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Share<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\nNote, too, that higher interest rates, as well as new rules about long-term rentals being insulated, mean the number of long-term rental properties (as opposed to holiday and Airbnb lets) has shrunk.<\/p>\n
This led to a report last month of a rise in London of ‘blind bidding’ \u2014 people leasing rental properties without first viewing them.There are 49 per cent fewer new listings than in 2019, reports Hamptons estate agency, and the average rent in a newly-let home in Britain is up 6.9 per cent on September last year.<\/p>\n
I owned my own home from 1983 until 2016. I’ve never not had a good job and I’ve never taken a day off sick.But in 2016 I lost my home \u2014 a Georgian mini mansion, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a lawn that swept down to a river.<\/p>\n
I put in stone floors, salvaged from a derelict church, railings \u2026 I can’t go on, it’s too upsetting.<\/p>\n
When I was made bankrupt in 2015, I was forced to put it on the market for \u00a3400,000 less than I paid for it.(A long story: there’s a memoir, if you’re interested.) Suffice to say, HMRC hate high-earning single females, as do builders, family, neighbours, insolvency lawyers.<\/p>\n
As a bankrupt, my rental choices were limited. I found a small house nearby, just outside the market town of Richmond in North Yorkshire, for \u00a31,700 a month.The search was made extra hard given the fact I (then) had four cats and three dogs. Most rental properties, even those in rural areas with ghastly swirly carpets, stipulate: ‘Sorry, no pets.’<\/p>\n
In 2020, a white paper was drawn up to allow renters to keep dogs and cats, given that they are, after all, family members, EvdeN evE nAkliyat and less likely than toddlers to scribble on walls, but it’s not yet on the statute books.<\/p>\n
The wonderful charity Dogs On The Streets (DOTS), which helps the pets of the homeless, reveals the number of pets given up due to being banned from rentals has rocketed: ‘We get 20 to 30 calls a day from tenants unable to keep their pets.’<\/p>\n
So I went with this house, but was told: ‘Sorry, it comes furnished.’ I had a lot of furniture.Conran sofas. A 1920s desk. An Eero Saarinen marble table. I was your typical used-to-live-in-Islington high-end clich\u00e9. So I begged and said: ‘Well, can’t you put your stuff in storage?’ I was also mindful of my muddy dogs, scratchy cats, but it was no.<\/p>\n
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The landlady turned up with little warning and an estate agent in tow – my home was up for sale\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
So I put all my furniture in storage and gave my brand-new appliances \u2014 a Smeg range cooker, Miele dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer \u2014 to a friend.But storage proved so expensive that, one by one, I had to sell everything on eBay.<\/p>\n
Imagine my shock when the landlord, a year or so later, said they’d bought a holiday home in Devon and were coming for their furniture. (This is why people buy DFS sofas.)<\/p>\n
I moved out in 2018, tired of neighbours calling the landlady to tell her I hadn’t put my car in the garage and my dogs were barking.<\/p>\n
That same year, I rented a one-bedroom flat in North London at more than \u00a33,000 a month \u2014 to save on hotel bills for work.<\/p>\n
Handing me the keys, the landlady, a mature student (dear God, how do these people get to own property?), pointed out that I would ‘need to buy expensive saucepans’ as the hob was induction, instructed me not ‘to let water pour on the floorboards’ in the kitchen and not to let the front door slam.<\/p>\n
Or wear jeans on the sofa as ‘they wear it out’.<\/p>\n
When I later complained about the filth of the communal areas, which only I vacuumed, she said: ‘Oh, that’s a surprise, as apart from you, every flat is owner-occupied.’<\/p>\n
She kept emailing me \u2014 never, ever rent via OpenRent, where you deal with the landlord direct \u2014 saying: ‘I’ve read you have collies.They are not in the flat, are they? No pets allowed.’ I kept assuring her they were safely in Yorkshire. She enlisted an upstairs neighbour to spy on me.<\/p>\n
I was again evicted, for no reason, in 2019, having spent a fortune moving books, magazines, clothes and my desk 250 miles.(I know the names of the nice men at Watson Removals; I even know the birthdays of a couple of them.)<\/p>\n
She said the flat was being sold but, a few weeks later, I saw it up for rent again on Rightmove at an escalated price.<\/p>\n
She wanted to withhold some of my deposit as the cheap-looking fairy lights were no longer on the balcony.They broke!<\/p>\n