MNHQ here: Shelter's campaign for longer rental contracts

Most landlords provide decent accommodation but I accept some criminals let out hovels..
What I don't understand is why a tenant stays there..
There was a program showing extreme examples of hovels n Leeds. The reporter was being shown these by a council official.
They said the tenant had lived there for 6 years so why didn't the council condemn it?

It didn't look like the tenant was looking after it either. Another one had bits of wood all over the front door I presume it had been kicked in another one showed stoned windows. The council should have condemned them and moved the tenants out.
The trouble is that as with most things in life it's only the bad that gets reported to the likes of shelter not the samples of excellent rented out homes
I think shelter done a report on conditions and the prs was better by 1% than the social sector

Property conditions review
Introduction
The private rented sector is an important and growing part of our housing market, housing
3.8 million households in England. The quality of privately rented housing has improved
rapidly over the past decade.
The overwhelming majority of landlords are reputable and provide decent well maintained
homes. This is demonstrated by high levels of satisfaction with 83% of tenants happy
with the service they receive from their landlord1
. We want to support these landlords to
continue to provide a good service and a safe home for their tenants. The Government is
keen not to impose further regulation on these good landlords. Unnecessary regulation
increases costs and red tape for landlords, and can stifle investment. It also pushes up
rents and reduces the amount of choice and supply for tenants. We believe that non-
regulatory alternatives, e.g. incentives or peer pressure, can be as effective as regulation.
Good landlords, who are approachable and offer help and support, can have an incredibly
positive impact on their tenants, including on some of the more vulnerable members of our
society who have turned to the private rented sector to meet their housing needs.
However, there is a small proportion of landlords who neglect their properties and exploit
their tenants.

Plus if we are talking about gravy trains, shall we talk about the £12 billion a year that private landlords coin in in the form of housing benefit, which is a benefit primarily claimed by those in employment? I wonder how many council houses that would build in a ten year period.

Indeed something can be done about the fact that one third of private sector rentals are substandard. I wish the government would put its mind to it because it is an entirely unacceptable state of affairs. And I am also sick of hearing sob stories from landlords including a fair few on this thread bitching about their spare house having a burn on one of the carpets while in the meantime tenants living in appalling conditions are vulnerable to eviction despite paying through the nose for their accommodation.

Seems to me like the proposal from shelter is as always with all their ideals- Totally one sided and biased towards to the tenant. What people need to realize- If it went back to the so called 'Good old days' when a tenancy was forever (Prior to the assured shot hold tenancy acts of 1988) and back in the times when everyone rented there was a severe shortage of accommodation for people who were in the position where they did not qualify for the gravy train of social housing council homes. Young singles,widows etc were the worst hit. Could not get a council house and not one you could rent privately either. No one wanted to be a landlord those days

There are more than enough laws to protect tenants these days- What people never seem to look at is the conduct of many people who are tenants. Damage, non payment of rent and all you seem to hear is the sob stories. Yes I agree there is some cases that maybe people are living in conditions which may not be an acceptable standard, but this country is not yet at the the third world level that many portray- more often than not something can be done about it if you put your mind to it.

You think that landlords should be given statutory powers - ie more powers than mortgage companies have - to recover debts? Really??!

Plus please stop all of this nonsense about "most landlords are great and lovely and my friend has a lovely hmo". Statistically, if you rent a house from a private landlord you have a one in three chance of living in a substandard home. For hmos the figure is far higher. This transfer of the provision of rented housing from the public sector to the private sector has been a disaster in both social and fiscal terms.

Yes, I find that rather ironic, given how many Conservative MP's own & rent out additional properties.

If you do find yourself with bad tenants the neighbours tend to blame the landlord
They do not understand that you can't just kick them out
I think that if there is rent arrears and damage then landlords should b able to recover like the government can do for council tax
I don't think mum's net hate landlords surely there probably are many on this forum that have a btl
They might not want to admit it because the government has painted landlords as greedy for their own political gain

I don't think it is the tax break thing as much as the fear that if you do get really awful tenants you are stuck with them.

What if there were tax breaks for landlords offering five year secure tenancies? Gov could make it appealing to mortgage companies too somehow. So you don't have to offer a five year tenancy if you're just putting your house up to let while you're abroad or something but it's worth your while to do so if you are a professional landlord.

Trouble is you will never get a balanced argument on MN with regard to landlords. They are HATED on here, no idea why, I have never come across it in RL. There are some very good points being made but as usual some people just cant see past their hatred of landlords.

I admit I see both sides of it in the work I do. I was also a landlord for several years and a tenant for many more. My DD is currently renting.

