Tenancy review for 111 Spring Hill in Soho Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham rented from Private Landlord
“Habitable, but I'd make the fixed term shorter”
Overall Tenancy Rating: 6
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Moved In: 04/10/2019
Rent: £410
Date reviewed: 13 April 2024
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Landlord review for Private Landlord, Birmingham
Landlord rating: 6
The landlord was nice overall, but I have complaints.
At the start, he saved me by attending my viewing request quickly. I was still living in my home country, I was starting my first job in the UK in just a week, and I was running out of time because other landlords wouldn’t pay attention to my viewing requests. He had a very quick response.
He didn’t protect my deposit money until one of the other tenants came into the house, one year later than I did. When I left, he returned what we agreed.
One day I missed the house keys in the office and I couldn’t come back for them. That includes the key for my room, which also had a lock. I phoned the landlord, but he didn’t answer. I had to spend the night outside my room because he wasn’t available for an emergency like that.
By far, the worst part of the tenancy was that, right the day after I moved into the house, he took in another tenant who was an almost non-stop source of trouble. He spent most of the tenancy annoying me and other tenants, and the landlord was never efficient enough at dealing with him. I think it was partly our fault because we tried to deal with him by ourselves for too long before we tried to involve the landlord. But he did try to help a few times.
One day, I broke a knife by accident. It didn’t belong to anyone in the house, but this guy tried to make me pay him for it. The landlord was kind enough to buy a whole new set of knives to remove the alleged source of tension.
This guy used to wash almost nothing of what he used in the kitchen. The landlord tried to solve the issue by coming to the house and taking away all the common kitchen utensils. It was kind of him that he tried to remove the source of tension like that. But that would have left the rest of us with no kitchen utensils. And buying new ones by ourselves wouldn’t have stopped that guy from using them with no permission. So, the landlord couldn’t really help.
The same guy produced more rubbish alone than the other three tenants combined. It required us to be on top of him all the time to help us take the bins out. The moment we stopped poking him every week to do his part, he stopped helping with that. The landlord had to come to force everyone to take the rubbish out. I don’t remember what happened after that. There was also at least one more occasion when the landlord tried to help, but I neither remember what it was.
The landlord could have probably helped more if we had him involved with this guy earlier, but you would need to have him informed regularly of troubles like this. On the other hand, none of these troubles would have been so bad if the tenancy contracts didn’t bind us for so long and we could leave the house earlier. About that…
The landlord did me really dirty at the time of renewing the contract. After a fixed term of six months and rolling the contract for another five months, he suddenly wanted to renew the contract for an entire year. Just some days earlier, my company had told me they were evaluating firing me. I was risking getting stuck there for another year just before losing my source of income. But he pushed me to make the decision before my company did, because that was the most convenient time of the year for him to close a tenancy agreement.
During my tenancy, the landlord quickly fixed or replaced some important things, like the washing machine, the pipe that exploded and two fridges that broke down, out of the three we had available to share.
There are two main doors. One of them had the lock broken one day, I suspect by the same guy who used to make trouble. The landlord never fixed that one.
He took very long to fix the door of my room and the heater, which was slowly leaking water. About the water leak through my window frame, the landlord’s response was that leaves were obstructing the gutter on top of the window, so water was getting spilled inside. He said it as if it was completely normal and there was nothing he could nor should do about it. At least, this was a problem “only” for a couple of days. But it was still very concerning and the landlord never fixed it.
At the time of leaving the house, I was running out of time to organize the move, and he allowed me to stay a couple more days after my final day with no problem.
More reviews for Private Landlord ⇒
At the start, he saved me by attending my viewing request quickly. I was still living in my home country, I was starting my first job in the UK in just a week, and I was running out of time because other landlords wouldn’t pay attention to my viewing requests. He had a very quick response.
He didn’t protect my deposit money until one of the other tenants came into the house, one year later than I did. When I left, he returned what we agreed.
One day I missed the house keys in the office and I couldn’t come back for them. That includes the key for my room, which also had a lock. I phoned the landlord, but he didn’t answer. I had to spend the night outside my room because he wasn’t available for an emergency like that.
By far, the worst part of the tenancy was that, right the day after I moved into the house, he took in another tenant who was an almost non-stop source of trouble. He spent most of the tenancy annoying me and other tenants, and the landlord was never efficient enough at dealing with him. I think it was partly our fault because we tried to deal with him by ourselves for too long before we tried to involve the landlord. But he did try to help a few times.
One day, I broke a knife by accident. It didn’t belong to anyone in the house, but this guy tried to make me pay him for it. The landlord was kind enough to buy a whole new set of knives to remove the alleged source of tension.
This guy used to wash almost nothing of what he used in the kitchen. The landlord tried to solve the issue by coming to the house and taking away all the common kitchen utensils. It was kind of him that he tried to remove the source of tension like that. But that would have left the rest of us with no kitchen utensils. And buying new ones by ourselves wouldn’t have stopped that guy from using them with no permission. So, the landlord couldn’t really help.
