AIBU to worry about Section 21 ending causing mass evictions?

Why? I genuinely don’t see the benefit for this but appreciate I might be missing something.

A lot of my friends are landlords and aren’t doing this. They hate having to get new tenants. Not only do you have a couple of dead months with no income but you have to redecorate, new carpets, pay fees to the letting agents for finding new people and of course the risk that you get rid of decent tenant for unknown ones.

The only time I could see it being useful if you have people renting who you already know miss rent payments, etc. 🤷‍♀️

Or the big companies don’t step in and house prices fall massively. Great for ftb but not so good for people who have already bought and are in negative equity.

Personally I’d love to see house prices fall but I’d feel sorry for anyone affected by that if it happens.

Growing up and even now, none of the (mortgaged) houses I lived in would meet rental standards.

Agree with PP who said the landlords rental property is likely a higher state of energy efficiency and snag-list stuff than their own house they live in themselves!

A lot of landlords are evicting to re-let though not sell. The letting agent who manages a neighbours property (which usually has only a handful of properties to let on their books) has loads of properties available to rent from April. They advised landlords to evict and relet before the changes in May.

Millions of happy renters in the continent would disagree with you. But hey, what would they know?

Maybe black rock are buying as they knew the Gov policy would cause rents to sky rocket. Will they take more money for asylum seekers rent or rent to a local family for less?

Id far prefer to rent from a person than a corporation with departments you can never get hold of.

The bad landlords will continue being bad landlords, tenants won’t dare speak up as they will know how hard it is to find another home.

Landlords who rent out individual rooms without the licence or tiny rooms to families will keep doing so.

The law abiding ones will realise £100 profit a month just isn’t worth it. So rents will rise or they will sell.

But I’m sure the government or a caring corporation (hedge fund) will step in and do a far better job at providing homes than individual landlords. And those caring corporations certainly won’t want a profit of £100 per house.

I am not a landlord. I understand American is banning companies mass buying housing - Labour should do the same - but they won’t.

Can someone explain why ‘BlackRock’ etc automatically = bad?

Investment / asset management firms manage large sums of money that they accrue from lots of small investors and some larger ones (like pension funds). The investors want return on their investment. If an investment company builds a rental property then they receive steady income in the form of rent, which is just the sort of thing their investors want.

They don’t want the faff of a revolving door of tenants so try to be fair landlords. They’re good because the chance of them evicting you for no good reason is minimal so you can get truly invested in the local area / schools without fear that you’re going to have to move constantly. They have money to make any necessary repairs. Look to continental Europe where investors owning ‘build to rent’ blocks is far more common. People seem happy to rent there.

If they charged above market rent who would pay it? Well actually with the evictions going on rents in the UK will be soaring soon so the market rent will be far far higher than ever. But that’s what we wanted with the RRB, no?

The requirements for bringing a house up to standard with certificates and safety measures are baffling when private owners don’t have the same requirements. I have been a landlord in the past when our family worked abroad for a few years. It was a really good family home in an area desperately short of housing. But wouldn’t meet energy efficiency standards and these days I would have had to do expensive work to make it comply.

Why are the housing requirements not universal and only needed because someone is a tenant? I know it’s because a landlord has to take responsibility - but it’s infantilising people to not allow them to pay their money and take their choice to live somewhere without wired in smoke alarms and energy efficiency if that’s all that’s available.

My friend would have been an accidental landlord as she’s met someone and moved in with him and her 3 bedroom house is empty. She said she’d rather hang on to it and rent it out in case relationship doesn’t work out. But now she’s too worried about being a landlord so it’s been empty for 9 months now.

Yes, I agree. The lack of social mobility is getting worse and it's hurting us.

I'm not keeping up with this, but am wondering if the govt is simultaneously easing restrictions and providing incentives to housing associations or local authority housing schemes? Could kill two birds, in that case.

This is fine where people have the deposit to be able to buy. The people who really suffer are those without the deposit who face an ever increasing rent (due to the scarcity of rental properties) and are therefore even less able to save for the deposit. These people end up trapped in renting, mainly down to not having a bank of mum and dad to help with the deposit. Lack of social mobility is becoming increasingly ingrained in this country.

If you're right in thinking most landlords will end tenancies and sell up, this will vastly increase the supply of homes for sale. Consequently, prices should go down and more people will be able to buy.

Yep, I'm currently in a Travelodge with my DH and 3 sons.

The houses will still exist. Either they will flood the housing market causing prices to drop and current renters will be able to afford them (and for those who can't, they will rent the properties vacated by those who can) or they will be back on the rental market offered for rent with new contracts and a higher £ pm.

..big companies will buy them up and fill the breach and rents will increase hugely.

Big companies aren't interested in buying and renting out individual flats and houses. They buy up or build blocks of flats, entire developments or parts of developments.

Take a look at what properties Lloyds and Grainger are renting out on their websites, for instance
https://www.lloydsliving.co.uk/
https://www.graingerplc.co.uk/

Edited for spelling

just to add, I will never donate a penny to shelter ever again.

What will happen? Long term stability for decades and beyond, at the expense of limited issues for a few months as things stabilise around the time of the change.

@Catterbat there's little to no money left in being a landlord now for many, the risks are also high, it is better to sell than make a loss. A non paying tenant can take months to evict and no guarantee you'll ever see the money you're owed.

Yes. 2 of my kids have been evicted as the landlord is selling. The properties will probably be bought by hedge funds which have started to invest in property ( also in the US and Australia) which is definitely not good news for renters or buyers. The government has totally screwed up with these reforms.

Can someone please answer the pp who
asked what it is about the new rules that make being a (decent) landlord so difficult?

We’re selling up, but are in the process of selling tenanted to avoid evicting our tenants

The worst is that a lot of bad landlords will be evicting tenants who’ve put up with substandard accommodation for years, and paid their landlords mortgages. As soon as substandard legally means inescapable costs for the landlord , tenants find themselves homeless 🤷‍♀️ .

Not true. One year guaranteed for tenant but they can give two months notice at any time.

Fair point but it suppose it does suggest they're not immediately kicking us out.

This does also add weight to the question as to why good landlords are evicting good tennants due to the new rules

We had our lovely tenants of many years move out as they bought their first house. We are good landlords, accidental landlords of one flat. We had thirty two applications for the flat in a week, many having been served notice, some having had large rent increases. The tenant who we will be giving the lease to has been given notice as his landlord is selling up.So many people will be homeless.As usual good landlords will pay the price for bad landlords, and good tenants will suffer too.