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?

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 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

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!

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.