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?

Anyway, as I said this thread is just an opportunity for those without two properties to bleat and whinge (and stamp their feet) at those that do.

And why on earth would I not maintain my properties? not to do so is stupid. The repair cost can be set off against taxable income and why would I want the value to drop through not maintaining them?

But investing money you might need easy access to in a BTL for better returns does seem ill-advised to me. It is also unfair on the tenant.

I do share your pain re rubbish savings rates, though.

I think properly enforcing the current legislation would be a good start. It would also be a good idea if people were educated about how renting works in school.

Whilst tennant's rights are obviously limmited, many landlords and letting agents behave very badly. People still try to carry out illegal evictions, and it is very hard for the tennant to get any support. Most of the time the police will not get involved even though it is a criminal matter.

Even more common is the falsifying of inventories and the non-protection of deposits, which often leads to tennants losing out on £000s. If you are having to move every year or two, I do think that is a lot of money to lose each time, when you also have nothing to show for all the rent you have paid.

I do think short term renting has its place, e.g. for students, but I agree the current system has many elements that are neither sustainable or desirable. I also think there are issues that could be looked at to benefit landlords too.

I think regulation of lettings agents might be a good first step.

I would just like to point out that it is very hard to be too highly leveraged on BTL in the current BTL mortgage market. Lenders want a fairly sizeable deposit AND they need to see rental income of at least 10% higher than the mortgage repayment. Any sensible person would go towards a rent that is more like 20-25% higher than mortgage repayment to cover any eventuality. I would like to see lenders require compulsory landlord insurance as well to protect all parties, as well as the mandatory buildings cover.

fideline you make some excellent points but I think your stance is particularly negative given your personal and therefore to some extent anecdotal experience.

I don't think you will see rent control in the private sector any time soon in this country because our financial recovery is so inextricably linked to house prices and as they rise way out of line with inflation, renting will just become the default setting in the way buying used to be. Right to buy certainly didn't help either.

Which personal experience Ladyrabbit?

LadyRabbit I think you are confusing me with someone else

Caitlin that is nonsense. If you are a landlord, you don't want the roof the leak, but there is no reason to care about the threadbare carpet, or the dilapidated cooker, when you have a tenant in place, because by the time they leave it will no longe be new. Any such repairs would only logically be done when the tenant leaves, in order to attract a higher rent from the next tenant. And even then, you might not, if you don't think it will repay in terms of extra rent.

By contrast an owner occupier gets personal benefit from all improvements so obviously the incentive to do them is higher.

Apols fideline I was referring to the post by maggiemight
I would further say that lots of landlords LOVE students and particularly invest in university towns. The standard of student accommodation has vastly improved in recent years, what with purpose built student studio apartments in decent parts of town, so students have more choice than before. Also, believe it or not, but some mortgage lenders would actually prefer to lend on a property that is tenanted by students rather than working professionals. (Coventry building society for example.)

The situation in Scotland is different but tenants' rights in relation to landlord's responsibilities, standards of maintenance, enforcement of maintenance, gas, electrical and fire safety,charges to tenants, registration of agents are miles greater than they were pre 1989

But all of those landlord responsibilities are worth nothing if the tenant does not have security of tenure, because they can be evicted as a result of wanting to enforce them. Thus they are meaningless.

^because our financial recovery is so inextricably linked to house prices ^

I agree that this is the perception and it has been for some while, but I would argue that it is a false perception. House prices do not equal wealth, apart from for people like Caitlin17 and his/her ilk - they just mean more mortgage debt. It isn't wealth unless you can cash it in and use the money elsewhere.

Aga with respect your post is nonsense. I'm not in the market to let long term to families on benefits. The larger flat is in a part of Edinburgh which if there are tenants they will be people on weekly commutes or have relocated and are renting until they buy or similar. Tatty carpets etc won't attract the tenants I'm looking for.

The other one is a one bedroom flat in a cheaper part of town with a high population of students and young professionals. It rents in a week between tenants simply because it is much nicer than equivalent flats in that area.

And yet again another thread on wide policy issues has been relegated into landlords bleating about their personal circumstances.

