An interesting development
Well, since I wrote to Space 4 Living threatening court action, and also wrote to the landlord, I've done a little digging. The landlord is also the director of the company. So my slating his company would have gone down well. However, it shows that he's got no excuse for not knowing what's going on, so I don't need to worry too much about him anymore.
I'm in
Well, I'm finally moved in. Still no internet, and it's going to be weeks before I'm settled, but so far, I like the place. Very bright, but needs a bit of air freshener and a lick of paint, since the last tenant was a smoker.
After much discussion with Sky and BT, broadband should be on pretty soon. Next door have wi-fi, but they've secured it, so no home internet for me for now.
Front door key
My landlady seems ace. She's called the letting agent today, so I can pop in and pick up my key to the front door tomorrow morning, which is helpful.
Oh, guess who the agent is? It begins with a Q.
Well, at least I don't have to deal with them this time.
Sky
Sky are officially hard work. At my current place, I've got my broadband through BT. However, we used to have Sky TV when the ex was about - I cancelled it after we split cos I don't watch enough telly to justify the cost.
Now though, they've got an offer on - all Sky TV channels, free evening and weekend calls, and 8MB broadband for £26/month. Since decent broadband is £15-20 anyway, and I've still got a spare Sky+ box, I thought I'd go for it.
No.
After spending a week arguing with BT, who increased my line speed in December, and tried to argue that it meant I was tied into another 12 month contract, I finally got them to relent and allow me to cancel my broadband. Today, I got a text of BT, telling me my new phone was on and working. Great!
So I give Sky a call, and ask to be set up on their £26/month package. "Oh", she says, "your exchange isn't set up for full broadband yet - we can still offer you an 8MB package, but not the one on our website". "OK", says I, "Presumably that's cheaper?" "Oh no", she replies - "it's £37/month"
Do what now?
Anyway, I give them half an hour and call back (it's an amazingly effective strategy when you find someone unhelpful - call back and see if the next operator is any better). It worked. The next agent gave me, after a little haggling:
- half price Sky+ box (£49 instead of £99)
- free installation (usually £60)
- 2 mixes (which covers most of the channels I want)
- phone and broadband
and he managed this for £20/month for the first 3 months, then £28/month for the rest of the 12 month contract. Plus, as soon as the exchange is able to handle whatever Sky's bastardisation of broadband is, i'll be moved to that, which will drop the price to £21/month. Bargain.
Lets just hope it works out that way, eh?
Keys
I've got the keys to the new place! Well, I've got the back door key, and one of the front door keys. So now I need to chase the estate agents to try and get the right key so I can move stuff in. Oh the joy.
Got the phone on now, which means I can talk to Sky and get them to sort my Broadband and stuff. Just gotta do a bit of research to try and talk myself a discount - I'm not paying £100 + installation, thanks. Virgin do a package that works out cheaper, so I'm sure I can talk Sky into matching that at least. Fingers crossed....
The law is an ass....but sometimes, even asses are useful
Over the last few years, the UK government has drafted hundreds of new laws. Most of them are a complete waste of time, covering offences which are already quite adequately covered under existing laws. But, every now and again, they come up with a good one.
Like this oneRead the first paragraph. And again. Once more. See that? "If you are not protecting a tenant’s deposit you will be ordered to repay three times the amount to the tenant"
I've done a bit of checking, and that 3x deposit is IN ADDITION to refunding the original deposit. So now, S4L have until Friday to advise me of what protection scheme my deposit is in, along with all the other info. Since they are unlikely to have protected it yet, and probably can't protect it without a tenancy agreement, they're going to have a few problems there.
Because I'm a nice guy, I've sent them an email, warning them of the impending deadline, and even telling them that, in the circumstances, I won't consider that deadline to have been breached until next Wednesday - 3 extra days. Of course, this now means that if I take them to court, I'll be looking for:
Deposit: £350
Application Fee: £90
3x Deposit Penalty for not protecting deposit: £1050
All this because they insist that they can hold onto £350.
I'll see your £350 and raise you £1490. Call, or fold? (it's poker night tomorrow)
Space 4 Living
It hardly seems fair to name Quigleys earlier on for their mere incompetence, if I then let
Space 4 Living get away with deliberate cuntishness. So that's them.
I spoke to their 'manager' today, who told me that the deposit I paid wasn't a normal security deposit, but was in fact a retention deposit, and was subject to forfeit if I pulled out. I responded thusly:
Me: Bollocks. No one ever mentioned that, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a security deposit
Them: No, really. You're not getting it back.
Me: OK, what's your address to serve court papers?
Them: (Somewhere in manchester)
Me: OK. Also, do you have a bit of paper, with my signature on it, in which I acknowledge that this deposit, or the application fee for that matter, is non refundable?
