To think pre 1989 tenancy rights should be restored?

[fideline]

And that Assured Shorthold Tenancies should be abolished (or severely restricted?

Pre 1989 nearly all rents were subject to 'fair rent' adjudication and private tenants had much better security of tenure.

Reintroducing similar measures would vastly improve quality of life for millions of people in the UK (including children) and help to reduce the Housing Benefit bill.

Special exemptions and phasing arrangements could be made for accidental LLs and amateur LLs with small portfolios.

Reasonable?

[fideline]

Caitlin to step back a bit; I'm sure lots of private LLs do a fine job, I have never said otherwise. Good LLs (surely a majority) have nothing to fear from a more regulated tenancy regime (more needed down here than up there it seems). So what's the problem?

[Caitlin17]

"A more regulated regime" It would be difficult to imagine how it could be more regulated. The fact you can say that shows how little you understand the reality or the law.

I have several friends who were renting in Brussels and who were landlords in the UK. They mentioned how that was the worst of both worlds given what they were meant to do as landlords in the UK and what their Belgian landlords didn't have to in Brussels.

Oh and your wonderful idea of secure tenancies for as long as the tenant wants would have made it impossible for them to rent out their UK houses as they would be returning to them after the secondment in Brussels. Under your proposal the houses would sit empty.

[LessMissAbs]

Fideline I'm not sure what your "pesky academic training" is in, but it certainly cannot be property related, as you know nothing about it. Neither can it be economics or accounting. I would have thought however that it would have equipped you with the ability to research your subject matter prior to prescribing solutions to and insulting those who are qualified in a relevant field and who know better than you.

I don't doubt that the Scottish system works better than the English (for e.g.) one. 'Better' and 'perfect' are two different things however

I wouldn't agree that the Scottish system works better than the English; they make a number of mistakes and human rights errors re freedom to contract and EU competition law. Much of it seems to operate on the basis of licensing areas so that only one company is authorised to carry out the requited check, at great expense, and increasing year by year the number of checks required, not always by primary legislation. For instance, we are required to throw away our fire blankets and fire extinguishers after 3 years even if they still function, and only one company can check and supply authorised replacements, and that company is owned by someone who used to work for the local authority. Ditto when we had to have the locks replaced so that they could not be locked with a key from the inside.

English law, possibly due to the doctrine of privity of contract having some latent effect, interprets HMOs less strictly and only tends to apply the law relating to those to flatted dwellings in many LAs. However, the annual gas safety certificate and notification periods for eviction and court procedures required/protection of tenant's rights are still stronger than in the majority of EU jurisdictions.

In Germany for instance, the only requirements for rented property is to renew or have checked the windows and central heating system every 20 years.

Its pretty obvious that its either a trade off between high quality conditions for rental property and/or regulated rents/longer assured tenancies. I don't think the market can support both. ie in Germany tenancies are longer and sometimes for life but the tenant is expected to do many repairs themselves/not moan too much and if they do breach their tenancy obligations, they will be out on their ears. Some rented properties are rented in Germany without anything in them, even kitchens - tenants have their own kitchen and take it with them if they move. My German lawyers friends have difficulty believing me when I tell them how in Scotland, we must have sprinkler systems in two level flats, self closing doors, cookers chained to walls, and so on, and they laugh at the ineptitude of the tenants and the nanny state which insists on such measures.

Likewise, many tenants simply do not want to rent from social landlords because they do not provide a good standard of accommodation in all cases. For some reason you seem to confuse these with "professional" landlords (although as you have consistently refused to explain what you mean by this while simultaneously using it as a criticism of any landlord you mention).

In short, I don't think you live in the real world. The real world had my DH removing a fridge freezer our tenants had broken at the weekend and replacing it with a new one and me writing letters to them to invite them to explain why its door no longer functioned but was detached from its body, so as to enable me to write to the Tenancy Deposit Scheme for their deposits back when they move out to assist in replacing it. He also reset their central heating for them as they are unable to work the controls or follow the manual. All within less than 36 hours from getting a phone call from them, and at the weekend. In my experience, this is what the majority of small landlords do, while the larger ones are by no means immune to taking a couple of weeks to respond to similar requests.

We have now reached the stage in Scotland where its considered perfectly good advice to a client to leave their property empty rather than putting it on the rental market, due to the expense in doing so and continuing to do so, when offset against the likelihood of damage and tax regime.

