To be a bit shocked at the landlord who is evicting 200 families because they are on housing benefit

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Heard this and 'Wow' - I was shocked.

He's being interviewed on C4 News.

He'd rather rent them to Eatern Europeans who are working.

He said that if house prices go up then rents should go up.

He said he's not the only landlord doing this.

Wow!

So some local authority will have to find new housing for all these people.

Where will this end?

I am stunned.

Ahh i love you little doris you raise such interesting point.

Dot they say sometimes new businesses can take 3years to break even,

if someone posted on mumsnet god know which forum but they setting up business have no contigency funds, needs to make x amount money little risk right away im sure they be laughed at whys being private landlord any blooming diffrent really is a few people who accidentally aquuired house no people with inheritance who inherited houses ever wish to live in due area, people who struggling sell and have let and for sale sign at same time.

Quite likes sarah beenneys property snakles and ladders as for so long was propery brought by amatuers painted everything white spent very little made huge profits. usually ended up living in it themselves or or by default renting as couldent sell.
Blooming homes under hammer programme i detest but husband likes full of pretend landlords hoping get rich quick.

To own one property wuld feel lucky to own more then be fab.

Houses should become homes again and not investment pension vehicles.

I have lives in some holes mostly student days.

lived current house 10 years nearly managed by agents who are snooty reedy shits,

Our property is falling apart kitchen/bathroom 30years old whole property dated we repaint every year, landcsape garedn , spent own money new flooring and fixing broken things estimate landlords maybe spent 1000on repairs/costs over last 10years not including agents fees,
every year we ask 2years he gves us ear was 6onths so he can put up rent and agents charge us admin fees yet never ever in 10years been late with rent.

recently he made hints he may sell, might spend some money and up rent as reckons he can get more but hes being greedy he wont.
Hes retired has his own property plus 3rentals and admitted mortage paid up on this place so reckon he makes tidy return.

we hoping to move as this property too small not good value for money yet moving costs high, shortage pf private houses in area and cost 1 months rent, deposit, agents fees works out hefty.

Complicated by partial housing due to hubbys new job low basic +commison.

some ads say no children. Would so love a dog but few renters allowed pets.

Do you have proof of this? Because I always thought the reason it changed was because landlords didn't want to be liable in the event of a fraudulent claim and put pressure on the govt and LAs. It mostly applies to private sector tenants anyway - tenants in social housing typically have the rent paid to the landlord directly, and the majority of them (I'm talking something like over 80%) would prefer to have it stay that way. Of course this will change under Universal Credit.

TheBuggerlugs when he evicted us the council advised us to stay until a bailiffs warrant was served and he represented himself in court and the judge ordered us to pay court fees, which I gather from his wife is what usually happens, add on to that how good he is at holding onto deposits he probably won't lose much.

My old house is still empty and on rightmove for £200 more a month than the already quite high for the area rent we were paying as are at least 6 other properties from last years evictions so he's clearly not having much luck renting them out.

PrincessFiorimonde the reason he gave last time was that he had an argument with Maidstone Borough Council because they witheld rent because he was leaving tenants without hotwater or heating, with dodgy locks and/or dangerous electrics, he actually sent me a really nasty letter when we first moved in coz having waited a month for his electrician to fix a dangerous socket and waited in 7 times for him I got an electrician in (which I paid for and provided him with the safety certificate).

Witchway, don't you think it is interesting timing to be giving back responsibility to HB tenants? If you factor in lower rates for those allocated housing with "spare rooms" due to no smaller properties available, together with the spiralling cost of living; the handing over of responsibility to tenants rather than direct to landlords could well be seen as a convenient smoke screen?

StrainingWaistband
I always handed it back clean and tidy and with any breakages made good. That's all I ask of my tenants, but I've yet to have one experience where that has actually been the case.

Do you not check references pre-contract, carry out regular inspections and have a deposit held in a tenant deposit scheme to minimise this risk?