"But all of those landlord responsibilities are worth nothing if the tenant does not have security of tenure, because they can be evicted as a result of wanting to enforce them. Thus they are meaningless."

Excellent point

Accidental this time but with past experience. I do wonder what you think a professional landlord is though.

Keeping good tenants keeps the income coming in so it is a false economy not to replace things for wear and tear. Better to keep things in good, inspect at regular intervals and so on.

Interesting at lease three LLs have shown up to say that they might need to liquidise their asset at any time because of financial need and therefore need the right to evict tenants fast.

Who are you talking to wow?

You really don't get it. In cities like Edinburgh there's a market for high quality relatively short term lets. These are not poor downtrodden families on benefits. The last tenants in my larger flat relocated from London and wanted to rent until they sold in London. The current ones have a 9 month tenancy as they are doing major repairs to the house they own.

You are assuming every tenant has the same circumstances.

And as for policy issues Rommel I note neither you nor fideline care to address the point the current housing crisis can be laid squarely at the door of Thatcher's right to buy council houses. I didn't live in a council house but in the village I grew up in in the 60s and 70s there was no stigma to living in one. I had teachers who lived in council houses. There were plenty of council tenants who made the choice to rent not buy Then all that changed.The good stock was sold off at ridiculously low prices leaving councils with the difficult, unsaleable stock. Council housing became the last resort, not a choice as it was the 50s,60s and 70s.

I expect neither of you will believe this but a survey by the Scottish government a couple of years ago found most tenants' preferences were, in order,owning a home, renting privately, housing association let and bottom of the pile council housing.

Maybe your outrage would be better addressed at why the body who is best placed to provide good quality, long term rented housing is failing so badly. Except of course you have an agenda that doesn't fit.

Caitlin are you hallucinating?

Or just having a conversation with yourself?

What's all the 'family on benefits' stuff about? Who are you replying to? What does your reference to 'downtrodden' pertain to?

Does it matter who your tenants are? Do you think any of us are proposing more rights for some tenants than others?

No. We are renting because family homes are very overpriced to buy, in large part because of buy-to-let investors. We have never considered social housing.

There are an extra 2 million people living in private rented, not because of some increased desire for shitty short-term insecure leases, but because they are priced out of the ownership market.

The idea that all these professional tenants just want to rent houses because it's a wonderful convenient service is ludicrous.

I think she is keen to point out that her flat is rather posh, Aga

Right to buy doesn't exist in a vacuum though - right to buy was pushed in conjunction with the introduction of ASTs as a deliberate policy of making the provision of rental housing move from the public to the private sector through encouraging so-called 'investment' (you say 'investment, I say 'speculation', let's call the whole thing off etc) in the private rental market. Thatcher and her advisers knew what this two-pronged approach would result in. As has every govt since - I don't just blame her; they're all as bad as each other. The consequences - an out of control benefit bill, poorly maintained houses in the private sector, an obscene amount of homeless families, owner occupation becoming a distant dream for many (the percentage of owner occupied households is now lower than it was 30 years ago), chronic instability for private sector tenants leading to fragmentation of communities and resultant atomisation due to people like you who want the freedom to cash in their assets on a whim etc - all of this has come about as a result of the two-pronged approach which you are profiting from.

Yanbu.

Fideline what is so difficult about the concept that there's a market for short term tenancies and long term tenancies? I've never had to end my tenancies as they move on naturally. If I did however have a financial crisis the leases could be ended after the first 6 months. I'm not expecting to but who knows if in say 20 years time I needed to pay for care for myself or my husband. If I had to end a lease none of my tenants would have been particularly bothered as they would have had no difficulty in finding something else. It works both ways they don't want to be tied into long term leases and neither do I.

Your right about having a conversation with myself however since other than being insulting neither you nor Rommel are willing to engage in any consideration of the damage done to social housing by Thatcher and how that might be redressed which is a more realistic way of sorting this.

You are incredibly rude Caitlin

I must have read at least a dozen of your ill-mannered inaccuracies and irrelevances now. I don't think there is much intelligent conversation to be had.