Them: Well....umm....ah....
Me: Exactly. See you in court.
I've since checked companies house, and the address she gave me is different to the registered office. So I'll write to both. Then in two weeks, I'll issue proceedings.
Fair play to them for calling my bluff, but I'm not bluffing.
More letting agent cuntishness
Two weeks ago, I applied for a house. Bargain it was. £300 a month, 3 bedrooms, newly refurbished. To apply, the agent wanted £90 application fee, and £350 as a deposit. This was paid on the day, 2 weeks ago.
Since then the agent has dragged his feet - he waited 3 days before even starting 'to make sure the money cleared' despite the fact that, as we're with the same bank, the transfer was instant (my bank assures me of this). Then he waited around getting references off my boss and landlord. Then on Thursday, he insisted that he'd need to check with the landlord before he could confirm I'd got the place. By the time I viewed the place I'm moving into on Sunday, he still hadn't got back to me. Get that? He had a 2 week head start, and I still arranged a tenancy agreement with the current landlord before he could get back to me.
Anyway, I called him today to arrange refund of the deposit (in the UK, you forfeit the application fee regardless, but the deposit is there to protect against damage to the property. I hadn't been in yet, ergo, no damage). The conversation went thusly:
Agent: You said you wanted to move in. You said you could pay 6 months up front if needs be cos you wanted the place so bad.
Me: I also said I've got to be out of my current place by the end of the month. Every day you arse me around is another 3-4 houses off the market, and less chance of me finding somewhere. On Thursday, you said you'd make a quick call to the landlord and call me back. It's now Tuesday and I've still heard nothing.
Agent: But I spoke to the landlord on Friday and he's happy to go ahead
Me: And now you know why you need to communicate these things to the customer in some kind of timely fashion. You had Friday, Saturday and Sunday to let me know. On Sunday afternoon I accepted another property.
Agent: Ah, well we don't work weekends.
Me: Your problem. Now you can explain to the landlord why I've pulled out.
Agent: Well I'm sorry, but we don't refund your deposit if you pull out.
Me: Yes, you do. I can assure you you do. The only question is whether or not you also refund my court fees.
Agent: Let me look into this and call you back
Me: You do that
Needless to say, he hasn't called back. If I have to call him again tomorrow, I'll be confirming his address to serve the court papers to.
I'm very nice and polite, and take the loss of my £90 (which I still believe I
could successfully challenge if I wanted to) in my stride, but DO NOT try and fuck with me on the assumption that I don't know my rights. You WILL lose. Many companies have tried this before, and failed.
She's Gone!
Today is a historic day. Today is the day I paid off the last of our joint account overdraft. The bank have been instructed to close the account with immediate effect.
Why has it taken so long? Well, for starters, we had £1000 of overdraft between us. Secondly, she's been refusing to pay any of it. While I argued the point with her, I've been paying only a token amount (£50/month) to bring it down. Last week, I got a text off the bank, telling me a deposit of £500 had been made to the account. That's not quite the full amount, given the interest that's been building while she's been stalling, but it's close enough. So today I cleared the rest of it (about £250)
That means that, as well as being £200 a month in rent better off, I'm also £50/month better off because I'm not paying the overdraft off. Yay, I'm feeling good again!
Got a place!
Saw a place this morning. Well, I say saw...what I really mean is, I went to a place this morning. The landlady (is it still a landlady for property, or is that just pubs? Answers on a postcard!) called me a few minutes before I got there, to tell me that it seems the last tenant changed the locks, and because it's Sunday, she can't get to the letting agent to get the proper keys which the last guy handed back.
No matter, I was there anyway, so I had a look through the windows. The place looks nice - a full length lounge with window at each end, which is what I wanted, but also the stairs ran along a wall, instead of straight down the middle of the lounge like they usually do in terraced houses round here. More importantly, the landlady seems absolutely spot on - really friendly, really keen to help out where she can.
Long story short, I decided to fly blind and went for it. The tenancy agreement is signed, deposit paid, and I get the keys on Thursday. All I need to do now is pack everything I own, clean my current place right through, and find a company that can move me on Friday or Saturday of this week. Oh, and get back a deposit I've already paid to another agent.
That'll be fun. I predict woe.
Letting Agents
Cunts. The bloody lot of them.
First, they charge you about £100 for nothing more than the privilege of filling in a form. Then, they fuck about so much that by the time they come back and say no, all the other places you were looking at as backups are already gone.
Example the first:
Went to view a place. This place looks absolutely perfect - big enough kitchen to hold my big ass fridge freezer, large lounge, 3 decent sized bedrooms. Spot on. About 5 minutes in, another couple turn up to view the place. I discreetly ask the agent what documentation I'll need to apply. "Oh, just pop down with a passport, a recent utility bill, and a bank statement" says he.
