The Realities of Getting a London Flat (14 December)

In Vancouver, when you get a new apartment, you generally have to pay the first month's rent in advance plus a damage deposit of no more than half of your monthly rent. For our last apartment, that meant around $1500. London is very different.

The night before we met with our new landlord to sign our rental agreement, we double-checked to make sure we had enough money for the next day. In London, you generally need to pay one month's rent in advance as well as a deposit that can be as much as two months' rent. In addition, there can be fees payable to letting agents for all kinds of "services," ranging from finding you a flat to reference-check fees to credit-check fees. Luckily, we avoided the whole agent circus and found a great private landlord. Still, for our let, we handed over approximately £2300, which is currently more than $5000 CAD: JUST TO GET INTO A FLAT. And since our UK bank account was still in process at this point, this meant we had to have this money in cash. Looking at this photo makes me want to stock up on Sainsbury's basics in an attempt to balance our currently very unbalanced books.