An agency we went through made sure the house was professionally clean at start of tenancy, and was made clear as tenant's responsibility to provide receipts for professional cleaners (incl windows, oven and carpet clean) on exit or if agency hired would be taken from deposit with an admin fee charged in addition.

Tenants were clearly taken on knowing to budget for that on exit. The agency also held a small amount of Ll money (£200 or so) on agency agreement for small repairs from their recommended tradesmen, only needing approval from Ll and multiple quotes for anything larger. Worked really well in these respects.

That was quite a professional outfit.

Really interesting thread.
Seems to me that HB is a way for private landlords to rake it in in state handouts- that's scrounging in my opinion. Private rental of homes may be a business, but it's just about the least socially beneficial business I can imagine- the impact of the loss of social housing stock+ the proliferation of private rentals has caused social devastation by over inflating house prices, plus a lack of rent controls is one of the biggest contributors to a spiralling welfare budget- that plus low wages.
Why does no political party say so?

I wonder how many politicians and key party players are private landlords

Yes2014 - absolutely spot on that in the case of private landlords, HB is a transfer of public money to private hands. All private landlords get other people to pay for their 'investment'; in the case of tenants who don't rely on HB, it is the tenants that pay for it and in the case of HB tenants it is the state who pays for it. This arsehole in Kent has been getting the govt to fund his personal property empire for years.

Danann, I wonder if he's realised he's too highly leveraged and is panicking and trying to bring in more money as a result of this. Hope he goes bust - he sounds like a vile creature.

I did see a recent report in the Guardian on how austerity is backfiring on landlords
A lot of properties are suffering from more damp where tenants cant afford to put the heating on.

Nancy I don't think all lls are terrible, and good for you for voluntarily subscribing to regulation. But perhaps it is because it is only voluntary that is the issue. The point made earlier about tenants often not having a choice about who they let from is so significant, especially in areas of high competition. Agents also have a huge part to play in that.

Nancy, these regulatory bodies, do they control how much rent you can charge? Do they give your tenants any more security than other private sector tenants? Do they stipulate what you need to provide to your tenants? Do they have anything to do with your repairing obligations for eg can your tenants contact them if you do not fulfill your side of the contract re this?

If not, then that isn't regulation.

Oh, and if you want to tell a joke, try being funny as opposed to fucking rude.

wallison

I don't know where this assumption is thatcwe LLs can charge any rent we want?

I can only charge the going market value, if I try to charge more, my house sits empty. Added to that it's in the tenancy agreement that I can only increase the rent by a max of £25pcm per annum if I did choose to increase rents.

It make better business sense to me to attract a good tenant, treat the first 6 months as a trial introduction and then put in place a longer tenancy agreement. It costs me money to have an empty house, money to advertise for new tenants and it's risky to find the right new tenants. I also can't charge the outgoing tenants for wear and tear and would need to redecorate throughout to attract in the right new tenants and that takes time (empty houses cost money) and more investment.

All our tenants have been in for a minimum of 3 years now. I got fed up of the agencies renting out to the first people who wanted it and them being less than ideal so I took over managing my own tenant find process and also mange the properties themselves. The tenants come to me if there are problems, they know I'll sort anythings ASAP and see their properties as their homes rather than my investment.

I started off in rental housing on a nationally notorious housing estate. Our first house was £26,000 in the late 90's on this same shithole estate but it's the only way we could get on the housing ladder. Now, we live in a modest semi detached worth not much more than our rentals but chose to stay here and invest the money we could have spent in trading up the past 20 years. We are fed up of seeing others who refuse to live in a shithole and over stretched themselves on a mortgage to buy moaning at us because we played it cautiously and are happy to sit tight rather than keep trading up and it's paid off for us.

The rentals are long term investments for us, and are for my retirement. I won't apologies for being a LL and the fact that I have long term tenants in all the houses who are happy and have no intentions of moving says I'm doing something right. Having started out in rentals ourselves, we know the type of LL we would have wanted and strive to be that because our tenants are just as important to us as we are to them. I guess in the case of LLs with large portfolios this isn't going to be the case always but not all LLs are bad.

