I’m honestly typing this in tears because we don't know where to turn. We just signed a long-term lease a week ago and paid six months' rent upfront. We thought we were safe and settled. But today, the landlord suddenly announced he’s selling the property, bringing strangers to view the house this Friday, and kicking us out in three months.

All of our money is locked up in the 6-month upfront rent and non-refundable furniture we bought for this specific layout. On top of that, our cats are extremely anxious and haven't even adjusted yet—the stress is making them sick. We feel so blindsided and taken advantage of. Has anyone experienced this? What can we possibly do to protect ourselves.

Based in England！

Buying our rental from a landlord who has made this difficult every step of the way.

Our tenancy agreement states the letting agent will deduct a cleaning fee, fee for conducting a check out report and ‘general administration’ fee from our deposit. As such they state they will be making a claim to the deposit protection scheme for a deduction for their ‘relevant costs’. They have refused to explain what costs they have incurred as we are in no rent arrears.

Will the DPS allow them to deduct admin fees if its a term in a tenancy agreement or will showing DPS i’m the legal owner/have responsibility for repairs/they haven’t done anything, suffice for a full deposit returned?

We just bought our own house, thank God we no longer have to deal with estate agencies. We unfortunately rented a flat from Dexters and we lived there for 2 and a half years. We’ve had to deal with their utter incompetence throughout our tenancy, but that’s beside the point of this post.

Quick timeline:

We called them at the end of April informing them that we’ll be giving them notice on the 1st May as per the new laws. They insisted we’d have to give notice in line with rent day, which was the 16th of each month. We agreed to that. We moved out at the end of April. We went back to the flat on the 2nd May to clean it and then we went to their office to give them back the keys so that they can arrange viewings at their own convenience. We came to the understanding that they would advertise the flat asap and try to find a new tenant that could take over from us so we don’t have to pay rent until the 16th July. We took videos of the state of the flat after we cleaned it, gave them back the keys, had no access to it from 02/05/2026 until 16/07/2026. I called them for an update at the end of May and they told me they found someone to take over from us from the 17th July. We were shocked to hear that they found a tenant to take over precisely one day after the official end of our tenancy after we acted in good faith with them, but fine, there was nothing we could have done. The place was next to a university for heaven’s sake. Quick turnaround on finding tenants. Anyway.

They arranged however many viewings they wanted to, they found a tenant, we paid rent for more than 10 weeks without living there or having keys. They’ve had the audacity to pester us about ‘professional cleaning fees’ as well, sending us recommendations of their approved cleaners and contractors. There is no legal definition of ‘professional cleaning’ and the Tenant Fees Act of 2019 has outlawed this request from agencies. We handed them back the flat in the same or similar state to when we first moved in, with only expected and fair wear and tear. We formally asked for our deposit back on the 16th July just to be told that they can take up to 90 days to return our deposit to us when there is no such stipulation anywhere. Tenants have 90 days from the end of their tenancy to make a claim via TDS otherwise they lose the right to do so, agencies don’t have 90 days to drag their feet in order to return the deposit. I responded to her email and said that if our deposit isn’t returned within 10 calendar days then I will claim it via TDS and asked to sort out their affairs and propose any deductions asap and return the undisputed amount as a matter of urgency. No such deductions have been proposed yet.

As a side note, they also refused to arrange for an inspection when we handed them back the keys, which was more than 10 weeks ago. We’ve had absolutely no access to this unfurnished flat for 2 and a half months.

I’m absolutely lost for words when it comes to their lack of human decency. At no point in time did I ever feel they were acting in good faith with us and treating us with any sort of respect whatsoever.

I just want our deposit back and then to never ever hear from those leeches ever again. I have the impression it won’t be easy to get it back.

Hi guys just looking for advice here, me and my partner are desperate to move out (bad home situations/parent abuse) we both have great jobs for our age (22/23), a combined income of £70k, no credit issues also, however when going for viewings (only 2 as i am quite picky) the landlords on both got back to us advising they won’t be proceeding as we have never rented before, and it is starting to dishearten me and make me think we are going to be stuck at home forever.

