Hey, guys, welcome back to the Girl Gone London channel. If you're new here,
my name is Kalyn.
I'm an American who's lived in the UK for almost 10 years.
And today I am telling you, the must-know tips for renting in London.
OK, so my regular viewers that might be able to tell I am not in my regular
filming location of my house, I am in someone else's house or rather apartment.
And that is because this video is sponsored by uncle.
Now, I'll tell you more about the company
and about the apartments and what I'm doing here later in the video.
But honestly, I just enjoy this gorgeous furniture and artwork.
You can instantly tell it's not my house
because the design around here is amazing and I lack all design skills.
So I will be taking pictures and trying to recreate my own house to look like
this, but for now and just enjoy the different view.
And let's get on to the video.
OK, so I want to talk about renting
in London in particular, because that's where my experience is.
This can be applicable to renting
elsewhere in the UK or specifically started renting in England.
But in this video I'm talking about my experience and my tips from renting
in London because, oh, my God, I saw someone moving here.
Whether you're moving here to study
for a masters degree, you moved in here for work or just someone
like looking to rent, it can be a total nightmare.
And understanding the process is going to help you so much along the way.
OK, so the first tip is really to understand the language of renting
in London because it's different than in the US and countries around the world.
So they don't they use the term renting, but they also use the term letting.
So a letting agent here is basically a rental agent.
And I have a really funny story of a time, a friend visiting me in London and kept
seeing signs that said to light and out of the check he was like,
I don't understand why all of the toilet signs are missing.
And I and I was like, what are you talking about?
And he was like everything just to let the leg.
But there's no I. And I was like, oh, no.
That means that the flat or house has a two left or two rent sign outside
of it to let you know that it's available to right or left.
So that was a funny story of the cross
cultural differences about renting before you even get into the process.
So the second tip is to understand how
the process works and it works fundamentally differently than in the US.
And again, I'm comparing the US to the UK because that is what I'm familiar with.
But I would love to hear everyone else's
stories of how renting works in your country.
Just leave it in the comments below.
So in the US, it can be pretty easy to get an apartment.
Sometimes it's almost like you buy one online, you go on the site and the prices
are listed in your like I'm unit number nine hundred and ten and then you click
checkout and they do a little bit of everything, but it's pretty simple
and that is not the case for renting
in most of London, and that is the problem that uncle was trying to solve.
But let's just talk about if you are renting kind of in a general sense
in London, so you are first going to have to get in touch with the letting agents
because they are responsible for individual rentals in London.
There is no there is no one to go
of a renter's helper to help you figure out places to rent.
You have to go online.
I recommend these sites and you are going to say, hey, the apartment they call
the flats here, that apartment flat looks really nice.
I would be interested in viewing it.
And you have to set up the appointment for the viewing with the letting agent
who was responsible for that particular rental, which will be they'll have their
phone number and it will tell you who is responsible.
But there's going to be different letting
agents responsible for different properties.
So you if he finds another one and it's with a different letting agent,
you're going to have to contact them to set up a separate viewing.
So there's no one like bringing the whole process together.
You have to individually go out and find the properties online,
speak to the letting agents arrange your appointments, and especially for someone
just moving to the UK, it can be a huge stress.
Now, that brings me to my third tip,
which is that renting from abroad, i.e. figuring out your rental before you
get to London, it can be so difficult, almost impossible for so many people.
Now, this is where uncle comes in because
they actually make it super easy, much more like the American style
of renting that makes it so that you can set something off before you get here.
But if you're going down the traditional process, you are really going to want
to come over and stay in either an Airbnb or renting a room from someone on a site
like Spare Room Dakoda UK, because you're going to want to be here
to go on the viewings and it's it's just so difficult to do.
From abroad as you go the traditional
route, so I would recommend preparing to not move into a rental straight away.
You want to move to the U.K., stay somewhere, a very short term,
very temporary, like in being me and then doing the rental process in person again.
Uncle understands that that is annoying as heck when you move to the UK and the last
thing you want to do is be in temporary housing.
So they make it a lot easier.
But for those of you who aren't going
that route, definitely make sure to get here early.
Let's take a break from the video to talk more about Uncle Apartments.
You're not going to find these video sponsored by companies I don't believe in.
