credo

When I was 15 during the summer holidays.

In my experience the council do the absolute bare minimum in 'preparation' for new teants and tend to.leave properties sometikes in terrible states. In that sense its quite different private rented sector, its not.unusual for a tenant to have to spend lots of money doing one up and I think the fact you get the right to buy reflects this.

Join the Green Party.

Exactly. These apprenticeships are largely just a break for comapnies to employ young people below minimum wage. It's frankly disgusting practice. When I was in my teens I worked all kinds of jobs and was paid more than the going rate for these apprenticeships (about 2.50 an hour) and that was 20 years ago. These days the jobs that I had would now be 'apprenticeships'.

Back handers might work but it doesn'thelp if you're sandwiched between two properties. I live in an old 1950s gerry build block of flats and I can hear four different neighbours. I even get woken up by the couple upstairs shagging and can hear them take a piss and a dump on the toilet.

Read thorugh this whole thread. Bruce you come across as a really nasty bitter little man. I hope I never have the displeasure to meet you but I probably never will as, like most people I havent and never will inherite any wealth.

One solution would be to incentivised the rent a room scheme further, say with another tax break or a cash incentive.

It's not just people sharing flats in London but people sharing bedrooms! Such are the rents in London.. plenty of people in low paying jobs or students having to do this.

If I had a penny each time an agent tried that bulshit on I'd be a multimillionaire by now. It was deemed an unfair term by the OFT. Don't put up with that crap. By law you only have to leave a property in the condition you found it in plus fair wear and tear for which the landlord claims a reduction in tax for anyway.

Isn't it the case though that landlords worry a statutory periodic will turn into a regulated tenancy and they'll end up with a sitting tenant? Besides the fact that the landlord could evict the tenant very easily under periodic, without having to give a reason, effectively meaning they can evict them if they refuse to pay the fee?

To be honest I should have put roughly £1300 as thats roughly how much it would have cost had they charged the same fee for the other rooms.

£265 for a room in a shared house on a six month tenancy. Room in a shared house. Sorry I meant to say living room converted into a bedroom.

State of the art sewage system but best not break as you could probably kill someone if you took a shit out of the window.

Speaking of student properties, it's a shame so many students live in HMOs and under joint tenancies. It encouraged the lack of regulation of the sector, discouraged universities from investing in purpose built blocks and turned communities into ghost towns during.summer holidays. It would have been better if such properties had beed for the purpose they were built-to house families. In one area near where I live almost half of a council estate is now in the hands of buy to let landlords and most of the properties in consequence are severely neglected overcrowded and about 4x the price of council rents.

That wouod be good but there's a lot wrong with the private rented sector beyond that. It's about time HMOs were properly regulated, most Ive seen are hovels you wouldn't want your dog to live in. I'd recommend the licencing of HMOs with regular inspections and fines, paid for by the fines and a modest licence fee. I'd also include all houses in multiple occupation under this including those where several people are named on a single tenancy agreement. Moreover 6 month ASTs are a landlords wet dream, they give them the ability to kick you out without giving a reason, often in my experience because you ask for some delapidated part of the property to be fixed or if you're on housing benefit and it affects their.insurance. So there's the age old 'NO DSS' blatent discrimination that goes on which only serves to increase pressure on council housing stock, just imagine if a council wanted to do likelwise, it would require an act of parliament and would be challenged as it should do in the PRS. Also as a council tenant I think the rent here is about right. It's only about 150 quid a month off the 'market rate' and theres a lt of baggage that comes with living, like very noisey un-cooperative neighbours who seem to play their music at every hour and VERY poorly insulated/sound proof buildings. That said I think the best solution to the problem is to remove the social rented sector and make it one market for everyone. Only then would the problems become most apparent.

Hi, I just wondered if anyone could give me some general advice about buying property in Scandinavia. I've been to Denmark and I like the way their society seems to function. I'm single, 33, am a postgrad, have no kids and need a fresh start in life. I only have 6k in savings, however I should be able to save up around 15-20k within the next couple of years and am going to try and learn Norwegian and Danish during this period. Is there anywhere in Scandinavia that's particularly cheap propertywise or is reasonably affordable and easy to find work? I understand the cost of living is quite high in these countries and that people with foreign surnames can be discriminated against in the jobs market. I think though I could make a good go of it. I like the idea of properly funded public services and want to contribute as much as I can back to society.

Regards solicitors, does the Student Union offer free legal advice? My old one used to allow me to book an appointment with a solicitor who visited the student services centre every few weeks or so. It's very hard to get legal aid for housing matters these days sadly, so Student Union seems best bet.

I'm sure we can all agree that it can't go on like this, something has to give. I imagine that something will be external, either EU turmoil or problems in the US. Speaking of which, how much of our 'growth' has been fueled by the artificial growth in the US economy? What happens if the republicans get in, in 2016? Lots of ifs and buts, I suppose. Hampshire has always been overpriced. I heard talk that those developers offering newbuilds had got rid of some of their promotions and replaced them and used the Help to Buy scheme to effectively subsidise the new ones.

Also keep your cards close to your chest on this one. He has 30 days to protect the deposit and if he doesn't, he'll be unable to give you a section 21 notice so you would be able to stay there for longer than 6 months. I hope the property is in good condition as I doubt he'll be too eager to make repairs if you do choose to stay.

I hope I don't come across as an **** and greedy for wanting to enforce this. The thing is, I was forced to move from that property and had I known at the time the notice was invalid, I'd probably have stayed and saved myself a lot of agro. The letting agency needs to be taken to task, I had already had suspicians that the notice was invalid, on the basis that it wasn't a proper section 21 notice to quit that was served but rather just a request to leave followed up with verbal threats of illegal eviction. When challenged that they didn't issue a correct section 21, they then tried to backdate the notice period. Sadly I don't think a magistrate will care about any of this but I'd like to include the invalid notice as evidence of their incompetence. Is it likely the whole thing will get struck out if I muddy the waters like this?

I agree with the poster above, the landlord has signed an AST and doesn't have a leg to stand on. He must honour the contract. Has he protected the deposit?

I may still go abead with this as long as I have little to lose. Any ideas o whether I'd have to pay their much in legal costs if I lost? Also what do you think of the standard of the property I moved into. The rent was 400 a month including bills.

Thanks. I think part of what screwed this up is the emphasis from shelter on including with the letter any evidence I choose to rely on on court, thue why I included proof of non-protection from deposit schemes. I suppose I could have requested I sent the letter but I do wish I had done as you just pointed out.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0fdwqlyulnq7gme/inventory12.pdf

Here's the inventory anyway.