The internet is a bittersweet addition to our modern lives.
Like, on one hand, we have Netflix. But on the other hand, we have Netflix. See what I mean?
But I’ve had one of those weeks that I’m actually feeling really pro-internet. Why? It’s helping me rent a house…for free.
So here’s the situation: the owner of our amazing apartment is a lovely chap who lives in London. Once a year, he returns to Australia for two to three months over summer for work. This means that come December, my partner and I need to vacate for eight weeks or so.
Yeah, sure! we said as we signed the tenancy agreement back in January, that’s totally fine! Easy! No worries! Cheerio! Toodle-oo!
But as the year rolls on, this break in our tenancy has loomed large – and I’m starting to think ‘no worries’ might have been a slight understatement.
I am a Type A Personality with a tendency to dramatise small situations; whilst my partner is a laissez-faire optimist who keeps smiling knowingly and saying that ‘it will sort itself out’.
Low and behold, we’re just two months out, and the immaculate conception solution has not yet fallen from the sky. So, I grabbed the reins and started to review our options.
We’ve got to vacate for two months. Not even quite two months. It’s a neither-here-nor-there time frame that is actually quite sticky to work with.
Top Comments
I'm really curious about your rental / leasing arrangement. IS it the standard kind through an agent?
I've never heard of tenants on a lease being booted out of what is their home (not their property) for part of the lease period because the owner come back temporarily and needs a place to crash. His flat is his investment right? Just because he owns it, doesn't make it his place of residence. So he needs to be the one to make arrangements for himself for a temporary visit. Unless you have some outside-the-square situation going on, where you're a family friend or something? I hope at least you get some kind of trade off (e.g. a discount) for agreeing to it, because you are doing him a favour.
I've done pet/ house -sitting before and It is a hassle because you don;t have all your own stuff, you're half living out of a suitcase. You aren't really settled in fro the short period and you don't know where everything is and how it works. Meanwhile. he's using your cutlery, sleeping in your sheets, you've probably had to make hanging space in your wardrobe for him...
It sounds like the deal is they get to live in his house most of the year absolutely free, no rent being paid but the cost is that when he comes back for the summer they need to be gone temporarily (a deal I would JUMP on if I got it!). So it wouldn't be a normal agent kind of lease, or a lease at all, just an arrangement very similar to house sitting.