Welcome To The Neighborhood. NOW PAY UP!

I am from an EU country and recently moved to the UK to work in a highly specialized job in the civil service. After living with a friend for a few months, I finally decide to get my own place and get in touch with a few local rental agencies. Some blow me off as soon as they realize I’m not British, but I manage to secure a cute terraced house just for myself.

The landlady is a woman who manages the house for her son who is living in Australia, and she informs me that she only uses the agency to find new tenants; all day-to-day stuff is handled by her. Shortly after I move in and pay the deposit and first month’s rent, I receive a call from a woman at the rental agency with a hostile attitude from the start.

Rental Agent: “It’s your first month and you’re already behind on your rent! If you don’t pay today, we will terminate your contract!”

Me: “Of course, I paid my rent, along with the deposit. Perhaps there is some confusion. I pay directly to the landlady, not to the agency.”

Rental Agent: “This is not true! By god, it’s always the same with you lot. You are just so stupid! You pay the rent to us!”

Me: “Can you please check what is written in my contract? Because you are definitely wrong.”

Rental Agent: “Okay, I will check it. But if you lied, you will be out on the street by the end of the week!”

Of course, I never heard back, because I did everything right. My landlady later came by with some flowers to welcome me to my new home. When I related the call to her, she got very angry and put in a call to the agency, saying that they were not allowed to treat her tenants like that.

I spent a lovely three years in that house until I decided to take a new position in a different European country after the Brexit referendum.