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LIZ JONES opens up about the dreaded anxiety of having to rent a house in your 60s

I got a call on Saturday morning last month. I always thought it would. It lurked in the background when I tried to make a plan. I knew it would all end soon. Not with a whine, but with a bang.

It is said that there will be a preview at the cottage that has been rented since 2018, and it has been on sale since April. I learned in February that it would be for sale when the landlord showed up out of the blue with a realtor in tow.

The agent started taking pictures of all the rooms and my courtyard. without asking first. Or even talk to me. What am I but a lowly private renter who does not deserve a kind Good Morning?

Viewings were scheduled for 11:30am (there were several). I walked the dog early and ran up the steep hill in time to clean up.

At 11:45, my phone rang. It was the proprietress. “The viewing has been canceled, but there will be another one at 1:30.”

I ventured to express my dismay and upset at the constant intrusion. Yet another no-show. Another day that didn’t go as planned.

Liz Jones (pictured), 64, opens up about being given two months’ notice to move out of her rented cottage.

‘right! ‘ the proprietress snapped. “I’m offering you Section 21. I have her two months’ notice to move out as of Monday.” I cringed. Once again, my life was in tatters as I desperately tried to rebuild it.

No-fault eviction, known as Section 21 Notice, allows a landlord to evict a tenant without giving reasons or establishing “fault” on the tenant’s part.

No matter how long you lived there (4 years for me) or how much you spent in the place (£59,000 for me), cash your pension and a loan to pay for everything from your new kitchen (heated floors, new bathrooms, white goods, etc.), you can get fired right away.

How is this allowed? At work you are protected if you get sick or lose your job, but renting a home makes sure that it is essential to your health, productivity and belonging.

Surely there is more to being a landlord than paying me your mortgage when I pay my rent on time and take care of your property?

Since being appointed Secretary of State for Leveling, Housing and Communities under Rishi Sunak last month, when Michael Gove voiced his support for Boris Johnson’s commitment to end no-fault evictions, our poorest people were in danger. A lifeline hung in front of his cold nose.

Gove, like everyone else, knows that going to a rental isn’t hard work. After all, divorce is a common factor. Governments don’t get growth from a workforce wondering if getting out of bed is worth the trouble.

His speech was music to the ears of over 4 million private renters in the UK.

Misery, uncertainty. Only the good know how families with school age children deal with chaos, endless meter readings, supplier changes, job title changes, city tax changes, etc. is.

With the majority of politicians, civil servants, newspaper columnists and editors owning their own homes, it is hard not to wonder how this grave violation of human rights has never been at the top of the political agenda. not available. Or two of them.

The writer (pictured) says renters could be

The writer (pictured) says renters could be “thrown by the sharks” and quickly laid off. increase

Problems do not enter their brains. If so, they assume the renter is either a reckless person or a very young person stepping onto the real estate ladder soon. These are the kind of people who write articles like, “What happened to the annual DFS ad on TV?” Why do people buy new sofas every Christmas? I inherited mine! (It was an actual column.)

I’ve rented nine properties in my adult life and have been evicted four times.

Times are bad for Generation Rent — poor 20- and 30-somethings who can’t scrape together their savings or get a mortgage. But being in your 60s and still renting like I was, after a lifetime of hard work, is infinitely worse.

why? Because at 64, I’m dangerously close to retirement.

I managed to get a mortgage offer before the current crisis, but even then the interest rate offered was close to 5% and the maximum term allowed was 12 years. There is no hope of a partner on the horizon splitting the bills.

I feel sorry for the homeowners who have just had their rates go up but renters are not immune as there is no cap on how much we pay. You may die, but at least Nicola Sturgeon is suggesting a rent freeze).

Rising interest rates and new rules on long-term rental guarantees also mean that the number of long-term rental properties (as opposed to vacation or Airbnb rentals) has fallen.

This led to reports of an increase in “blind bidding” in London last month. These are people who rent out rental properties without seeing the property first. He has 49% fewer new properties than in 2019, according to Hamptons real estate agents, and the average rent for a newly rented home in the UK has risen 6.9% since last September.

I owned my home from 1983 to 2016. I have never had a good job and never been sick. But in 2016 I lost my home. A small Georgian mansion with floor-to-ceiling windows and a lawn overlooking the river.

I’ve put stone floors salvaged from a derelict church, railings… I can’t move on, it’s too upsetting.

