Yes I see the point etoo is trying to make, and yes it is sensible to have some money set aside for a few months late payments and ongoing repairs. However it is not as simplistic as this. When a tenant refuses to pay their rent, then this goes above and beyond that.
To go though the legal channels to evict someone is a minimum of 4 to 5 months. The landlord has to wait for two months non payment before issuing a section 8 notice, then they have to wait for the court date. Even when the court agrees that the tenant must move out, it doesn't mean they actually will by the dates given. Which means more time is dragging on, which means continued non payment of rent.
If you add to that the damage that some tenants cause, (malicious damage is generally not covered by insurance), the refusal to allow tradesman in to do gas safety checks (which again invalidates insurance), the cost goes far beyond what most small businesses have as an emergency float. And renting out property is a completely different business to anything else. If you went to a supermarket and took things without paying, the police would be called or you would be banned from the store. A builder would be paid in installments, and if you stopped paying the builder would down tools and stop. But a landlord has to let a tenant carry on living there, rent free and possibly damaging the property, until a court directs otherwise.
The rent lost, and the damage caused to my property amounted to the value of about three years rent in total. Not many small businesses could take a loss of revenue amounting to that amount, particularly if it becomes a regular occurrence, which means it simply isn't worth it.
It is rather ludicrous when people like Etoo casually say that landlords have no business to be in that field without financial backup, when she has never been a landlord, she has no idea about being a landlord, and clearly has no idea of what the level of financial back up needs to be. Really, how much level should you have. Do you think three years worth is enough Etoo?
Instead Etoo harps on about the fragile tenant and the responsibility that the landlord has to them. For society to function effectively, everybody has rights but also responsibilities. To Etoo's way of thinking, the only person who has responsibilities in the landlord / tenant scenario is the landlord. The fragile tenant just has the rights.
I expect Etoo would be rather miffed if his/her employer didn't pay him/her because they decided they couldn't afford to. Its still stealing isn't it.
There isn't any other scenario that I can think of where people simply stop deciding to pay in this way. A mortgage company wouldn't be taking the financial hit if someone decided to stop paying. It would be the individual themselves. But in the case of the landlord, some people see them as fair game. And very rarely are they forced to pay that money that they have stolen, back. I find it very sad that a reasonable percentage of people think this is ok, even the ones that don't rent, not caring about the devastation they might cause to the landlord, simply for daring to own another home.