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This thread is more of a rant than anything - just need to get it off my chest!
Back in August 2018, I accepted a job for a company I'm now working for, approximately a month before my start date. I was living in Wales, and the job is based in Farnborough.
2 weeks before starting, I managed to view a property which I really liked, and made an offer. 7 days before starting, I received an email to say it was rejected, since I was a student (I'm on my placement year), even though I could pay 6 months upfront.
It was a frantic rush to find something suitable that I could move into a week later. I found the flat I'm now in later that evening, and based on the photos available online, made an offer (including the 6 months upfront). This was all paid for, and the day before I was due to move in, I received a call from the estate agents.
They explained that the previous tenants had not cleaned the property at all, and had painted a number of rooms without prior consent (mostly glitter-based pink). Since I'm quite a down-to-Earth person, I was happy to have it cleaned to a standard as best as possible in the short time frame, and that the painting would be arranged at a later date.
Naturally, the cleaning wasn't very good - it was more of a wipe down. Carpets were stained all over, and generally grimey throughout. No lightbulbs in the property, tumble drier broken, light sockets burned out due to faulty wiring, radiators not working in the property...
I used my father's vax carpet cleaner to power wash all carpets and bring them back, and spent a solid day cleaning the property to my standards (my last estate agents while at university had said that my property was the cleanest one they'd ever had handed back to them).
A couple of weeks go by, and nothing has been sorted. We wanted to unpack our furniture, so I rang the estate agents and agreed that I'd do the painting if they paid for the materials, saving them a fair amount of money.
I'm now almost 12 months into my tenancy, and all of the above issues still remain. I've chased them endlessly for months, and keep being told that it's in discussion with my landlord. I've had excuses that he's waiting for the deposit from the last tenants (even though I paid £6,600 upfront).
I'm now also being asked to provide proof that they said they would cover the costs of us to repaint the property.
I'm rather quite fed up with renting - I got hit hard in my last property due to my estate agents letting the property with an EPC of C, when, in actual fact, it was a G, resulting in energy bills of £300 pcm to keep the place not cold; it put me in debt by quite a bit, since I was a student with a finite amount of money.
So I've looked into buying, except that even with a £30,000 deposit, unless I manage to earn >£50,000 per annum, I can't afford to buy a reasonable property in a reasonable area in the south east.
Renting is controlled by landlords and estate agents, and it's almost impossible to get a reasonable mortgage. Crazy.
Back in August 2018, I accepted a job for a company I'm now working for, approximately a month before my start date. I was living in Wales, and the job is based in Farnborough.
2 weeks before starting, I managed to view a property which I really liked, and made an offer. 7 days before starting, I received an email to say it was rejected, since I was a student (I'm on my placement year), even though I could pay 6 months upfront.
It was a frantic rush to find something suitable that I could move into a week later. I found the flat I'm now in later that evening, and based on the photos available online, made an offer (including the 6 months upfront). This was all paid for, and the day before I was due to move in, I received a call from the estate agents.
They explained that the previous tenants had not cleaned the property at all, and had painted a number of rooms without prior consent (mostly glitter-based pink). Since I'm quite a down-to-Earth person, I was happy to have it cleaned to a standard as best as possible in the short time frame, and that the painting would be arranged at a later date.
Naturally, the cleaning wasn't very good - it was more of a wipe down. Carpets were stained all over, and generally grimey throughout. No lightbulbs in the property, tumble drier broken, light sockets burned out due to faulty wiring, radiators not working in the property...
I used my father's vax carpet cleaner to power wash all carpets and bring them back, and spent a solid day cleaning the property to my standards (my last estate agents while at university had said that my property was the cleanest one they'd ever had handed back to them).
A couple of weeks go by, and nothing has been sorted. We wanted to unpack our furniture, so I rang the estate agents and agreed that I'd do the painting if they paid for the materials, saving them a fair amount of money.
I'm now almost 12 months into my tenancy, and all of the above issues still remain. I've chased them endlessly for months, and keep being told that it's in discussion with my landlord. I've had excuses that he's waiting for the deposit from the last tenants (even though I paid £6,600 upfront).
I'm now also being asked to provide proof that they said they would cover the costs of us to repaint the property.
I'm rather quite fed up with renting - I got hit hard in my last property due to my estate agents letting the property with an EPC of C, when, in actual fact, it was a G, resulting in energy bills of £300 pcm to keep the place not cold; it put me in debt by quite a bit, since I was a student with a finite amount of money.
So I've looked into buying, except that even with a £30,000 deposit, unless I manage to earn >£50,000 per annum, I can't afford to buy a reasonable property in a reasonable area in the south east.
Renting is controlled by landlords and estate agents, and it's almost impossible to get a reasonable mortgage. Crazy.