We are both able to provide professional references just of course not from a prior landlord, is this a common problem? but where are we supposed to start if no one will rent us a property?

uk based, TIA

In London. Rented a 2br flat for £3,000 with a back garden (no grass but with a nice big rose bush, ivy on the walls. Couple other plants etc.) that gave nice privacy from the neighbors as well. Put an offer down in large part because of the garden itself, and were told it would be trimmed back a bit before move in as previous tenant had let it get a bit overgrown. Collected keys and showed up to find all the green removed, bushes ripped out, ivy gone etc. just dead stumps and dirt left behind. After nearly 2 weeks of chasing our property management for an explanation were told the landlord and contractor decided to pull it all out because the overgrowth was threatening external pipes (I’m not really buying this explanation for what that’s worth) and there are no plans to replant anything, and no appetite to consider lowering rent to reflect the changes. I’m wondering what if any recourse there might be here. We paid a premium that reflected the fully established garden we were shown, and it seems absurd that they could just make such a big change to the property between signing a lease and move-in and we are just expected to pay the same price. Is there anything we can do here beyond just complaining/moving out?

Hi there, this is just a very brief question, since I wanted to confirm and I'm someone that suffers from major OCD, so being told what the proper answer might be instead of differing google results would just be helpful. I'm not from the UK, I'm from the US so I'm used to renting over there. I'm a incoming postgraduate student so I was finding places on Spareroom and found a place I liked at first, but only got a virtual tour (which I've done in the past in the US...lived many different places) all the way back in June. I said I would like to become a flatmate, and the landlords took a while to reach out, only till July 13th did a get an email. But it was asking for a deposit before giving me the contract. I'm not really used to this in the US, as I get the contract, sign, then pay the deposit. So I felt it odd and asked to see, but then as I started thinking about the place for a while and finally saw the address itself, I decided it was not a right fit. The landlord also took over a week to get back to me (just today) and still didn't send me the contract. I was a bit put off since it was a direct deposit to the landlord's bank account, which also felt rather unsafe.

I never sent any deposit, nor did I sign a contract for the place, all I had done was text the girl who was looking for flatmates that I would like to join. Would there be anything legally binding for me in this situation that says I have to pay for this place? I want to know if whether or not I should be prepared for something.

I know it sounds silly to ask something so simple, but when I say I suffer from OCD, I mean it, where I spend forever going over legalities and contracts and the way things are worded. But I am not as aware of the UK rules compared to the US rules.

I’ve lived in a flat above a shop for 3 years and have never been given a bin, usually I go to the tip however I have no way of getting there this week.
It’s hot I have 4 kids and a small kitchen, rang the council they said put the bags next to the commercial bins and whoever takes those will also take my bins…so I did yesterday morning.
Had a knock at the door not long ago to say I’ve caused rats and that they’re reporting me for fly tipping. I can’t go and clean it up as I’m on my own with 4 children, one of them additional needs. I can’t afford a fine and have nobody to help me right now I’ve contacted my landlord and will contact the council in the morning.
But does anyone have any advice or know where I may stand with a fine?

Hi,

I joined a joint tenancy starting from 1 July 2025 and (previously) ending on the 30th of June 2026. It was a group of 5 people. We had a total rent of 2600, but it was laid out in the tenancy agreement as each tenant would pay £520 - the total is not stated. Once the RRA came in, we were aware that our tenancy had switched over to a rolling one. One member of the group apparently gave notice after the 1st of May - he agreed with the landlord to end it early (June 30th). There is nothing in writing that any of us other tenants have about this, especially no written messages agreeing to a shorter dissolution date than two months. There may theoretically be messages between him and the landlord agreeing to it, but he has not provided us with any of them. I do not know when this agreement to dissolve the tenancy was made.

