Our thought was to move to Carlisle in the north of England this summer. But it'll not happen. Not this summer anyway.
We believed we've thought about everything, and we probably had. Except for Britain's strange getting-a-place-to-live-phenomenon. Everything seems to be about defrauding people of as much money as they possibly can. Nothing else.
We were too Swedish in our perspective. We thought there would be some kind of landlord company. We had even found some at a site.
But those were not landlords. They were agents, sort of middlemen between private persons as landlords (as usually do not always want to take any responsibility for their properties) and tenants. However, the agents charge shameless costs for everything, both from those who own properties and those who need somewhere to live.
If we need somewhere to live in Sweden, we can, if we do not wish to buy, go to a landlord company, which owns properties to let. Sure, it is somewhat problematic nowadays to find a place to live, you have to queue for awhile, sometimes years. In Carlisle, there were constantly a flow on flats for several months, so it would not be hard to find something. We knew we had to check it out personally, we knew we had to pay a deposit and we actually knew we risked being taken in if we didn't check it out personally.
But it isn't enough. You should be on the money and you should willingly risk quite a lot of your money if you should go there. Deposit okay. Just twice the monthly rent (monthly rent and deposit must be payed before moving in, that is about two monthly rents). But application fee. There is a thing. In Sweden, we do not normally pay for credit information about us. We usually do not pay for listing of object at, for example Hemnet. But in UK, you do. About £80-£150 per applicant, so twice as much as we are husband and wife.
Does it guarantee we will have the flat, if we pay and our economic situation is in order? NO.
Maybe the landlord wants someone with a specific number of kids, or maybe a kid in a specific age and with a specific sex. Maybe the landlord do not want to let his or her property any longer. If the landlord or the agent do not want to let to you, they'll find a way to stop you from renting, and it can sound pretty strange in a Swede's ears: Can you actually do that? Isn't it illegal? It doesn't matter if it is. Agents are big advertisers in media - they will not write about it. And the politicians are not doing very much, neither does the law system. Too bad. Because the problems if you get a NO are that you are not getting your money back, and you are losing time (you're not really paying more than one applicant fee at a time and it might take a couple of weeks... in Sweden it takes about seconds or maybe minutes if the line is slow at the moment, to checking the credit information).
Okay, we thought, maybe we could find a landlord without a middleman. And yes, we did. Please, send £500 and we'll stop advertising our property. And of course we'll buy every single appliances that you wish for (washer, dryer, disher, fridge and freezer; a cooker was already installed). Also, they would get some basic furnitures for us. Nice! But what the heck, where's our security - just sending off £500 could be like throw money down the drain, but it could be a reliable landlord. How would I know? And where's my proof I paid.
No, we didn't send any money, we gave up. Maybe the renting system in the UK will see better days later on, but for now, I stay here in Sweden; sit back and watch the bedlam finds new levels of chaos, until the balloon explodes, and a new way of letting flats could be born.
Until then, I will go between Sweden and England, as the writer I am, and find the historical views I am looking for to my books. I will find the small cultural differences between the countries, as well as big ones, and write about them in this blog. As planned. The only difference is that I will live in Sweden, not in Carlisle, Cumbria. But when in Carlisle, I will be A Swede in Carlisle.
See You! :-)