So I leave the place while they're still there. As I'm leaving, I hear them asking how to apply. So I leg it home, grab the paperwork, and pop down to the agents. This couple have already been in and picked up a form, but no problem, they've had to go away to get paperwork. I have paperwork already.
No.
"You need 3 months bank statements, 3 months utility bills, and a passport" says the fat bird behind the desk. "But the agent who showed the place said I only needed one of each", I counter. "Can I fill in the forms now and pop down in a bit with the rest of them?" "No, sorry" she says, "Since there's two of you competing for the place, it wouldn't be fair of me to let you take it without the proper documents. Take this form, fill it in, pop back with the paperwork."
Pissed off, but still in the game, I head to the pub to fill in the form. Last page, I'm asked to sign acknowledging my responsibilities
as a guarantor. What the fuck now? So I head back to the agents. Fat bird has gone, and left fit but dippy trainee bird in her place. "Oh, she must have given you the wrong form" she says. "Well since it's your fault, and I'm in a hurry, will this one do?" "No, sorry, I'll get you the right one though" Cue 10 minutes waiting around while she looks for the form, establishes that they don't have any, and prints a new one on the slowest inkjet in the world.
Right form in hand, I leg it home, get my paperwork. Fill in the form, back to the office. The other couple are just leaving. Fucksocks. But all is not lost: as they leave, they say "We'll be back in 20 minutes or so with the rest of the paperwork". Ahah! I've already been told you can't apply without all the paperwork. I point out to trainee girl that I've got all my paperwork, and my money. "Sorry, I've already taken their money now, I've got to process their application." It's at about this point that I notice the heading on the application form they just handed in. "Guarantor Application"
So hang on - your guy gave me the wrong information about what I needed. Then you tell me you can't accept part of the paperwork. THEN you give me the wrong form, and tell me you can't accept that either. And finally, you accept the wrong form, with only part paperwork, from the other people, when I could have done that A WHOLE FUCKING HOUR EARLIER?!?
I'm not bitter. It was a shit house anyway.
Quigleys, you're a bunch of cunts.
Moving...
Well...I've finally realised that, with all the will in the world, there is absolutely no point in me staying where I am. Sure, I love the house, and it makes an awesome bachelor pad, but it's nearly £600 out of my pocket
every single month. That's starting to sting a little. If I'm honest, there's no way that a single bloke who doesn't drive can justify a detached, three bedroomed house with a big ass garden and a garage - it's overkill in the extreme.
So I'm moving. I applied for a place on 31st May. Rent day is 1st June. My tenancy agreement requires a full rent periods notice to move. So, if my notice arrived after my rent was paid, I'm stuck here til the end of July. That being the case, and money being tight, I took a gamble and handed in my notice to quit.
Then didn't get the other place.
Turns out, I've got two CCJs that I didn't know about. The reason I didn't know about them, is because the companies who brought them made no effort to get hold of me and let me know, despite having a forwarding address, and just issued all claims against my old address. Which I never got. Declaring yourself as having no CCJs, then them finding some, is an automatic fail - worse than not declaring any at all.
Shit.
So now I've got 4 weeks to find somewhere. I'm viewing a place on Wednesday, and another on Friday, both more than £250 a month less than I'm paying now. One of them is a company I've let from before, but I stitched them for the last months rent - I needed the money for moving, and I knew damn well the house was in better condition than when we moved in, so I was entitled to it back. That may not work in my favour, but at least they know I'm usually reliable, so if I offer a higher deposit, maybe they'll cut me some slack.
Just in case they don't, I've put a deposit on a storage room too, so at least everything I own will have a home, even if I don't! If I do get somewhere, I'm out the £20 it cost me to reserve the storage space, so no big deal.
Either way, I'm stressed! Work have been good enough to sort me some overtime, which will add an extra few hundred quid at least come the end of the month, and i'm holding on to this months rent in case I need it too. I've told the landlord he can put the place straight back on the market, and I'm happy for him to do viewings as long as I'm both forewarned and present at the time.
Love life is pretty pants. Girlsdateforfree are fucking me over - they have a subscribe by SMS thing, which I tried last week on a spare phone. Nothing came through, I wasn't subscribed, but they didn't seem to charge my phone either. No biggie - I sent a stop message, and emailed them to say not to bother. Then I updated my profile back to my main number.
Two days later, I get a subscribe text, charged at £5. I sent a STOP message and a bitchy email to them demanding a refund. No response to the STOP, and a few days later I received a second £5 charge. Today, I received a third. Tomorrow, I phone and scream at someone until they stop charging me. Then I send them a bill.