After he told us this, the landlord informed us he would be transferring the property to his sister who would be partnering with an estate agent (Stirling Ackroyd) who would be taking over managing the property, and that we should expect them to contact us in June. Stirling Ackroyd contacted the remaining 4 of us tenants on the 20th of June and informed us that they intended to offer us individual room tenancy agreements at an increased rate of 550 (for my room, others might vary due to size). They would be finding a fifth tenant and intended her to move in from the 1st of July. There was no communication prior to this. They sent us a link to their online platform Goodlord and asked us to go through a draft rental contract and complete some referencing, subsequent to which we would receive our formal rental agreements.

There was some confusion with the contracts - previously, we had been on a joint tenancy, and so had been liable for Council Tax as a group. The new draft rental contracts (which had my details, the landlord's details and the room I was renting all correctly filled) said the landlord would now be liable. We wanted to confirm this with the estate agents, but it took several days to get a response.

I completed all my referencing information by Friday the 26th of June, and was prepared to sign my final tenancy agreement. I received a notification on the 29th of June that my referencing was complete and had been sent to the estate agent.

On the 30th of June we received a call from the estate agent who told us that because they were missing some documents from the previous landlord (which we think are the EPC/EICR) they were unable to offer us the individual tenancies yet and intended to push the start dates back to the 1st of August. They verbally instructed us to pay the current rent (520) to our previous landlord's bank account for the month of July.

As of today, we received a letter stating that we had the entire outstanding balance of the year's council tax due (addressed to the 5 people) because we had not paid our installments in time. The letter is dated the 17th. I forgot to pay my council tax at the start of the month as I had canceled my direct debit in advance of the landlord taking it over, and only realised this on the 16th, when I have a receipt paying my portion. The housemate who dissolved the tenancy agreement and moved out did NOT pay for this month, but we should theoretically have had surplus payments from previous months to cover that.

My questions are:
What exactly is our living situation? I have a "draft rental contract" with my name, my landlord's name and my room on it. This contains explicit confirmation that my landlord will be paying the council tax / it is included in my rent. I also have written confirmation from the estate agent confirming the section about landlord covering council tax is accurate. If our joint tenancy was correctly dissolved, are we now in individual tenancies? Do the terms of this 'draft contract' apply if it was presented to me and I paid rent? It has a field for me to sign it and I have a signed copy on my computer, but I never signed it through their Goodlord platform.

Who is liable for council tax? The letter is addressed to the 5 of us. Our previous rental agreement says the landlord is to inform the council when the agreement dissolves. Our housemate also did not inform the council he had moved out. Our current 'draft' agreements state that the landlord should be paying them.

Did offering me the draft agreement and telling me to pay the rent confirm it? Are we operating under some sort of frankensteined-together gray zone? Should we have received the EPC and EICR by now? Should we have had our deposits returned yet?

As you can imagine, this is kind of an insane situation for a bunch of fresh graduates to find ourselves in, so we'd appreciate any advice you can offer. I intend to call Shelter tomorrow and ask for advice.

Hi all!

We (group of 5) are at the end of a student tenancy via an estate agent and are currently engaged in a dispute over proposed deductions to our deposit. I've gone back through my emails to ensure all my communications with the estate agent are organised, but have found that – unless I'm looking in the wrong place – we were never provided with a DPC.

I've checked on the DPS website and our deposit is apparently protected, but we never received any notification of protection or a certificate. I have a pre-existing DPS account for a previous tenancy, which holds no record of this current tenancy (even though it's with the same estate agent).

What are our next steps here? I've emailed asking them to provide a copy of the DPC and reference number ASAP, but if they really never provided one within 30 days of the tenancy beginning, is this grounds to take them to SCC?

If any of you have any suggestions for orgs to reach out to that could provide some advice, I'd be really grateful. Thanks in advance!

