment tomorrow to take the items.
They include 2 side tables, a lamp, a tv and a hoover.
This is immediately after he tried to increase the rent cost by over 20% from one year of living there.
I will be sure to contact openrent themselves regarding this issue.
Thanks everyone
He has no right to take anything that isn’t listed as his on either the tenancy agreement or the inventory (which doesn’t exist). In fact, there’s no proof that any of the effects in the property are his at all without these. I’m sure you can live without two side tables and a lamp. But the hoover and, arguably, the TV are pretty typical items to provide in furnished accommodation.
He sounds like he hasn’t got a clue how to let property. Did you pay a deposit and were you provided with a valid gas safety certificate when you moved in?
Yes, it’s very apparent he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I had to pay a full month as a deposit. As for the items, I can generally live without but it is the principle.
Have you got all your deposit paperwork to show it’s been protected as required by law?
Did you have a copy of a valid gas safety cert before you moved in?
I’m asking this to see how much leverage you have over the LL before advising you how you should respond.
I have got my deposit paperwork but upon physically checking, I don’t believe we got a gas certification at any point.
Something else that hasn’t been done is upon renegotiating a monthly rate, the price has not been changed on the openrent contract. I am currently paying an additional 100 whilst the price is still listed as the original.
If you’re paying the additional rent, then you’ve accepted it and must continue to pay it. It doesn’t need to be on any paperwork.
If you didn’t get a valid gas safety cert when you moved in, the LL won’t be able to serve a valid S21 notice to get you to leave. That’s a fairly hefty bargaining chip you have there. I wouldn’t be allowing the LL access to remove anything want from the property without some form of replacement or compensation. He has no right to enter the property without your permission. You’re also free to change the locks so that he cannot access it while you’re not in.
But reading your responses, I’m not too sure you know what you’re doing either. Might be a good idea to read up on your rights on the Shelter website.
We do actually have the gas certificate. It is in a physical form In the flat itself rather than having been uploaded onto Openrent.
As for not knowing general protocol, no I’m not 100% sure hence me coming onto this community forum.
ok… well no leverage then.
This forum is all well and good, but bear in mind that people like me are spending our time telling you things that you can go and read for yourself. We’ve done the legwork ourselves and there’s only so much we can do for forum members. There’s also plenty of bad or flat out wrong advice on here. If Ts get into trouble when they’ve not taken the time to get familiar with their legal obligations by simply reading some basic info… well, I have little sympathy for that.
And once the LL’s stolen your TV, there’ll be nothing to distract you from popping over to Shelter’s website 