A PROPERTY expert has warned of all the illegal tricks a dodgy landlord might try to pull – and what you can do about it.
Megan Eighteen is Vice President of property sector regulator ARLA Propertymark, which makes sure estate agents and landlords abide by a strict ethical code.
She said that the biggest issue with the private rental market is that “tenants don’t know their rights”.
Her mission is to make rules and regulations more digestible for renters, so they can feel empowered to challenge their landlord on anything that seems iffy.
Megan exclusively shared with Fabulous the four main sneaky landlord tricks that renters should be wise to.
GET THE CLEANERS IN
Thanks to the Tenant Fees Act 2029, it’s now illegal for a landlord to ask you to pay for a professionally clean before you move out of a property.
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Instead, they can ask you to clean it to a “professional standard” yourself.
“Before, you could write into a tenancy agreement that the tenant must have the property professionally cleaned,” Megan said. “But now, it usually stipulates for the tenant to return it in the same condition they found it in.
“If the property was professionally cleaned, you have to hand it back to a professional standard.”
SAY NO TO POOCHES
Pet ownership in a rented property is currently at the landlord's discretion – but this is set to change.
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Megan explained that the Renters (Reform) Bill, which is yet to become law, stipulates that a landlord must have a “reasonable” ground to refuse your moggie or pooch from living in your home.
What's more, they can't try to wrangle more money out of you just because you have a pet
“It’s now not allowed for a landlord to ask someone to pay a larger deposit because they have a pet, like a dog or cat,” Megan added.
COUGH UP CASH
The property expert asserted that landlords asking you to pay administration or referencing fees should be avoided at all costs.
The Tenant Fees Act bans most letting fees, meaning your landlord cannot charge your admin, referencing or termination fees.
“There are landlords and dodgy agents who are still trying to charge these,” Megan warned. “They’ll charge tenants for anything, including things they can’t charge them for.”
The only things your landlord can charge you for are a refundable deposit, rent, early termination requested by you, bills, a default fee for late rent payment and replacement of a lost key.
SHORT NOTICE
The standard amount of notice your landlord should give you to move out is two months – anything shorter might be against the law.
Notice periods are in place to protect tenants, as it they provide us with a good amount of time to find a new pad before losing the legal right to live in our current one.
The majority of tenancy agreements in the UK are called assured shorthold tenancies, whereby a landlord must give two months notice in writing alongside the exact date you need to be out by.
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“I’ve had a lot of people come to me for advice when their landlord has given them one month’s notice,” Megan said.
“People need to know that isn’t allowed unless they’ve got a very particular type of tenancy agreement… which they probably haven’t.”
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