Basically what the title says. Me and my 3 flatmates were all living together in our flat in London until our landlord decided to sell it. We were basically told they expected a professional standard clean when we moved out but they didn’t require us to pay for a professional cleaner, so we didn’t but cleaned it to the best of our ability when we moved out. Now the agent has come back to us and said they wanna deduct £350 from our deposit to pay for professional cleaners. Thing is, we all moved into this flat at different times, so a professional clean was never done for any of us at the beginning of our tenancy, so can they still deduct from our deposit to pay for it? I’ve looked at our contract and have added what I could find out about it below, would love some insight from anyone who knows more about this.
Thank you!

Edit:
Just remembered something else that might be relevant, we never actually transferred our deposits to a deposit company/the agency or anything like that. When we moved in we literally just transferred our deposits to the previous tenant whose room we were moving into, I felt like this seemed quite sketchy but the previous tenant and the tenants already living there assured me that that’s what they all had done. Not sure if that weakens or strengthens our case

England

Me and my housemates' fixed-term tenancy ends on the 31st of July. Our landlord wants to do the check-out inventory report on the 4th of August, four days after we've moved out and after a new tenancy has already started on the 1st of August.

I'm trying to work out:

a) If the property changes hands to new tenants before the inventory is even done, how can any damage or condition issues be reliably attributed to us versus the incoming tenants?

b) Does this delay affect my landlord's ability to make deductions from our deposit at all, given there's no clean chain of custody for the property's condition?

c) Should we be pushing back and insisting on a joint check-out inventory on the 31st, or just taking photos that day regardless of what the landlord has arranged?

Has anyone dealt with something like this before, either as a tenant or landlord? Want to know what leverage we actually have if they try to deduct anything based on an inspection done days after we've handed back the keys and someone else has moved in. Especially cautious as we're university students and don't want our landlord to try and take the mickey with our deposit.

If I move out of a property before the end of my tenancy (including handover of keys) and the landlord finds someone new to move in before mine ends, am I entitled to receive a pro-rata sum of rent back for the period between them moving in and mine officially ending?

For example, I moved out on 16 June, with my tenancy officially ending on 17 August. I have paid August’s rent on 17 July, but the landlord has found someone to move in on 01 August. Am I *legally* entitled to be reimbursed for days between 01 to 16 August?

England

Hi all!

I'm still in an argument with my letting agents over my notice period. I have spoken to citizens advice about it and they said I only have to give one months notice as the RRA doesn't overwrite any previous agreement. (An email from April stating I can give one months notice from the letting agents).

My letting agent is INSISTING the RRA overwrites any agreements from before May. Is this true? What are my next steps?

I have also been told they want access to my property for viewings. I don't want them to as I'm still in the process of cleaning and moving my things to my new house. I am aware I have the right to quiet enjoyment but they aren't accepting that either. Apparently, as my contract states they can access for viewings (I don't think it does but they're insisting!), I don't have the right to that!?

I'm not rushing cleaning for the sake of them finding a new tenant, considering how difficult they are being with me. If I have until September, I am using that. But I'm worried they'll try and access the house regardless.

What are my rights here? What are my options? 😭😭

I rent an apartment in the uk and estate agent emailed me to request a viewing this weekend for a potential purchaser. As I have done previously I agreed to the date and time and thought that was that. They have now emailed me back and say the person viewing the property has asked if I could wait outside until the viewing is completed.! Has anyone else had this request and what would you do ?

Can my flatmates sue me for rent in England?

I was on a one-year joint and several contract until August 2026.

I moved out in March and paid a quarter of the rent from March to June, so the tenancy was in arrears. I offered a replacement, but they refused on the basis of gender, student status, and that couples were not appropriate to replace one tenant. They also told me it was my job to do viewings as I was moving out. I could see at the beginning of May this wouldn't go anywhere, so I gave notice, leaving the contract early, and the others also moved out in July when the contract ended. Mine and their deposit was used to cover arrears when theh left in July.

