UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello All 

I am having problems obtaining any sort of property at the moment to live in. I have a young daughter who is just over 1 my partner works on national minimum wage (4.98 under 21) at my moment i am an unpaid call centre operative to letting agents and south northants housing options team.

My family is currently stuck living with my partners family, We've applied for council housing but only to be told we would have to wait 5-8 years so got advised to look privatly rented so i did found a 1 bedroomed flat (not a problem use the livingroom as a bedroom) however after paying £120 of referencing fee's my family failed the reference on how much my partner was earning.

Then the council adviced me to look for properties which took the local council bond scheme as this would help as referencing wouldn't apply as the council would do the number crunching, After having a few conversations with local letting agents and landlords i found a property in the same village as my partners family lived (brillant) the council sorted the deposit, did the inspetion then all of a sudden the landlord refused despite willing to rent it to my partner.

Now we are still stuck living with 5 other people in the same property and despite efforts the council has refused to put us up and says we are in medium band due to living with my partners parents.

Any advice given would really be appreciated in either privatly renting or council :-)

Hi Gail,

The landlord probably evaluated your situation and thinks that you are a too high risk tenant. My advice would be that you seek direct contact with the landlords, bypassing the agents, and develop a direct rapport. Perhaps invite them to your current home and show him/her how you're living despite all the adversity you are facing. Demonstrate income/funds beyond the income of your partner.

At the end of the day, all a landlord wants is a tenant who treats their property well and pays rent always on time. You need to find a way to outshine your performance in a spread sheet which currently says "2 adults, 1 infant, one working, very low income, no rental history".

That's my opinion, hope it helps.

-Armin

Thank you i have started bypassing the estate agents now, when you put mine and my partners situation like that it looks really bad. Will letyou know if something comes out of it :-). Could other landlords please post as i need views of more landlords of why they either will or wouldn't rent a property to someone in this situation as i need to show the council/citizens advice bureau why nobody would like to rent to me and my partner thank you all