[fideline]

Caitlin, read my post again - it specifically acknowledges that regulation is more urgently needed down here in E/W as tenants here are in a much worse situation

[wowfudge]

fideline - I am far from 'hardcore'. I can see both sides of the story. For starters, there is bias: 'even ordinarily grasping landlords' she states. Hardly demonstrates anything other than a negative view of landlords.

Why would you accept such living conditions? She says she reported one landlord, presumably to environmental health, and was then given one month's notice to move out. As ASTs require two months notice from the landlord then something isn't right. I cannot comprehend why someone would hand their hard earned cash to a landlord like that. More fool them if they do because it perpetuates the situation. There is insufficient detail of her actual circumstances to know why she was renting in such circumstances. Your original proposition wouldn't help a tenant in similar unsavoury conditions.

In the Greater Manchester area, a double room in a shared house in areas such as Chorlton, Didsbury, Fallowfield, Withington, Whalley Range routinely costs £400-500 per month. That's in a nice, big house, often with extra bathrooms, a communal living room and kitchen/diner. Young people want to live there because of the proximity to nightlife, bars, restaurants in walking distance and an easy commute by bus or tram into Manchester for work. The rents are high because so many people want to live there. It's the same reason house prices in the same areas are high.

Move just 4 miles out of the city centre and you can rent a whole house in council tax band A for that kind of money and be on a good bus route for commuting to work for £13 per week (which also covers weekends).

You pays your money, you takes your choice.

I have been a tenant and the first flat I rented with a friend nearly twenty years cost £425 per month. It was a few miles out of the city centre, but so much better than anything else we had seen in fashionable areas. That rent was on a par with Chorlton where we had been looking, but after years in crappy student houses (which arguably we paid over the odds for because we wanted to be in the centre of the student action), we didn't want to pay to have no proper central heating and an immersion heater which wasn't on a timer. Rents have not increased much over the years, but the number of rental properties has, giving tenants more choice.

Aga - so at 25 would you rather have a 40 year mortgage or rent for the foreseeable and beyond? You don't explain how longer mortgage terms will make houses more expensive.

I am with LessMissAbs on this - fideline you are unable or unwilling (or both) - to consider that the reality may be something different from that which you think it is based on the knowledge you have. When contributors on here have sought to disabuse you of your misconceptions you have been intransigent and have further demonstrated what little grasp you have of the subject.

[fideline]

Well it is essentially first-person piece, but your 'bleating' remark WAS hardcore.

[fideline]

I think what has actually happened Wow is that people have repeatedly attributed preconceptions to me that I don't have.

There hasn't been much actual discussion of the subject on this thread

[Caitlin17]

I was going to bow out but MissLessAbs comments re Germany match exactly with the experience my friends had in Brussels. There was absolutely no concept of telling the landlord to deal with repairs , they were on their own and in one case with electrics which would have sent the PRHP into orbit if they'd seen how bad they were. This was not a cheap student anything will do let but government secondments.

[wowfudge]

Oh dear God - missing the point AGAIN. Look fideline YABU and I've had enough: it's the equivalent of banging my head against a brick wall and I'm all out of aspirin.

You and your LL bashing mates are welcome to it.

[fideline]

There is no LL bashing Wow. You are the one missing the point.

[fideline]

But you have many sympathy. I have a similar bruised forehead as a result of attempting to talk to Abs (in particular)

[Caitlin17]

There has been plenty of discussion . You simply didn't like it because it didn't agree with you.

[fideline]

No there really hasn't Caitlin.

There's been a lot of ranting and jumping to conclusions and defensiveness.

But intelligent discussion? Not really.

[wowfudge]

fideline there has been much LL bashing I don't know how you can deny it. And if you're accusing Caitlin of those things you list, you need to look at yourself and re-read what you have posted.

Over and out.

[fideline]

^"And if you're accusing Caitlin of those things you list...."

There you go again. I wasn't. Why twist things?

[fideline]

"fideline there has been much LL bashing I don't know how you can deny it"

Well my time on this thread has chiefly been taken up with correcting false assertions.

If you think the net impression that this thread gives is that LLs are all calm and reasonable human beings, much beleaguered; it doesn't.

[LessMissAbs]

Well my time on this thread has chiefly been taken up with correcting false assertions

OP, you are beginning to sound like you have a god complex.

I have made a number of posts with substantive content which can be easily checked (all legislation is accessible online now). As has Caitlin.

I find your comments vague and lacking specification. ie you don't back up your points with evidence, despite pointing to an academic background.

