I am always surprised to read a media article of a landlord who has not done the basics when letting a property or blatantly ignored the rules and I am sure we all have a local story we can think of.
However I am becoming increasingly alarmed by the number of tenants, in my local area that I am seeing whose landlord clearly have no idea of the law, or do, but choose to ignore it.
The list of issues is endless, but the most common is landlords still not protecting deposits, in the last month I have dealt with 3 tenants whose landlord didn’t protect their deposit at any point during their tenancy and is now refusing to return it. Shockingly one of these landlord rented his property through an agent, who I would have expected to deal with the deposit or at least advise the landlord of his obligations and the law.
The next most common issue is landlord not allowing tenants to leave a tenancy early – now I know most of you will be jumping up at this point and say “too right” but I’m talking about a tenant correctly activating their break clause, these landlords are telling tenants the break clause does not apply to them and one landlord even told the tenant “she” needed to serve a Section 21 if she wanted to leave the property.
Now I know this all sounds very unbelievable but I can assure you these are real issues, but where do we start in the education?
Is it up to the government to regulate the industry of both landlords and agents, and if so how is this monitored.
Should the education start with the tenant? If all tenants knew what they should expect would the ‘dodgy’ landlords eventually be squeezed out because they just wouldn’t get tenants.
The letting industry is a viscous circle that has spun on its own for so long I don’t think we will ever successfully stop its motion.
But surely for both landlords and tenants there must be a better way…..?
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