upandrunning

Hi
husband is already back in UK on a 6 month contract(in a hotel). We need to rent a house but are worried that we will have to pay 6 months rent up front. (Some friends of ours who were in NZ 3 years then went back to UK had to do this)
Has anyone else had problems like this?
6 months rent is an awful lot of dosh

charleygirl

No actual experience of this but my friends just moved back and had to find 6 months rent, with an agent, but may be if you find a private renter you wont need so much.
good luck.

janeyk

if you have a job you may be fine, we had to stump it up, however once the 6 months is up we will have a direct debit set up

Beedubya

I was in the same situation last year, May 2009.

I was going to pay 6 months in advance but my sister didn't want me to do this in case I had to return to Oz in an emergency situation and lost out.

She looked into it and we found out that if you can get somebody to act as a guarantor for you, you only have to pay the usual one month deposit and a week or two's rent I think it was.

Her husband went guarantor for me.

dunroving

Don't pay 6 months up front.

If the place ends up having hidden problems (anything from crap hot water system to neighbours having hot noisy sex next door every night at 3 a.m., with Barry White at full blast), you either have 6 months of hell or a struggle getting your money back. In 2001 I rented a basement apartment that flooded every time it rained (which in western Scotland is almost every day). The upstairs neighbour also played the same Neil Diamond track repeatedly between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. (no noisy sex though, so maybe I should have counted my blessings).

In the right area, landlords may be having difficulty finding tenants so you shouldn't have trouble finding someone who is happy to rent to you on the basis of a letter from your employer to say you have a job. I didn't have trouble when I came back.

Beedubya

Hey nothing wrong with Barry White LOL!!

dunroving

It's more the 3 a.m. bit that I'd have trouble dealing with. Barry is all right.

jonfrank123

Yep my parents did the guarantor thing for us. It was indeed no hassle after that.

dreamchaser

I recently came back from living in Canada and needed to rent somewhere,and I have to say, the agents werent very helpful at all..... just listing all the fee's I would have to ay, then saying because I have been gone so long I need a guarantor.... so, I found a private landlord (and there are lots our there) I have a good tenancy agreement, and a good landlord, all done without the help of an agent... so try looking on the internet for rivate landlord lettings.

bobbarker12345

i have rented 3 times in the UK without a job, and everytime they refused to rent it unless we paid it all up front.

J.J

From a landlords POV, we rented out our UK house when we first came out to US on a temporary assignment.
When we decided to stay here permanent and wanted to sell the house so that we could buy in the US the tenant refused to move out at the end of his contract.
Even though we followed all the legal rules, had maintined a quality environment (with no Barry White) and he was occupying illegally it took months of court orders to shift him at our cost and he failed to pay his accrued 6 months rent due up until the end of his contract.
No surprise then that landlords ask for large deposits up front if there is no guarantor.

Heavenlyscent

We privately rented when we returned and all we had to pay was one months rent in advance.

Now the deposits with agents are with a handling agents they are asking for 2 months in advance, just look around, you will find a reasonable place.

Bijilo123

I rented out my house and the agent took a months deposit from the tenant and another month as a security thing - and presumably a third month in advance rent. The agent and I thought that to be quite enough. Tenants were working.

If there had been a problem with the house and the tenant did not want to stay then they just check out and all the advance payments are returned - no contractual issues.

The last lot to rent the place stole a lot of kit and caused quite some damage which the idiot agent did not pick up!

Bijilo123

I used, over a couple of years, to visit a cafe in Lagos (Nigeria). The Lebanese proprietor continuously played 'By the Rivers of Babylon' - and I mean non stop.

...jeez