The Importance of A Tenancy Agreement

Some important lessons were learned today by our hero. Namely, the importance of a tenancy agreement.

You might think that you are a pretty good judge of character, and that an older English woman with grandchildren in a well-kept home generally means what she says. You might also think that when you give her 220 pounds as a deposit on a room and she issues you a receipt you have, in essence, secured this room for yourself to live in. But alas, unless you have actually signed a tenancy agreement with this woman you may find that she sends you a text message a few hours before you are due to move in to said room stating that her extended family will now be living in it and therefore unfortunately you will not be.

Needless to say this may happen after you have already packed all of your belongings in preparation for the move, signed up for a redirection of your letters with Royal Mail and purchased a mobile broadband internet stick which will be rendered useless in future as virtually every other flat comes with broadband. And let us not forget that this situation would not have occured, at least in the same manner, if you had signed a tenancy agreement with your original flatmates in the first place and secured a length of stay for yourself.

So that is where I found myself this morning. After recieving this ninja kick in the stomach from London/the universe/Elaine-the-ill-fated-landlady I did indeed set about looking for places straight away, all ones that would include a guaranteed tenancy agreement for myself so that I will have somewhere to live for the next few months. Hopefully. At least on paper.

It is a little bit bizarre, especially seeing as I've looked for apartments tons of times before. I figured at first that I didn't want to sign anything too permanent for fear of tying myself down somewhere, and also that people rent casually ALL the time and it works out for them. But you can't really blame anyone in a situation where no actual paperwork was signed, aside from the fact that that wasn't a very nice thing to do, which means very little in legal/practical terms.

The bottom line is that I hope one day to no longer visit spareroom.co.uk on a daily/weekly basis, and also to have somewhere to call my home. I will not underestimate the importance of paperwork again and perhaps London is teaching me to be a little less trusting of people, at least at first. So wish me luck finding a flat...yet again. Third time's the charm???