This week Lea Beven, of Limecastle house shares and lettings, tells a cautionary tale for all the wannabe landlords out there.

We recently had a lady who has been living in a housing association property for over 10 years contact us to rent a house, as she wanted to move to a nicer area.

We found her a lovely property that was newly refurbished to a reasonable standard.

The tenant wanted to stay in the property long term, her son’s school was local and she was quiet, tidy and friendly.

The landlord requested to meet the tenant before she moved in after she had reserved and immediately proceeded to tell her that she could not paint, wallpaper or install sky and her 10 year old son could not put up posters in his room.

He mentioned the tenancy agreement would be a 12 month one and inspections would be done regularly to make sure she kept the property tidy and that if she did anything he did not like then after 12 months he would not renew.

He also said that he would be putting the rent up every year.

For a small family moving into a long term rental this is the kind of thing that can really put a new tenant off.

Firstly, I should never have let them meet (won’t do that again in a hurry).

The landlord’s defensive behaviour put the tenant off completely.

She really should be allowed to make this property her home as she is genuinely looking to stay for 10 years +.

The landlord also said that if he moved back into the area that he may want to move back into the property, this also put the tenant off.

When in truth he never would live in that area.

After trying to diffuse the situation, the landlord agreed that actually she could make it more a home, and in the end just said he had a bad experience before.

I called her back, but by then the fear had been put in her – and the deal was broken.

Such a shame, a lovely family, and a lovely property.

So here’s my tip of the week – keep your personal feelings OUT of a rental property if you want to get a good tenant in and use your common sense.

Putting fear into your tenants will not make them keep it clean.

Only clean people will be clean!

• Read Lea’s first blog here