My last few posts have been spiritual in nature, but this one came to me as being social in nature. I believe that the major crisis that the world faces today is a spiritual one, however let’s look at one aspect of it from an earthlier aspect. I am a tenant living in a house in a lovely, quiet village in Suffolk. Recently the renewal came up. I gather most tenants and landlords will know what that means. Yes, the dreaded increase in rent. Today I’m going to use this as an example of the issue that I wish to highlight.
The rent has been increased in line with a thing called ‘market value’. The ‘market value’ of all properties where I live has increased due to a newbuild estate in the village that is selling for an extortionate cost and not selling very well either meaning that any buy to let landlords who have purchased one of the properties have rented it out at a rate to reflect their own costs. Now, the freedom fighter and rebel in me has a difficult time accepting such a thing as ‘market value’, but let’s save that for another time (Black Rock and Vanguard. Black Rock and Vanguard. Black Rock and Vanguard. STOP IT REGAN!!!!!!!). Basically, none of this sits well with me at all. My landlord (not of the buy to let variety) has told my boyfriend and I that they would like us to stay for a long time, but if we have such a price hike as the current one we will have to move next year due to being priced out of the property. I’ve only lived here a year. I’ve moved five times in the last four years. I don’t want to make it six moves in five years next year and nor does my cat who’s not getting any younger. At this point I want to stress that this is not an anti-landlord post. I think most landlords will find this just as interesting as any tenant would.
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I’m going to be completely honest and say that as a collective I think all landlords are a massive bunch of dicks and letting agents are the ultimate snake oil sellers. I’m no angel I’m afraid. Spiritual practise and meditation doesn’t give you a halo. As individuals though you never know who you’re talking to, and my landlord is a lovely person. My last landlord and their agents however, that’s an entire other story. I’ve got no regrets leaving that place early. Renting can be a very mixed bag.
I think renting has always been a VERY loaded topic. On one hand a landlord totally has the right to run a profitable business, on the other hand that profitable business is someone’s home. This is where things start to get fraught. My previous landlord and their agents are exactly the reason why so many people absolutely despise landlords, especially buy to let landlords. My last landlord had never seen the flat I was living in, and I don’t think had even visited the town it was in. As far as I know they were living in India. One day their agent sent me an email telling me, not asking me, telling me, that my landlord is coming round to look at the flat. I politely told them that legally speaking they can’t do that without my permission which I refused to give it on the back of the tone that took with me and out of sheer pettiness told them I wouldn’t be there to let anyone in anyway. Before you wonder, my previous landlord’s agents are based in Warrington, not India, this wasn’t the law being lost in translation. That’s only one story I have about that flat, the landlord and the agents. They also tried to charge me £500 for an end of tenancy clean (it doesn’t even cost half of that for a one-bedroom flat in London) which I had already done and sent proof of it. It took me 6 months to get my deposit back because of it. That’s a second story. I have more, but I’ll stop here.
Now to lend some support to ‘team landlord’. I had neighbours move into the flat underneath where I was living in 2016 who used it as a drug den. They threatened to knife me for asking them to turn their music down at 2am on a Wednesday. The street door was blocked several times due to their fly-tipping. Police raided the property at least twice. It took about 18 months for the landlord to get the property back. During that time it had been utterly destroyed. The flat had to be gutted out and made habitable again from the ground up. Why we have the guidelines and rules that we do for renting is understandable when it you read about such things.
It's a shame how the minority can ruin it for the majority. It’s because of a minority on both sides that such rules are even written to begin with. The minority of landlords would have anyone believe that all landlords are arseholes, and the minority of tenants would have any landlord think that all tenants are arseholes too. By far the majority of landlords and tenants would sooner enjoy a mutually beneficial working relationship, but trust has become an almost impossible thing. So now there’s rules for literally each and every single aspect of renting under the sun. Rules regarding how a tenant’s home can look. Rules regarding when a landlord can have their property back. Rules regarding how rent must be paid and screen shots of a tenant’s very private bank account to prove that a standing order has been set up. Rules regarding who a landlord must rent their property to. The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on, you get it.
To simplify the process letting agents have become a popular option for managing properties on a landlord’s behalf. Letting agents who are often slow to action repairs whilst blaming the landlord. Letting agents who ask for more money without explaining the reason why to tenants. Letting agents who take forever to answer emails and never answer the phone unless it involves being paid. Letting agents who strictly speaking aren’t trained in the laws of renting. All in the name of ‘simplifying the process’. Naturally, this doesn’t work all that well. It drives an even bigger wedge between landlords and tenants. In fairness to letting agents they normally have more properties to manage than they can reasonably handle.
So, what are we left with? Landlords who are deathly afraid that tenants will use their property for illegal raves and tenants who feel like they’re being screwed over financially and emotionally by landlords. Suspicion and fear builds all the time on both sides of the fence. It builds in a very me and mine narcissistic way with very little regard for the humanity of the other party. Landlords want to run a business. Tenants need a home to live in. Neither is wrong for wanting those things. What is wrong is the ever-increasing zero-sum mindset, win-lose scenario of each party trying to protect their own often very fragile best interests in a financial climate that turns up the heat and the hate along with it. Renting is now up there with the government’s favourite poster child, the NHS. Like how every successive government has wanted to ‘save the NHS’ (never looks that way though), now they want to ‘make renting fairer’ (fairer for whoever they want to side with at the time). You know that when the government puts their foot in it the way that they have that nothing good will come of it, but landlords and tenants will certainly hate one another a little bit more at least.
What are we to do? Honestly, I’m not sure. I suppose practise being a good person and try to see the humanity in the other. All people are just people. People with stresses and burdens. With baggage. With fears, desires, hopes and dreams. We all have things that keep us awake of a night far beyond the labels of ‘landlord’ or ‘tenant’. Landlords and tenants are not the only way that the powers that be keep us divided. As a millennial who will likely never be able to afford property, this is a topic very close to my heart. Life has this knack of giving you awful choices to make, but at least you get to make a choice so choose wisely. I chose to stay in my current home in much the same way that my landlord has chosen to increase the rent. What about you?