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Sometimes you can never ask too many questions and knowing your rights pays dividends.
My daughter is at University in Bournemouth and sharing a house with friends, occupying on an assured shorthold tenancy from a private landlord. When they took the house last August there was a whole education process that I had to go through with the landlord and the agent to tell them the law, about inventories and the tenancy deposit scheme.
Let us just fast forward to April this year and a letter my daughter received from the mortgage company to say the house was being repossessed.
So I sprang in to action to protect and defend their position. What I have discovered if true has truly shocked me.
Firstly there is a service which is there for dispute service for deposits, not the deposits lodged in the Governments Tenancy Deposit Scheme. So this needs overhauling to avoid people still being ripped off.
Secondly the mortgage company want the students out and say that the two month grace period passed by the last Government only applies to buy to let mortgages. Someone renting out a property on a “standard” mortgage affords no such protection.
So if you are going to rent I would make sure the agent is a member of ARLA so at least they have some training. Get an inventory, make sure the deposit is safe and secure and check out the owner and their mortgage.
Better to be safe than sorry. Roll on regulation, it can’t come soon enough!
24 May 2010 10:46:00