The same guy produced more rubbish alone than the other three tenants combined. It required us to be on top of him all the time to help us take the bins out. The moment we stopped poking him every week to do his part, he stopped helping with that. The landlord had to come to force everyone to take the rubbish out. I don’t remember what happened after that. There was also at least one more occasion when the landlord tried to help, but I neither remember what it was.
The landlord could have probably helped more if we had him involved with this guy earlier, but you would need to have him informed regularly of troubles like this. On the other hand, none of these troubles would have been so bad if the tenancy contracts didn’t bind us for so long and we could leave the house earlier. About that…
The landlord did me really dirty at the time of renewing the contract. After a fixed term of six months and rolling the contract for another five months, he suddenly wanted to renew the contract for an entire year. Just some days earlier, my company had told me they were evaluating firing me. I was risking getting stuck there for another year just before losing my source of income. But he pushed me to make the decision before my company did, because that was the most convenient time of the year for him to close a tenancy agreement.
During my tenancy, the landlord quickly fixed or replaced some important things, like the washing machine, the pipe that exploded and two fridges that broke down, out of the three we had available to share.
There are two main doors. One of them had the lock broken one day, I suspect by the same guy who used to make trouble. The landlord never fixed that one.
He took very long to fix the door of my room and the heater, which was slowly leaking water. About the water leak through my window frame, the landlord’s response was that leaves were obstructing the gutter on top of the window, so water was getting spilled inside. He said it as if it was completely normal and there was nothing he could nor should do about it. At least, this was a problem “only” for a couple of days. But it was still very concerning and the landlord never fixed it.
At the time of leaving the house, I was running out of time to organize the move, and he allowed me to stay a couple more days after my final day with no problem.
Property review for 111 Spring Hill, Soho Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham
Property rating: 6
The house is in working condition, but it’s old. One pipe of water exploded alone. The walls are thin as cardboard, and they filter none of the noise made by the other tenants. While I was moving a chair, I dragged the heater of my room by accident, and it fell off of the wall before I could even notice I was dragging it.
The screw that held the upper hinge in my room’s door also came out of the doorframe by the weight of the door alone. The door was light and fragile. It was also partially made of glass and there is one light in the corridor right in front of it. So, at night, every time somebody left it lit, it would bother me to sleep. The door had a curtain to mitigate that, but it wasn’t enough.
The room was narrow. I could touch two of the opposite walls with my hands at the same time. The bed has the bare space to stand up next to it and there is almost no space at the desk to put a desktop PC, unless you can place it on the window frame. There was mold in the ceiling close to the window, and if it rained heavily, water would leak through the window frame.
The rest of the house didn’t have any trouble and it was nice. The kitchen and the bathroom were more than enough, and the extra toilet that is downstairs helped a lot.
More reviews for 111 Spring Hill ⇒
The screw that held the upper hinge in my room’s door also came out of the doorframe by the weight of the door alone. The door was light and fragile. It was also partially made of glass and there is one light in the corridor right in front of it. So, at night, every time somebody left it lit, it would bother me to sleep. The door had a curtain to mitigate that, but it wasn’t enough.
The room was narrow. I could touch two of the opposite walls with my hands at the same time. The bed has the bare space to stand up next to it and there is almost no space at the desk to put a desktop PC, unless you can place it on the window frame. There was mold in the ceiling close to the window, and if it rained heavily, water would leak through the window frame.
The rest of the house didn’t have any trouble and it was nice. The kitchen and the bathroom were more than enough, and the extra toilet that is downstairs helped a lot.
Area review for Soho Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham
Area rating: 5
The area is not great. The house is very close to the entrance to one of the canals, which are beautiful, and it’s very close to a Tesco superstore. But it’s far from almost everything else.
Many people living around are not exactly bright. Right in front of the house there’s a road where it’s common to see people speeding. It’s also common to see lots of rubbish thrown into the bushes close to the pavement.
The rest of the city offers a quite dystopian view. For every street that looks well maintained there is another one which looks like complete trash around the corner. It’s completely normal to see junkies and homeless people sleeping next to flat entrances. Fortunately, I never saw any of them close to the house and I never had any serious problems. But it’s unsettling.
More reviews for Soho Jewellery Quarter ⇒
Many people living around are not exactly bright. Right in front of the house there’s a road where it’s common to see people speeding. It’s also common to see lots of rubbish thrown into the bushes close to the pavement.
The rest of the city offers a quite dystopian view. For every street that looks well maintained there is another one which looks like complete trash around the corner. It’s completely normal to see junkies and homeless people sleeping next to flat entrances. Fortunately, I never saw any of them close to the house and I never had any serious problems. But it’s unsettling.
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