So suffice it to say that I believe
an uncle like the girl from Miracle on 34th Street believes in Santa Claus.
Unlike traditional renting, the gorgeous uncle apartments have on site
teams to do everything from taking your deliveries to fix any maintenance issues.
Booking a viewing is incredibly easy, and they offer super easy online viewings
as well as amenities like gyms, coworking spaces and lounges are included,
as well as community events to help you get to know your neighbors.
More importantly, they really understand how difficult it can be to move to the UK
from a foreign country, and they're there to help you every step of the way.
For more information about uncle,
check out the link in the description and let's get back to the video.
My next tip is polices go fast.
Hello, this is London.
Everyone wants to live in London and for good reason, it's amazing.
But this is not like the rental market of
a city in Oklahoma.
No offense to people from Oklahoma,
but like this is a you know, this is a mecca of a city and things do go fast.
So you're going to want to make sure that you are ready to go.
And I'll talk about what you need to get ready to go in a second.
So my next tip is to make sure that you
set up a UK bank account as soon as possible.
So many letting agents and landlords are
going to want you to have a UK bank account, which isn't really fair when you
first move here, because obviously you're not going to have one yet and you need
to be in the country to set one up, but make that a priority.
When you first move to the U.K., get that UK bank account as soon as possible.
Again, there are places like
Uncle Thank God, who don't require you to have a UK bank account right away.
They understand that you are international
and they will look at international bank statements and things like that.
But it's always good practice to make sure
you do get a UK bank account straight away.
So my next tip has to do with what you are writing to go when you first move
to the UK and are looking into the rental process.
And that's going to be things like copy of your passport, copy of your visa,
because they're going to need to do a check to make sure that you are able
to live in the UK and they are allowed to rent to you.
You're going to want to make sure you have your past bank statements put together
like three to six months, usually about three.
But make sure you have those and also make sure that you have some sort of letter
from your employer to confirm your employment and your salary.
They're going to want to do these
reference checks and they're going to want to make sure that you can afford the rent.
And so having all that paperwork, anything that you have,
maybe it's from your school saying that you definitely are a student.
Anything you can possibly have in hand
ready to go is going to make the process so much faster.
My next tip is that you can negotiate.
So in typical traditional London renting,
it's not always like in the US where you just see the price and that is the price.
It is a negotiation process between you
and the landlord or the letting agent typically.
So you can negotiate the rent.
You could say I want to pay six months
of rent upfront, but in return I want X, Y and Z.
If you go to the viewing, which we'll talk about in a second,
and you see, you know, there's something that you want repainted
or there's an appliance they don't have, you can try and bargain with them
and sweeten your offering in exchange for getting other things.
But once the contract is signed,
the contract signed, they're probably not going to do anything to help you.
So anything that you want to negotiate on, whether it's price or what's included,
make sure to do that in the beginning of the process.
But a lot of people don't know.
You can even negotiate at all.
They just look at the price and think
that's the price, not the case here in many instances.
So always check, always ask to see if any negotiation is possible.
My next tip is to ask for a break clause.
Now, a break clause is basically an amount of time.
So say I have a 12 month lease.
I can ask for a six month break clause.
And that means that at six months I can choose to move with no penalties.
It kind of allows you a little bit more freedom in renting.
And also often the landlord will do that as well.
So it might be a mutual break clause where
either party can at six months say, actually, I don't want you to finish out
the remaining six, the remaining six months.
So get familiar with the term break clause.
Whether you want one, it's usually better to have one than to not.
There's no reason not to have one because you can always just keep on living there
and not make use of the break clause that especially in London,
maybe you haven't lived here for more than a couple of weeks.
You don't know that area.
If something turns out to be not how you
wanted it, having a break clause can be amazing.
OK, my next tip is to take pictures of everything when you move in.
So they're going to do what they call
an inventory of every single thing that's in the flat.
They're going to hopefully on there
and take pictures and tell you what they believe to be the state of everything.
You are going to want to do your own
inventory, take tons of pictures of every single inch of the flat,
every single item that is included every single night, every single fork.
If they come with it,
make sure to take pictures and do your own inventory, because if they think
that they've included something when you move in that they didn't,
but you never checked and then you go to move out, they are going to try and say
that, you know, you lost this item or you broke this item that was already broken.
