My first "proper" blog post about my first "proper" house

My first "proper" house
7th January 2013

So, hopefully you have read my introduction post and are slightly interested to read a bit more and see what else my blog has to offer in the future. If so then top stuff, if not, well never mind. I would just like to remind readers that I will be covering varying and sometimes random topics, so if something is not interesting to you this time round, then please come back in the near future.  

This first real post is going to feature the misery I went through with my first university house. I don't want to put anyone off university because of the problems I faced, but at least it can give you an idea of what to look out for. 

My first house

If I was going to sum up the experience in my first university house with 3 words, then I wouldn't be able to. We went through everything with the letting agents (who I will not name) and the house we inhabited, but I certainly have many words, none positive, that I could use to describe this situation. A good picture to describe it however is just to the right --------------------------------------->



Anyway, after being forced to go to university because of the fee increase, I was delightfully informed that there was no room for me at the university halls because of "bad luck". So I found some people on Facebook, and we met up for a last minute house-hunting expedition. We arranged a lot of house viewings and to be frank, most were disgusting. It got near the end of the day and we finally viewed a house that we thought looked pretty decent. It had been painted and redecorated, fairly spacious and the price was quite low in comparison to other. So we put pen to paper, and what a bad decision it turned out to be.

Within weeks, we started to realise that they really had only given the house a slap of paint and this was to cover up the state it was really in. To summarise the problems we had : -

• Mould growing in every room
• Damp coming through the walls and floor
• Leaking sink
• Found a mouse and its decapitated head in a mouse trap
• Front door that took 10 minutes to open
• Temperamental gas hobs

The temperamental gas hobs are the reason I displayed the extremely poor quality photo above. It turns out that the people that live their this year, had problems with it too, but it managed to set the house on fire in their case. 

So generally, we did not have a great experience and I would never recommend the house or letting agents to anyone. But after we moved out that was not the end of it. Even though we got a good end of tenancy report for our cleaning and only some minor things had to be touched up on; the letting agents still tried charging us £1200 pound in charges. We decided that we were not going to accept this and took them to court, we recently received all of our money back :) 

Luckily for me, I did not let any of this get me down about going to university, and you learn from your mistakes. But you never want to be in this situation, so below I have listed a few tips to keep an eye out for from personal experience. 

- Ask lots of questions! 

- Ask to see relevant legal documents

- Do not be pressured into signing anything

- Look, and look again

- Ask about recent work that has been done (or not done)

- Read reviews from the letting agents/private owner

- Don't leave it to last minute, you're unlikely to get a decent place!

- Keep your eye out for cracks in walls, damp, mould

I hope this read was worthwhile in some sort of way for whoever has read. Check back soon for new content; no idea what it will be about yet! 

This post is sponsored by - http://www.points2shop.com/?ref=rossonomous