However I have to say that if the overly regulated Scottish system want to introduce even further stringent licensing requirements for landlords (we are licensed twice over, via landlord registration and HMOs and the requirement is not to be a professional landlord but a fit and proper person) and to introduce an exam - I'd be delighted to sit in. In fact, I'll even draft it for them if they pay me. My concern though would be that it would have to be at such a low level to encompass the vast variety of employees that the larger landlord organisations have from less than academic or experienced backgrounds.

I think its also clear from this thread that some people also have personal issues, possibly arising from past disputes with landlords, or difficulty in getting properties. Which is why ensuring your previous landlord gives you a good reference is one of the cleverest things a tenant can do - and theres no way of legislating for that.

[LessMissAbs]

Agree about Belgium Caitlin. I did a stint in Belgium last year and my rented apartment was supposed to be one of the better ones, and in no way does it compare to what I have to provide to students over here. But it was charming. I was in with the EU crowd and saw a lot of apartments - the one with the faulty toilet for 3 months was a bit of a classic!

Same when I was at university in The Netherlands. The staircases and rattly windows would have your typical UK student's mummy and daddy having a fit. Nothings changed - stayed there recently, in a friend's apartment with no ceiling lights because the wiring had gone faulty 5 years ago, but he daren't complain because it was a good sized apartment in a good area.

[fideline]

Abs you are hilarious.

So you tell someone (quite wrongly) that they think A, B and C, that they are disappointed with their life because they live in a rented room (they aren't and they don't) etc etc etc

When they correct you, they have the god complex?

Priceless.

[fideline]

Your assertion that academic research training only happens in the fields of property management and accounting was particularly good, too.

[LessMissAbs]

Not at all. I do however think there are some posters who have had unpleasant personal experiences who post disproportionately on the internet.

I don't think theres anything hilarious about me, the property rental market, people unable to afford to buy, empty properties, over-regulation, homelessness, etc..

In any academic field (and you have insisted above that you have an academic background), you are required to back up the points you make with evidence. Not with sarcasm, scathing, being rude to other debaters and considering yourself to be the font of all knowledge.

Basically, you haven't made a good case for your point in your OP, and lack the skills to do so. You could gain those skills academically, or you could gain some experience in the field you are trying to criticise, but from what I've gathered from your postings, you aren't a grafter.

[fideline]

Again, what on earth are you on about?

The debate on this thread never got started. It was derailled by nonsense.

"In any academic field (and you have insisted above that you have an academic background), you are required to back up the points you make with evidence. Not with sarcasm, scathing, being rude to other debaters and considering yourself to be the font of all knowledge."

This ^

"Basically, you haven't made a good case for your point in your OP, and lack the skills to do so. You could gain those skills academically, or you could gain some experience in the field you are trying to criticise, but from what I've gathered from your postings, you aren't a grafter."

And THIS^ just further illustrates your nastiness.

I was making exactly that point about evidentiary rigour in response to Caitlin's seeming assertion that the PRHP (?) website was enough to settle the debate before it started.

"Not a grafter" I assumes refers to my years 'at home' with my Autistic child. Again; ignorance and nastiness.

[fideline]

Jolly bad form to use disabled children in the furtherance of an insult, btw.

Also jolly bad form to trawl through a posters history looking for personal difficulties to make cheap points from.

Think i'll hide this thread now.

[LessMissAbs]

Jesus Christ fideline. Are you all right?

What on earth are you referring to?

I have had little idea about what you have been talking about in the past, but certainly am not interested enough in you to trawl through whatever it is you would have to do on here to find out information about you. Maybe you consider yourself more interesting than you actually are? Its as if you live in a little world of your own, making up stories about people doing and saying things to you. I'm terribly sorry for you that you do this, but its got nothing to do with me.

You are behaving really oddly.

I'm appalled that you have made up this insult about your own child, and tried to link me into it.

My comment about you not being a grafter is due to (a) the fact you have stated that you and your DH have a spare, mostly empty property which you find "too stressful" to do much with and (b) you have no idea of the hard work small private landlords do, nor the legal regime that applies to them, nor have you bothered to find out.

You might find that people who are up to beyond midnight dealing with the legalities of renting properties and awaiting the return of their DH dealing with maintenance issues have little patience with those who randomly criticise them at the exact time they are hard at work.

[fideline]

Tell me Abs exactly what documents I would need to forge in order to rent out a cottage that didn't belong to me? If you want to twist it that the "grafter"remark referred to my DHs cottage not being let out, please do tell me how to perpetrate that particular fraud against the legal owners wishes. (And why choosing not to constitutes a lack of 'graft')

We both know someone else's property isn't what you meant.

Nothing else to say to you.