How to address wrong or the lack of rental information
This week, we are dealing with information that home seekers need to know before they agree to sign up a tenancy agreement. This week’s activity is the continuation of appended and punitive terms from our last week.
It is necessary that home seekers do their own research before renting a property. It is equally fair that the other party (or their representative) in the agreement provides prescribed required information (e.g. information related to the new Section 21 form if an assured shorthold tenancy agreement will be used) before home applicants sign up an agreement. There are statutory and non-statutory information that both parties should be aware of.
For example, the law requires to the landlord to provide to their incoming tenants an up to date version of the ‘How to rent’ booklet. Landlords/ladies are also required to provide a new copy at the outset of any subsequent tenancy, including statutory periodic tenancies, but only if there has been an update to the booklet. If they do not then no valid Section 21 can be served.
This week’s activity, which is for the home seekers, will help them in the following ways:
√ Understand what they are agreeing on
√ Avoid mis-rental information and misinformation
√ Understand the terms and conditions of their current and future tenancy agreements
√ Beware of fair and unfair terms and take action on unfair terms
√ Know their consumer protection rights
√ Uncovering mis-renting terms
Etc.
The overall goal of this week’s activity is to protect home seekers from unfair terms and mis-rental information. To achieve this central goal, the week’s session has the following objectives:
√ Ensure clarity and fairness for both contractual parties, especially but not exclusively for the vulnerable and misinformed home seekers
√ Avoid rental poverty trap in a tenancy that one party has never understood its implications from the beginning, yet they signed it
√ Source out ways of getting out from unknowingly agreed unfair terms
√ Ways of dealing with the issue of financial payments related to unfair terms
Briefly, addressing the wrong rental information or lack of fair rental information
You can work with Home Relief on fair rental information as Help to Rent is available to all home seekers.
Need help to address mis-rental information, work with Home Relief.
If you are looking for an affordable location and home, Home Relief is the people dealing with affordable homes you could consider in your property searches and enquiries.
How to convert your initial enquiries into a successful rental later
This week we are dealing with property enquiries made by home seekers to rent a property; enquiries made whether via emails or social media networks or phone calls or physical visits.
This week’s activity concerns mostly those home seekers with very limited incomes, low income earners, ordinary people and families, those who are making enquiries for properties where prospective tenants can part pay the rent and part claim housing benefit, etc.
Rental enquiries here should not be confused with a Property Enquiry Certificate (PEC) which is a standard report on information (often required when buying or selling a property) regarding Statutory Notices and other legal orders and regulations that affect a property.
A rental enquiry is one of the initial steps in trying to find a property to rent. If this initial step is badly handled, this would sometimes jeopardize the rest; meaning that everything could stop without one or both parties (those making rental enquiries and those responding to those enquiries to proceed further).
This is why it is important to get this right from the beginning. Particularly, when you are on limited earning income it is in your interest to well handle your property enquiries in order to maximise your rental chance and get your target property.
To proceed with rental enquiries, we are going to look at the following:
√ What preparations home seekers need to make before they start enquiring about a property to rent
√ Enquiries content (what you should or should not include in your enquiry and why)
√ How to follow your enquiry in order they can be converted into an effective buy
From the above general enquiries, we will then deal with specific enquiries related to home seekers’ target properties to rent.
How to enquire for and identify your target rental property
We all want to rent or live in ideal or target property. But, can we afford it? Especially when one is on low income brackets, it could be unrealistic to get their target property outside their budget constraints.
This is why this week we are trying to work with home seekers, under the topic of rental enquiries, in helping them to bridge the gap between the requirements of their target property and affordability. This work with them is also part of Home Relief’s Help to Rent.
Target property is the property that a particular home seeker is aiming at renting at a particular location, at a given market price and at a determined time.
To support home seekers in achieving or reaching their goal/target property, the following items will be discussed together with them:
√ Target property rent versus affordable rent
√ Preferred location versus circumstantial location
√ Prospective landlords/ladies or letting agents
√ Types and sizes of properties
√ Tenancy terms and conditions
This Help to Rent is accessible to all types of home seekers: students, young working professionals, professional couples, families, universal credit and housing benefit claimants, retirees etc.
If you have a problem in making rental enquiries and or to find your target property, Home Relief can help you to improve the way you are making your enquiries and find your target property at affordable rent.
You can work with Home Relief for your rental enquiries as Help to Rent is available to all home seekers.
Making rental enquiries and or targeting a property to rent, work with Home Relief.
If you are looking for an affordable location and home, Home Relief is the people dealing with affordable homes you could consider in your property searches and enquiries.
This week, we are looking at, with home seekers, the additional terms to the main rental agreement such as assured short hold tenancy agreement.
A tenancy agreement, which is a contract between a tenant and a landlord/lady letting a tenant to live in a property as long as they pay rent and follow the rules, sets out the legal terms and conditions between the two contractual parties. It can be written or oral.
Sometimes, one party of the agreement (often the landlord/lady or their letting agents) can add other terms and conditions to the main standard legal contract. However, if this addition is fair and balanced for both parties, then there is no problem. It is always wise to make sure additional or appended terms are balanced for both contractual parties. Where it is not the case, then this needs to be addressed.
