Thinking inside the Ox

[j4]

It's official! So now I can stop being secretive and superstitious with all my worries about jinxing it, for I have an actual all-references-cleared job offer in my hand (well, okay, in my ears, because they phoned me).

So I have handed in my notice here, my last day being November 3rd, and on November 6th I will start work over there instead. UCISA (you can pronounce it to rhyme with incisor if you like; at least, I did, and they gave me the job) doesn't actually employ anybody, so technically I'll be an employee of OUCS.

I'll have been in the new job for all of a day and a half before they fly me up to Scotland with them for one of their biggest conferences: still, there's nothing like being chucked in at the deep end for discovering how well you can swim.

Observant readers will notice that the new job is based in Oxford, which would be an unreasonably long commute from the hub of East Anglia's badger liaisons. Consequently addedentry and I are currently trying to find a place in Oxford that's big enough for eighteen bookcases (the obvious choice not currently taking in lodgers): details to follow as and when the current chaos crystallises into something resembling a plan.

Unfortunately this does mean that addedentry will no longer be able to keep his job here; I do feel dreadful about dragging him away without a definite destination in mind, though I have no doubt that he'll be snapped up soon, but in the meantime if anybody knows of exciting jobs in Oxford for a brilliant librarian then this is the man you're looking for.

*

Once upon a time, Owen and I predicted that we'd kill each other within a week if we went out with each other; on Sunday we quietly celebrated (with chocolate and DVDs) the fact that in the last two years we've completely failed to do so. I'm only flippant about it because otherwise I get all weepy (and any Anti-Soppists on my friends-list would probably send me to Coventry, which is hardly in the right direction for Oxford or Cambridge), but really I'm still wide-eyed with wonder at the thought that he's willing to follow me to the ends of the A14 and beyond despite the fact that I obviously drive him round the bend at times. I don't know where the next few years will take us, but I hope we can carry on travelling together.

Comments

:-))

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Well done on the stickiness front. Me too. (I mean, I hope you guys keep being happily sticky together. You Know It's Right.)(Chocolate helps, of course.)

Re job and Poxford, all jobs are wacko, let's face it. Yours at Fenlands seemed particularly so and I must admit that anything acronym'd "MISD" as in "MISSED" as in "one slice short of a loaf" should never have got through any committee stages whatsoever. So yayness rules.

As for places to live, my little house is going to be available at the end of December and you could line the downstairs and second bedroom with bookcases, but that won't be soon enough for you, I imagine... it would be cheap, not terribly central, not trendy East Oxford.

In the meantime, eyes will be out on stalks, looking for likely gaffs.

Gosh, this means we might meet in RL after all. (!)

Re: :-))

[j4.livejournal.com]

Sadly I think by end-of-December we will have signed away a small part of our souls to an Oxford letting agency (forms went in the post today, they are gouging us for frankly outrageous "administrative charges" but given how cheap the rent is and how big the house is and how helpful they've been in other respects I'm prepared to grimace-and-bear-it).

Never thought of the "MISSED" pronunciation before! Though there was a brief phase of spelling it MI5D to reflect the departmental attitude to openness of communications... ;-)

And what is this "real life" in which we could meet? (But yes, we must!)

Re: :-))

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

OOH, GREAT! Which agency? Maybe I should use them.

What is this Real Life.

Um. Got me there. I'm sure we will, though.

Re: :-))

[j4.livejournal.com]

Portfolio Properties (http://www.portpropoxford.co.uk/), who come recommended by truecatachresis (who rented the flat next door to the one that we're trying to get).

The idea that it should cost two hundred and seventy-five pounds for these people to get a third-party reference-checking company to check our references really does require some serious suspension of disbelief. But they have been very decent SO FAR about everything else, and to be honest I'm inclined to think that I'd rather pay an above-board bribe for good service than be hit for hassles or hidden costs later. (I'm hoping this is an either-or...)

Anyway, I've already taken one letting agency to court (Letting and Property Management on Cowley Road, and oh what a surprise they're still at it (http://www.oxfordstudent.com/tt2000wk0/Features/safe_as_houses%3F)), and don't mind doing the same again if this lot do turn out to be crooks. ;->

*{coughs}*

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

12% of the rent is about 5% higher than other 9reputable) agent charges. They better be good to you at that kind of price. Plus the check-your-references charge: you can check your credit rating for about 3 quid yourself. I'm genuinely shocked.

