Daughter is starting to look for a flat to rent, what sort of questions does she need to have answered to make a good judgement?
Not done this myself so no knowledge to pass on but thinking of things along the lines of what’s included in the rent – council tax, insurance possible – and what would be her responsibility, common area access, parking entitlement, length of notice etc. I guess these will all be in the contract but that may be too late to influence any decision.

Also is there any way of checking out potential landlords? Their history – good or bad – and how reliable are they in fixing stuff if things go wrong etc.

One last thing, any good resources to recommend. Only been flicking through RightMove so far, I guess getting on the books of local estate/letting agents, local papers and shop cards.

Thanks for any advice.

Basically. It’s shit.

This is quite important: https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection/overview
If she rents through an agency like Leaders, they WILL rip her off when it comes to the return of the deposit. I managed to get away with only being ripped off by LEADERS for £80, which was better than most.

Hope her landlord is nice like me 🙂 IE gives a shit and will not just take her money and forget about her.
I rent out a house; council tax, contents insurance, utility bills are the things my tenant’s have to sort out. Common areas etc should be in the tenancy agreement (read it!!). Letting agents are useless ****.

Look at lots of properties to get an idea of the quality in the area before saying yes.
I was told by an ex-estate agent that you’ll be shown the rubbish places first – to get you to think you have to up your budget to get anywhere decent, so be wary of tactics.
If at all possible, avoid letting agents too – they charge a load of fees for very little – drawing up contracts, renewal of contracts etc
I’ve been renting for over 10 years and tbh rental stock in the UK is poor quality but still expensive. My last place had rising damp which I’m pretty sure the landlord knew about from before I moved in…

Def Google the Landlord and/or letting agent too. My last place, it turned out the Landlord had a history of witholding deposits on the basis of false claims about the condition of the property when the tenant left and trying to take tenants to court when they disputed his false claims