The obsession with owning also makes me angry. It really is not to be entered into lightly - as we saw when all the Right to Buy people suddenly realised they were responsible for huge maintenance bills or when it dawns on people that you can't just move if you can't afford it any more. The big crash in the1990s was due to people being unable to pay increased inetrest charges - and effectively going bankrupt.

The costs of renting v buying are frequently portrayed as simply mortgage payments v monthly rent. There is no thought about the stamp duty if you have to move, the buildings insurance, the cost of a new roof/boiler/bathroom etc

There were some very good arguments made about the negative effect on mobility of labour of house ownership. (Can' t link as anacdotal).

We NEED both sectors and we have to treat rentals with respect for both sides. This ridiculous demonisation of landlords as somehow selfish and evil is not help at all.

Good post Badknee

Yes if it addressed these issues then maybe lenders would be more willing to consider longer tenancies too.
Currently the court system for evictions is very slow and when councils advise tenants to stay until the bailiff you are probably looking at 5 plus months . This is stressful for both parties and landlords lose thousands

Agree five year tenancies a good idea but they have to be backed by much, much easier ways to get tenants out if they break the rules.

Tenants who don't pay, who damage property or are anti-social need to be removed quickly and cheaply so that decent tenants who want to treat a property as a home can do so. Many LLs would be only too happy to garantee a five year contract if that safeguard existed.

Sorry SheilaWheeler I did not mean you I think you have raised a valid point.
It was in reply to charlestrenet who seems to think swearing is acceptable on a forum

I hope you don't mean me Coolgirl!! You are referring to charlestrenet aren't you?

If you do mean me then I can assure you that I am not anti-landlord, far from it. I think there is an enormous amount of rubbish spoken in regard to them. If there is one case of a bad landlord then the whole lot of you are labelled as bad. Why this doesn't seem to apply to anyone else, like plumbers for example, I have no idea.

The press like to go on about landlords pushing up house prices but I'm really not sure this is based on any factual evidence. I like to think for myself and the more I think about this point the more I think the opposite is true. That's why when foxesarefriends says what she does I question it.

I think the answer to my question to her is obvious but I hope she will reply. Maybe she has a different take on things and can show me I am wrong.

It is clear from your post you have a problem with landlords
Many landlords are good people who provide great homes for many people who don't want to or are unable to buy
If 5 year tenancies come in as already been raised if the person gets into difficulties how do you end the tenancy
If landlords find they will be tied in without hope of removing due to problems then many might sell
How would this help tenants?

I have a question for you foxesarefriends.

As I say, I know a number of landlords because of what I do. One of them has a large number of HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation). I don't know exactly how many but it's more than 20 and may be even as many as 30. They are all big houses and mostly 3 storey town houses.

He doesn't know it but I've been in one of them because I know one of his tenants, though she's now gone on to buy a house herself. The shared house was very nice. It was clean and modern and were I single and looking for somewhere cheap to live I would be very happy to live in one of his places.

Let's just say, for sake of argument he owns 25 of these houses. There are at least 5 people in each and often 6 from what I'm told. So that's at least 125 tenants living cheaply and in nice places (judging purely from what I've seen and been told). This landlord is a switched on man and only wants good tenants so wouldn't let his houses fall into disrepair.

So my question is, what would be the effect on starter home house prices in the area if he suddenly evicted all of these people and converted the houses back to less efficient family homes?

Fuck off with your campaigning for landlords bullshit, coolgirl. PS speaking for landlords and their interests is the opposite of cool.

If u can't give me the link perhaps provide some information here on what % you think btl as increased house prices and why you think it's not worth even looking at deed of assurance.?

Unbelievable that you quoted
Utter rubbish but a report provides the stats😁

I have never said I was an expert but pointed you to a report that said btl only increased house prices marginally and people should not believe everything the government say

coolgirl you have googled, then copied and paste from this

webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919132719/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/684943.pdf

Unbelievable

Coolgirl21 those stats are not up to date or sourced properly. I couldn't possibly link to ours as of course it would identify me.

I merely refuted your suggestion that you were some sort of expert. You are either the person that you were advertising for (a landlord who owns huge housing stock and offers tax avoidance advice) or someone who supports his values (which I do not).
We work for the public sector with housing projections. I don't but dh is a statistician.

I am going to namechange now.

This is problematic.
How will a landlord get a house back from a tenant who has defaulted on the rent?
The current law gives the tenant absolute right of tenure for six months. If this is extended to 5 years a landlord can see up to 60 months of unpaid rent before they can get the property back along with the cost and uncertainty of legal action.