Re: *{coughs}*

[j4.livejournal.com]

It's not the credit rating, apparently, it's all the references -- checking out your employers' references and bank references and character references and so on. A whole expensive package. :-/

The impression I got was that the agency were merely passing on the charges that they thought they had to pay somebody else to do this amount of checking, but doing so in good faith IYSWIM. Owen has cunningly found the people they (claim to be) using for this process, Keysafe (http://www.keysafetv.com/), and their prices look high but not quite that high.... Hmmm.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I am just naïve. But I don't know how much of it is them-covering-their-backs or them-being-gouged-in-turn-by-somebody-else (and so ad infinitum) or just them trying for anything they can get. The thing is, as all Ox/Cam/London letting agents know, if one awkward tenant says "I object to these charges" there will be a queue of less-awkward tenants falling over themselves to give them outrageous sums of money for that big and conveniently-located property.

The other way of looking at it is that they're charging 795 a month for a four-bedroom flat about a mile from the station, and the 275 flat fee equates to an extra 45 pounds or so a month if we only stay there for 6 months, and to be honest I think if the flat was actually 840 a month we might well still agree to take it and absorb the extra somehow because it is The Right Place and The Right Size. And if we stay there for longer than six months then that flat fee will spread out better.

Or maybe I am just fooling myself. :-/

Re: *{coughs}*

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Blimey. That's quick. I was hoping to win the lottery tonight so that I could buy you a house, but no need now.

Although I could still do with winning the lottery of course. Which area is the flat in?

Re: *{coughs}*

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah go on, win the lottery anyway! :-)

The flat's in Botley, but right at the town side of it, so really practically in town. Fingers crossed for the letting agents processing our application smoothly!

On the wrong side for the Junction Zodiac* though. But closer than Cambridge!

* gah, I'd just about managed to stop calling Mill Road "Cowley Road", and the Junction "the Zodiac", and Histon Road "Banbury Road" and Huntingdon Road "Woodstock Road" and so on, and now I've got to switch it all round again!

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Note especially that the X30 bus takes sixteen minutes from your place to our prospective home!

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Oh, brilliant. I was going to buy a house on the other side of town, if I could, but that's essentially an excellent area.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I'm not shocked, unfortunately, especially after reading this 2005 article about fee after fee after fee (http://money.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,5188560-112960,00.html) (sorry, there's a 25 pound second-use intellectual property charge if you read it too).

It's a compromise. The agency comes recommended by a previous tenant, as J. mentioned; the property is very good for size and location and reasonable for rent. So we'd have to gamble on whether we could find a comparable property with fewer fees attached, and that gamble's trickier from a different city.

The reference checking service is http://www.keysafetv.com/ who J. calculates are charging the agency 220 pounds. So there's gouging all the way down.

waves hands stepping back

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

No criticism of you two implied at all - I am just shocked, that's all. As someone whose pension is tied up in a house I sometimes look into using an agent to manage it for me, and Andrews, half a mile from my little place, charge about 7% for a comparable service rather than the 12% Portfolio charge.

As for the fee on fee (in the hardest part of the year, the waies frozen), I guess it could take about 8 person-hours at maybe GBP 8/hour and 10 quid in telephone fees, times 2.5, and that would run to the 220/per more or less.

Without knowing anything about the place you have your eye on, the whole set up seems like a good thing, the rent seems very reasonable for the amount of space, you go for it, of course!

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

No criticism inferred. Andrews had some suitable places to rent, but I wouldn't be surprised if the fee they charge the landlady increases by the time they pass it on to the prospective tenant.

fee on fee (in the hardest part of the year, the waies frozen)

Winter is icumen in (-:

[imc.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that link seems to be dated TT2000 and refers to a case "last year", which must be around the same time as your case, yes? Not that I doubt they are still crooks. I'm just glad I have never had to deal with any letting agents.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Oh, so it is! I saw the "2006" at the top and was fooled into thinking it was current...

Our case would have been 1997-8, and the Housing Rights people said they were dealing with three other court cases against L&PM at the same time, so it's somewhat depressing that none of that dented them enough to stop them doing the same thing three years later. :-/

They're still in business, anyway (or were last time I looked), so they're probably still doing it now. I wonder if www.lettingandpropertymanagementat154cowleyroadarecrooks.com is available?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Coming late to this because I was away earlier this week and so didn't actually find this news out until tonight... L&PM were still at it in 2002 to my knowledge (luckily not my experience). Brookes Accommodation office always warned against them.

Congrats, and fingers crossed for a smooth move over!