In all my emails, I have emphasized that the arrears are not solely mine but all of ours as they refused tenants. They said that they will meet anyone if they like the house and are female students because they need to try them to sign rent as they will be signing a tenancy variation. They are now threatening to sue me, legally pulling out an email where I committed to paying rent when vacating and questioning how I am paying for alternative accommodation despite having no money? I live with my boyfriend but did not mention this and said I was paying for alternative accommodation. I told them my guarantor and I have no money as there is a war in my parents' home country. When I told them this, they sent an email to the university financial welfare asking if they were unaware and that not paying rent is putting all of us in arrears.

If they go to court, can they get the full amount? I don't want to pay as my boyfriend has a house, so a CCJ does not matter. Can I claim that since they sent a letter to the address on the tenancy agreement and not my current address, their claim is invalid? If I don't pay, can bailiffs come to my home?

Edit: I did suggest female applicants which they said seemed okay but they told me that I have to do viewings as they have commitments and as the leaving tenant it was in my best interest.

I’m looking for real examples - where you have exercised your right to quiet enjoyment.

Hi all I have been a tenant for this landlord for 5 years and he evicted me because he wanted to sold the property. When the hours was given to me it was freshly painted and I did all the cleaning and the report they gave me of the status of the house was black and withe and during the years the agency did change. And I have been evicted on the 9th of June and wile going trough that I painted the property and cleaned it wile packing but I had to leave my furniture and a frlew thing back. Then a week after a made an appointment with the agency to collect my furniture and I took all the thing and left the property empty a little dusty and needing a mop and may some cabinet wiping from the inside and now the agency telling me the landlord wish to deduct 300 pound for profetional cleaning. And let them know that I cleaned it as much as I can and painted it and I'm willing to pay for standard cleaning. The answer was that the 300 pound was a quotation from their cleaner and how much I was willing to contribute so she can negotiate with the landlord. What should I say?

Bare in mind I'm in East London and sryy for my broken English and thank you so much in advance for anyone who will answer wish you a lovely day

My landlord sent the required Renters' Rights Act 2026 information to all tenants via WhatsApp on 3 June 2026, three days after the 31 May 2026 deadline.

I reported this to the council, but they said they will not take any action because the information was eventually provided.

My question is: if the information was provided after the legal deadline, is there any penalty or fine for the landlord? If so, who is responsible for enforcing it?

The reason I'm asking is that my landlord is relying on the Renters' Rights Act to require me to give two months' notice to end my tenancy, whereas my original tenancy agreement required only one month's notice. I want to understand whether landlords are expected to comply with the Act's requirements in the same way that tenants are expected to.

Hi guys
Does anyone know if goodlord see defaults on your credit file? We are applying to rent a property and I’ve got defaults from over 4 years ago. I’ve had a good repayments since then.
I’m just worried I’ll fail the checks but I’ve seen a mix of people on the forum saying they don’t check for defaults only ccjs Iva’s and bankruptcy’s but on good lords website they say they can see them.
I’ve also thought they can only see public info not a full credit profile.
Thanks

This is not a post to dissuade people to take things to court for Landlord negligence. Just for awareness.

The First-tier Tribunal has ordered six tenants to pay £3,240 in costs after withdrawing a £60,000 Rent Repayment Order claim against VHGK Ltd.

The tribunal found that Justice for Tenants pursued a claim despite evidence the property was correctly licensed and described the conduct as unreasonable. It also found that an 85% settlement demand was "made to intimidate the landlord" rather than as a genuine attempt to settle.

The landlord was awarded costs for legal representation and obtaining licensing evidence.

Case: VHGK Ltd – FTT (Property Chamber), ref. LON/00BG/HMF/2025/0807 (10 July 2026).

A reminder that speculative or exaggerated RRO claims can have consequences where a tribunal finds unreasonable conduct.

Hello! England based and looking for some advice please.