So make sure to do your own due diligence
and take pictures and take an inventory of.
Every single thing, my next tip is about the deposit.
So a lot of times when renting in London, you're going to need to come up
with a deposit and typically it's like either a month to six weeks worth of rent.
Now, this should always go in a scheme that is backed.
So it shouldn't just be going to your landlord to sit in their bank account.
And so make sure that you ask about what
scheme your deposit is going into to make sure they've got all the right paperwork.
Because what happens then is at the end
of your tenancy, they can claim or try and claim from your deposit money
for things that they think you have broken or left the flat in a state of disrepair.
Or maybe they had to pay for cleaning because you didn't clean it well enough,
but because your deposit is actually not with them.
But in a scheme, then it makes it easier
for you to argue your side and for it to not just have all the power go
to the landlord, but in general, you're going to have to prepared to pay
upfront a deposit of about a month to six weeks worth of rent.
OK, my next tip and we are getting close
to the end, but these are really important.
So pay attention.
My next tip has to do with the actual viewing that you go on.
So I've chosen a flat.
I go on the viewing with the letting agent again.
I probably have like eight different ones set up with eight different people.
But I'm in this flat and I look around and I'm like, yes, this looks good.
No wrong.
Try and turn every light on, turn every tap or what we would call a faucet on.
And my friend said, make sure that you try and open the windows because a lot
of people just assume that the window will open.
But especially in like old London Flats, they could have been painted shut and not
open, which is not going to be good in the heat of summer.
So don't feel afraid to go around and respectfully test things out and make
sure that you are satisfied that things actually work.
Because, again,
once you sign that contract and you move in, there is not much you can do.
You're going to have to figure it out or you're going to have to live
with the window that doesn't open and that's good for no one.
OK, my second to last tip has to do with something called council tax.
And this has to do with your budget when you think of renting in London.
So council tax is kind of the equivalent
of what we would think of as a property tax in the US except in the US.
When you're renting often the property
tax, your portion of it is included in the rental price.
So you wouldn't think of like, oh,
I have to pay my rent and I have to pay my portion of the property taxes.
On top of that here, though, the council tax, again,
think of it as like a property tax is not included in the rent.
This can be an extra 100, 200 pounds a month depending on where you're living.
And this must be paid.
This is not optional.
And so this can really impact people's
budgets when they look at the rent and say, hey,
I think I can afford that and don't realize until later that you need to tack
on like one hundred and fifty extra pounds per month for the council tax.
So always be aware of the council tax and of that pretty significant chunk
that you're going to need to add on to what you think the rent is in your mind.
And my last tenant for renting in London is location, location, location.
So you are going to need to weigh up a couple of things unless you have like
millions of pounds, in which case you can live in.
So one in like, you know,
as big a house as you want, but you can rent and enjoy it.
For the rest of us who don't have
that situation, you are really going to have to think
about weighing up the price of a commute versus the price of paying more in rent.
So London is divided into zones for travel
purposes, but this is also how people talk about them in terms of location.
So zone one is going to be central London.
Everyone's an attraction almost that you could think of is in zone one.
Rent is going to be much more expensive,
but you're not going to have the expensive train commute because you'll probably be
able to walk to work or take a bus quickly or something like that.
The further out you go in London,
those two zones, three zones for rent goes down, but the cost of commuting can go up.
And that's where you need to make
the calculations, because sometimes people think that moving out to a further zone is
going to be better for their budget, because you look at the rent and you say,
oh, it's cheaper, but when you factor in the price
of the commute, suddenly you would have been better just living closer
in and being able to walk or get to work or school easier.
So you need to find in your budget
and in your London life that you see yourself living.
You need to go ahead and weigh up how
that budget actually works out, because it's not always as you would expect.
OK, so that brings me to the end of the video.
Thanks again to Uncle for sponsoring this video.
I hope you guys got some useful tips about what to expect when renting in London.
Again, make.
Shorten hit subscribe if you're interested in more content about moving to the UK,
how to move to London, really anything you can think of again?
I'd love to hear your thoughts about renting in your experiences with renting,
whether it's in London or elsewhere in the world.
Thanks again for watching and I'll see you guys next time.