UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have been living in the same flat for over 10 years now. I have been dealing with most of maintenance issue myself without charging anything for it, except replacement parts and materials. Anyway, this sofa we had for 10 years requires to be replaced and the landlord agreed to buy the replacement. Due to our agreement I am the one who will be looking for one. Unfortunately, the landlord advised me that the sofa cannot be expensive. When I asked him what amount of money he had in mind - he responded that it cannot be more expensive than GBP200. My first thought was ... does he mean that sofa is supposed to be 2nd hand. To be honest, I think he is being cheap and it seems impossible to me to find some decent brand new sofa for less than 200. Am I wrong? Could someone advise me on this one?

I agree it would be very hard to find a suitable sofa for £200.

I agree it would be hard to find a non-second-hand sofa for £200.

We don't know how much rent you're paying and whether it's below market rate (as so many long-term tenancies end up being) and can't judge much based on the lack of information. Taken in isolation - is your Landlord being cheap? I would say "yes"... but there could be all sorts of other reasons - maybe you are paying £500 per month for a property that's really worth £750 per month, but your Landlord hasn't increased the rent for 10 years... we just don't know.

Ikea is a good place to get reasonable sofas for reasonable prices. Maybe you could negotiate a position where the Landlord contributes £200 to the cost and you get what you really want, but the sofa is yours, not the Landlord's? Would that be an attractive proposition to you, or not?

Thank you for your response. I do appreciate it.

I live in Swindon, Town Centre - in a building with over 180 flats. This flat used to be rented out by an agency but due to never ending problems with the flat and with the agency and their extremely low quality of service, I encouraged the landlord that we would be better off signing new agreement, without any agency. And this is what happened several months ago.
We moved in 10 years ago and we used to pay 550 for 1 bedroom flat with no parking space and with no right of parking in the residential area. We were forced to buy this very expensive parking permit for residents of town centre area which costs 625/ yr. In JAN 2016 the rent was raised to 585. The landlord was paying 70 to the agency each month as service charge. We signed this new agreement with additional terms which obligate me to deal with most of the issues with the flat if anything arises. I am also obligated to deal with most of the repairs and maintenance issues for free. I am now paying 538 which means that I pay less but the landlord is also getting more money as the agency is no longer involved.
What do you think about it now, after taking into consideration these additional information?

PS I forgot to add this sofa is supposed to be 2-seater sofa.