When I went bankrupt in 2015, I was forced to put it on the market for £400,000 less than I paid for it. (Long story: I have a memoir if you’re interested.) HMRC hates high-income single women, and it hates builders, families, neighbors, and bankruptcy lawyers.

Due to bankruptcy, rental options were limited. I found a small house just outside the market town of Richmond in North Yorkshire for £1,700 a month. Given the fact that I (at the time) had 4 cats and 3 dogs, the search became very difficult. Most rental properties, even those in the countryside with hideously swirly carpets, stipulate “sorry, no pets allowed.”

In 2020, a white paper was created to allow renters to keep dogs and cats. This is because dogs and cats are, after all, part of the family and are less likely to scribble on walls than toddlers, but they are not yet in the statute book.

Dogs On The Streets (DOTS), a great charity that helps homeless pets, has revealed a sharp increase in the number of pets abandoned due to a rental ban. pet.

So I went to this house, and they said, “Excuse me, it’s furnished.” I had a lot of furniture. Conran sofa. A desk from the 1920s. Eero Saarinen marble table. I was your typical high end cliché who lived in Islington. So I begged and said. I was also wary of muddy dogs and scratchy cats, but that wasn’t the case.

The landlady showed up with little warning and was towed by a real estate agent – my house was for sale

So I put all my furniture in storage and gave away my new appliances (Smeg range cooker, Miele dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer) to a friend. However, the storage turned out to be so expensive that I had to sell them all on eBay one by one.

Imagine my shock a year or so later when the landlord told me he had bought a vacation home in Devon and was coming to pick up the furniture.

I left home in 2018. I was tired of neighbors calling their landlord to tell them they didn’t keep their cars in the garage and their dogs were barking.

That same year, I rented a one-bedroom flat in North London for over £3,000 a month — to save on hotel bills for work. Handing me the keys, the landlady, a seasoned student (God, how can these people own property?) sprinkled water on the kitchen floorboards and opened the front door. prevent the door from slamming. Or wear jeans on the couch as “worn out”.

When I later complained about the filthiness of the communal areas, which I was the only one vacuuming, she said: “Oh, that’s a surprise, except for you, all the apartments are owned by their owners.

She kept emailing me — I never rent through OpenRent, which deals directly with landlords — “I read you have a collie. Not allowed.I kept assuring her that they were safe and sound in Yorkshire.She hired a neighbor upstairs to spy on me.

In 2019 I was evicted again for no reason after spending a fortune moving 250 miles of books, magazines, clothes and desks. (I know the names of the nice guys from Watson Removals. I know some of them even their birthdays.)

She said the apartment was sold, but a few weeks later saw it rented again on Rightmove at an increased price.

She wanted to withhold some of my deposit because the cheap fairy lights were no longer on the balcony.

A writer (pictured) says that renters nearing retirement are

A writer (pictured) says that renters nearing retirement are “infinitely worse” than those in their 20s or 30s.

Then there was that place in Clerkenwell. When I lost my job, I had to give notice, but his two male landlords, who lived in Hong Kong, made me adhere to his six-month notice period. Leave’.

And they were making “marks” on the walls, so they told me to vacuum the radiator.

I chose the cottage I am in now because the landlord didn’t care that I was bankrupt or that I had a dog and had a magical view.

When I moved in there was no heating, laminate flooring and a 26 year old fuse box. The roof and windows are still leaking. Walking out the front door on a rainy day is like braving Niagara Falls (I have the video).

I know it’s silly to spend tens of thousands of pounds of my own money, but I was working from home and needed heating. It’s a luxury.

In total, we spent £59,000. Updated heating with new boiler and radiator upstairs and replaced fuse box. Paving stones were laid, the chimney was cleaned, new blinds and shelving were installed and her over £12,000 was spent on a beautiful Neptune kitchen.

know. People warned me not to do it because I have no legal remedy. But my home is very important to me. I’m depressed at the garbage dump.

And I fear being homeless again. Went to see another rental last week. When the woman opened the door, a giant Labrador appeared.

‘How many dogs do you have? ‘She asked me with her head down if I wanted to see the two (now four) who came in the vehicle. Me: “Hmmm”

She showed me around and it was lovely. “It arrives unfurnished.” I got angry.

The layout of the house was undecided. “Oh,” she said, unlocking the door to the most beautiful room with a river view. “Here we lock the furniture. This is our forever home. We’ll be back in two years. That’s when you have to move.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11423261/LIZ-JONES-terrifying-insecurity-having-rent-60s.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 LIZ JONES opens up about the dreaded anxiety of having to rent a house in your 60s

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