Rented property, is my landlord allowed to do this?

[Kingsdk22]

Hello,
Ive been living in my rented flat with my girlfriend for about 10 months now. We are paying 550 pounds per month and paying all our own bills.
The problem we have is the sofas that are in the flat are well past the sell by date toatlly lost all shape and comfort. we have offered to buy our own sofas but she said she has nowhere to store the sofa that is in the flat for the next tennants. She then said she has inherited a sofa from a dead relative and she is going to give us that one anyway. In the 10 months we have been there we have made it our own adding bits of furniture etc. we dont want a sofa that she wants to give us we want some say, theres a good chance the sofa she is going to bring us wont even fit between these bookcases that we bought which fit exactly either side of the current sofa.
Is the landlord allowed to just give us furniture she said shes inherited? prsonally we dont want them. I understand she is looking long term and the offer of a free sofa is of benefit to her. But we dont want a sofa that wont go with anything we have purchsed in the 10 months we have been living there. We are planning to stay in the flat for atleast another 14 months. We want to buy our own sofa to take with us when we leave and to have some comfort in the rest of the time we are there.
She seems pretty adament we cant buy our own sofa we are good tennats have always payed rent on time and shes happy we keep the flat clean etc.

I would appreciate any advice
Thank you

[lemonsorbet]

WHen you signed the tenancy agreement, was it for a furnished or unfurnished flat?

If furnished, then the landlady can offer any reasonable furniture I believe!

You could always put it in storage yourself and buy a new one?

Why not hand in your notice and find somewhere unfurnished if you have your own stuff already?! it's often cheaper to rent unfurnished flats as the owners don't have to pay much council tax when it's empty!

[Kingsdk22]

we did sign for a furnished flat. we dont really want to move out, the location is ideal for us and we are settled here now.
the landlady mentioned the new sofa she is going to give us is a blue leather one. it just will not go with any of the items we have bought for the front room. i might have to try and persuade her again. we are good tennants and i will have to see if she can come to a compromise,

[Twenty20]

Well, you can buy your own sofa but she has no obligation to take the existing one away, so you could get left with two. This is really one of the downsides of renting, certainly with a furnished rent, you dont get to choose the furniture.

I think youre right, talk to her, tell her your concerns, that you want to keep the house nice etc etc. Hopefully she'll she that as a positive thing and that keeping good tenants might be better than the benefit of a free second hand sofa.

We're lucky that we can store furniture that tenants dont want away from the properties but most landlords wont be able to do this.

If you get landed with the secondhand sofa, do make sure that it's fire retardant - the labels should still be on the sofa. Older sofas might not be and so shouldnt be used by a decent landlord.

[edward80]

Tell her that you are going to hand in your notice to vacate because of this - if she has any sense she will make other plans to store her furniture rather than lose good tenants.