This week, we are working with home seekers on how to avoid punitive additional contract terms. Punitive terms could be of various kinds such as
• A request to pay unreasonable amount of money as cover against potential damage (punitive damages)
• Unreasonable right by the landlord/lady or their managing agents to the full access of the property without prior notice while it is rented
• Unfounded reasons restricting the tenants the use of any part of the premises rented
• A demand of exorbitant size of deposit without any sound basis
• Unsubstantiated motives for keeping a room locks while this room is part of the tenancy
• Restriction on mailing address or any other service to the property without any legal basis
• Any unfavourably added texts or words (written or verbal) against the tenants but in favour of the landlord/lady or their managing agents
Etc.
These punitive terms attached to the main contract could be written or verbal.
Our activity on balanced appended terms to the key contract will include the following areas of interest:
√ How to spot the unbalanced appended terms and find out they have been adverse and conflicting clauses
√ How to read, interpret and evaluate added terms and conditions to the key contract
√ How to keep appended clauses to the main agreement stay fair and balanced
√ How to make sure that any of the parties to the tenancy agreement does not influence the contents of the agreement with appended conditions in their favour but against the law
√ How to protect tenants’ and home seekers’ interests via contract terms (both main and appended terms)
√ How to avoid punitive terms, conflicting appended clauses or backstops
√ How to preserve and maintain the legality and integrity of a tenancy agreement
The above activity will be undertaken knowing that some home seekers, especially ordinary income earners, may not be able to pay for the expertise to check their tenancy rights and obligations unless they can find a concessional fee paying or free service to do so.
What’s more for this week’s activity!
This week’s activity will also raise home seekers’ awareness about this issue of unfair and unbalanced appended terms.
It will as well provide some leads regarding tenancy advisory services and resources (both online and in print).
It will further prepare home seekers to participate when contracts are amended and or extra terms are added to them.
The week’s activity will finally look at real case studies of unfair and unbalanced appended terms, cases to be brought to our attention by home seekers as well as cases we came across.
If you have been victims of unfair and unbalanced appended terms and conditions to the tenancy agreement, this week’s activity is for you. To find out how this week’s activity will work for you, speak to Home Relief.
If you are looking for an affordable location and home, Home Relief is the people dealing with affordable homes you could consider in your property searches and enquiries.
The purpose of this report is to provide to home seekers, particularly those in middle income brackets (lower and upper) looking to rent a one bedroom flat in West Croydon, to be prepared for the level of rent they may face.
The investigation was carried out by physically visiting some letting agents, talking to landlords/ladies and tenants in the area, compiling data online, reading local papers (such as the Croydon Guardian, Croydon Advertiser, South London Press), reading ads on local shop windows, checking the online rent valuation service or calculator etc.
Below are the findings of our research.
•Findings
Average and median monthly rent value in West Croydon
The results from our searches (both online and offline) for one bedroom flat to rent in West Croydon show that the current overall average monthly rent value for a bedroom flat is approximately £900. The median of West Croydon median monthly rent value for the same flat is approximately £905.
These data tend to be asking rents than effective signed contractual rents between the two contractual parties. This suggests that the rents for one bedroom flats could be slightly within the budgets of some upper middle earners. Lower middle earners may find it difficult to meet this kind of rental. This is somehow a reflection of sinusoidal trends of rent value as seen in other parts of South East London.
Rental implications
The implication for one bedroom flat seekers is that if you are looking for a one bedroom flat to rent, the above average and median prices are the kinds of rents you may have to face up to in West Croydon and the vicinity of it.
However, other elements have to be taken into account, such as letting agents’ or landlord/lady’s appetite to the level of rent, the conditions of the flat, its location within West Croydon whether or not it is close to West Croydon train and bus stations without forgetting trams which pass through, its closeness with local amenities and other facilities, how risk averse are the landlords/ladies to the uncertainty linked to the EU exit.
In addition to the above, one bedroom flat seekers need to do the numbers. This means that they need to make sure that they get their figures right in terms of the overall rental cost (which includes rent deposit, rent in advance, administrative fee, reference fee etc.). They should also bear in mind that as part of the referencing criteria, the household income should be 2.5 times the annual rent. As some of you are aware this cost varies from landlords/ladies and letting agents to others.
West Croydon as an attractive place to rent
Beyond the rent level considerations, West Croydon can be an attractive place to find budget one bedroom flats for some of you. It is an ideal place to rent as the Croydon shopping centre has plenty of shops and restaurants; the area has an interesting history and character, as well as it has art galleries and projects with local artists where everybody is welcome including families with kids
New builds and developments in and nearby West Croydon
What’s more, there are now new builds and developments in Croydon Central and around East Croydon train station which suggest the potentials of a better place live and work. These welcoming local initiatives are enhanced by local amenities and facilities in the vicinity of both West and East Croydon stations.
We can • concludethat West Croydon is an ideal place to rent for middle income earners if you are looking to rent a one bedroom flat in West Croydon and or you are after a particular rent level.
We would • recommendthat you do both physical and online searches. If you are still not sure, Home Relief can help you find your ideal one bedroom flat at affordable rent.
If you are looking for an affordable location and home, Home Relief is the people dealing with affordable homes you could consider in your property searches and enquiries.