My partner and I have recently moved out of our rental flat and are dealing with deposit returns. We rented through Foxtons (I know)! Our deposit is held in the MyDeposits protection scheme.

The timeline is as follows:

- The final day of our tenancy was 11th July

- We sent a written request to Foxtons for our deposit on the 11th

- Foxtons responded with some proposed deductions on the 15th.

- We are contesting these deductions, and formally gave our evidence via their portal yesterday (19th).

My question is- when do Foxtons legally have to release the undisputed amount to us? I know there's a 10 day window around deposit returns, but it's unclear as to whether that's 10 days from us requesting (11th), Foxtons responding (15th), us contesting their response (19th), or something else.

Conscious that tomorrow is 10 days from the date we requested, and I'm keen to know when we can open a dispute with MyDeposits if we've heard nothing back.

Thank you!

.

I am a first time renter and really confused on whether to pay a full 5 weeks rent deposit or join the 0 deposit guarantee scheme my property is offering. I’ve done some research and the main thing I’m hearing is that its way less protection in terms off if I’m held liable for any damage at the end and the payment I make will be non-refundable. However the one off payment is around £200 and the deposits nearly a grand which would leave a serious dent in the wallet. Any advice or experiences people can share? Thanks.

Basically the title. The gas safety cert for my flat expired over the weekend and I haven't heard anything from the landlord about getting a new one. Looking at older posts about this it seems some people would say nothing until they got a S21 or a rent increase as not having a gas cert would render these null and void. But with the new laws, I'm wondering if there's any point doing that because obviously we're risking our safety.

The penalties for not having a gas cert are quite heavy and there is no grace period, so our landlord could get in real trouble for this.

We're coming up to the one-year anniversary of us moving in and I believe we are paying above market rate so I was thinking of challenging any increase anyway.

Based in England.

Hi everybody,

I've been living in a flat in Deptford for a year and my lease is up in September. My property management are literally awful and I am anticipating them giving me a headache on returning my deposit regardless of how I give the flat back. However, when I recieved the keys last September, it was absolutely trashed. It was clear there had not been one person in to inspect the flat after the previous tenants moved out. There were a plethora of abandoned personal items, trash, mould, grease, both the oven and stove were so filthy and damaged they had to be replaced.

Obviously it is in my tenancy agreement to hand back the flat in a clean state, but as my date gets closer and closer I am wondering my actual obligation to do this as they did not uphold their end of the agreement to hand it to me in a clean state.

It has been a nightmare with these people and I usually would leave a place spotless when handing back the keys but I am feeling so hesitant to be paying for an end of tenancy clean for such awful property management who did not deliver on their end.

Has anybody else experienced this? Any advice?

Hi everyone, looking for urgent legal advice regarding a London, England tenancy dispute. Our tenancy started on 24 June 2026, but we have never moved in or taken up occupancy because the property was handed over in a deceptive and unlivable condition.

When we viewed the property, the previous tenant's heavy clutter hid the walls. Upon collecting the keys, we discovered severe, deep-seated mould that had been freshly bleached and painted over right before our viewing to actively hide it from us. Additionally, the main shower is unusable, there is a structural opening between the bathroom tiles creating a severe leak hazard. The landlord also went back on a pre-contract agreement to provide wall paint, telling us after the fact to buy it ourselves for reimbursement.

Because we refused to move in due to these conditions, the agent pressured us into an exit deal requiring us to pay rent until 23 August. This means we stand to lose £5,000 in rent for a flat we never spent a single night in, on top of our £2,884 deposit. Out of sheer panic, we emailed a notice accepting this compromise, but we completely retracted it via email less than 24 hours later, before the agent had replied, confirmed, or processed it.

Is our immediate retraction legally valid, or are we stuck with that £5,000 loss? Do we have strong grounds for a statutory "Right to Unwind" for a full refund due to the active concealment of the mould, even if the landlord is now offering a temporary discount to carry out repairs? Thank you.