theclaud
Reading around the chip
Actually I've lost count, but it's probably five or six. I've parked this thread series, started over the road, for a while now because my current landlords buck the Bastard Landlord tendency and I've been happily cushioned from one of the nation's most desperate crises for six or seven years. I've not ceased to pay attention, but it's a relief when landlordism loses its grip on your life, and it's nice not to have to bang on about it like an obsessive. So this isn't about me, but I've spent the last two days consumed with fury.
I have a young friend/junior colleague from India who has just come back to Swansea after visiting her family for a couple of months. She studied for an MA here and I employed her and a couple of her friends to do some social media work and suchlike while they were at university. She is supporting herself through casual work while she looks for something more serious, and found a room in a shared five-bedroom house to stay in. She asked me to act as a guarantor (which is something of a joke as I don't have a bean, but she's a responsible sort and comes from a middle-class family who would bail her out if needed, so it's essentially a formality). Anyway it needs to be a UK citizen with a job, so I said yes, and the scumbag parasite agents sent me a thing to sign, which I looked through and it seemed OK, or at least as OK as these over-a-barrel agreements can ever be. There was a single figure for monthly rent of £472, and underneath that the words 'includes Council Tax'.
Anyway my friend popped in for a chat about something else the following day, and said she didn't really understand how the Council Tax thing worked, so I explained that if they all had separate contracts with the landlord, it was an HMO and the landlord is liable for the tax, and will usually add a bit on to the rent to cover it, whereas if they were joint tenants they would be billed directly and could sort it out amongst themselves. She looked a bit puzzled so I asked her to forward me whatever emails had been sent to her about the council tax.
We have looked into the cost of the council tax via Swansea council - council tax for the year for a 5 bedroom property on ________ Avenue would be £2437.87, you would get 25% on this £1828.40 / 12 months = £152.36 per month.
We will add this to your monthly rent of £320.00 making it council tax included at £472.36. We will add this into your contract.
Your initial payments will be –
Rent - £472.36
Bond - £320.00
You will receive a copy of the bill to the property.
Kind regards,
You read that right - a landlord taking almost £20K a year on a single property is offloading her entire Council Tax bill for that property of £150 a month onto a young person renting a single shitty room in an HMO.
Now, having lived in rented accommodation for over 30 years and having rented (I think) 11 different places in Swansea, I eat Letting Agents for breakfast, so it's fair to say that Some Emails Have Been Exchanged. For various reasons agreed with the young person in question I have agreed to rein in the desire to head down to their office in full Jihadi mode, but she has decided she'll put up with this shit for three months and then move elsewhere, after which these MFs had better start sleeping with one eye open. Parasites, scum, and bastards.
I have a young friend/junior colleague from India who has just come back to Swansea after visiting her family for a couple of months. She studied for an MA here and I employed her and a couple of her friends to do some social media work and suchlike while they were at university. She is supporting herself through casual work while she looks for something more serious, and found a room in a shared five-bedroom house to stay in. She asked me to act as a guarantor (which is something of a joke as I don't have a bean, but she's a responsible sort and comes from a middle-class family who would bail her out if needed, so it's essentially a formality). Anyway it needs to be a UK citizen with a job, so I said yes, and the scumbag parasite agents sent me a thing to sign, which I looked through and it seemed OK, or at least as OK as these over-a-barrel agreements can ever be. There was a single figure for monthly rent of £472, and underneath that the words 'includes Council Tax'.
Anyway my friend popped in for a chat about something else the following day, and said she didn't really understand how the Council Tax thing worked, so I explained that if they all had separate contracts with the landlord, it was an HMO and the landlord is liable for the tax, and will usually add a bit on to the rent to cover it, whereas if they were joint tenants they would be billed directly and could sort it out amongst themselves. She looked a bit puzzled so I asked her to forward me whatever emails had been sent to her about the council tax.
We have looked into the cost of the council tax via Swansea council - council tax for the year for a 5 bedroom property on ________ Avenue would be £2437.87, you would get 25% on this £1828.40 / 12 months = £152.36 per month.
We will add this to your monthly rent of £320.00 making it council tax included at £472.36. We will add this into your contract.
Your initial payments will be –
Rent - £472.36
Bond - £320.00
You will receive a copy of the bill to the property.
Kind regards,
You read that right - a landlord taking almost £20K a year on a single property is offloading her entire Council Tax bill for that property of £150 a month onto a young person renting a single shitty room in an HMO.
Now, having lived in rented accommodation for over 30 years and having rented (I think) 11 different places in Swansea, I eat Letting Agents for breakfast, so it's fair to say that Some Emails Have Been Exchanged. For various reasons agreed with the young person in question I have agreed to rein in the desire to head down to their office in full Jihadi mode, but she has decided she'll put up with this shit for three months and then move elsewhere, after which these MFs had better start sleeping with one eye open. Parasites, scum, and bastards.
She asked me to act as a guarantor (which is something of a joke as I don't have a bean, but she's a responsible sort and comes from a middle-class family who would bail her out if needed, so it's essentially a formality