I guess many tenants have bad experiences because when others find a good landlord, they stay in their home and don't move on.

It's really opened my eyes to see how little control and power I have as a LL compared to tenants, that's why I highly value the tenants I have.

I find the idea that we live in one of the richest countries in the world, but still have poor people pretty fucking tiresome myself.....

I find the idea that a country is rich quite tiresome. "The country" doesn't have any money, the money in question belongs to various individuals. The idea embedded in that phrase is political doublespeak intended to conceal this fact and legitimise confiscation from one set of individuals for redistribution to another set. There is no rational moral basis for this redistribution. If there has to be a law, motivated by morality, allowing confiscation from the better off for the benefit of the poor, then logic would dictate that the money was spent somewhere like Somalia, where it would go much further. The suffering in the UK resulting from canceling all benefits here would be more than offset by the good done elsewhere.

My main thought when watching this was that he was a good example of how money doesn't make you happy as he had a naturally downturning mouth.
I think that individuals (or small groups of individuals) shouldn't be able to own more than 10 -20 properties each and only registered housing associations and councils own more. All houses should pay full council tax (unless the people living in them qualify for discounts) so having second homes lying empty much of the year is a luxury, and we should build more well insulated but affordable housing in areas where the jobs actually are, its pointless building more in areas with high unemployment even if that's where people are from as it just perpetuates the cycle of living on benefits.

Am I the only one a bit worried about all this new house building given the recent flooding?

Do we really not have enough housing already? Is it not more a matter that there is just not enough available in the £££ reach of most ordinary people?

I'd far rather see proper rent controls and reduced house prices and have society bail out and support landlords/homeowners facing "crisis" due to negative equity (than say, £40 billion spent on a high speed railway) in recognition that this will ultimately be a better way to resolve the housing crisis and stabilize the economy long term.

But no, let's make the state liable for risking more people taking out stupidly enormous mortgages, with the goal of maintaining this artificially high house price lark, which we seem hell bent towards.

All what new house building?

House building is at its lowest rate in decades. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/disaster-as-uk-housebuilding-rate-falls-away-8955242.html

Yes we need more homes.

More houses means lower prices.

All the house building that is going on that isn't affordable by those who need housing most. Maybe it's where I live Aga - houses are flying up left, right and centre, only a small proportion are questionably "affordable".
And all seems to be leading to a housing bubble?

Ahahahahahahahaha!

Landlords get easy money in our country. we have LL near us who rent to EE, the houses are in appalling state, vile, he gets rent weekly in hand
( no tax declaration), he doesn't have to do anything to the property to keep it nice, and those that live near the house suffer the consequences of anti social behaviour and the LL does nothing, nothing to control them or anything because there is no tenancy agreement and they will be gone in one or two weeks.

I think all Landlords need to be brought to heel to make sure properties are habitable and of a certain standard and they must make sure they are in charge of their property and if their lodgers are causing problems for the neighbours, they must be held accountable.

Yes Wallison, I'd like to see the banks and the state taking proper responsibility for allowing things to spiral out of control the way they have.

I don't blame anyone individually for taking advantage of rocketing house prices, it was and is perfectly legal after all. But it is unsustainable and has become completely immoral imo, given what it has lead to.

most people who claim housing benefit are in work. im a single mum i work but like lots of people cant afford high rent with rubbish wages.
he's evicting everyone on benefits, even people who work and have never defaulted- doesn't seem fair at all

"Landlords get easy money in our country."

Yes, of course, you're so right.

Yes, landlords can only charge the market rate, but the market is utterly artificial due to under supply of houses and under regulation of rented accommodation.

The rights and responsibilities are skewed too heavily in favour of the landlord. There needs to be rent controls set by area, long term secure tenancies and a proper duty on landlords to perform maintenance on their properties.

This is a win-win situation, it will make some of the cowboys buck up their ideas or get out of property altogether. If they choose to sell up, alll well and good, it will put more homes onto the market increasing the supply of houses on the open market.