I should have the right to buy from my my to let landlord after 6 years here

[chocolatekatie]

No government will ever do it as loads of them are into buy to let hence why they do all they can to prop up the bubble.

My landlord thinks he's some businessman doing me a favour by letting me live here. Actually he's the problem, he just had money so can afford to buy up property - push up the price and force people like me to rent.

If you rent through an agency there is often a clause saying that you have to pay the letting agent a fee.

I feel a tenant who has paid rent on time should have the right to buy in a repossession situation.

notaunique helpfully gives an example of someone being able to save £7500. If that is per person then a couple buying or two brothers double that which is why buying before you have children and with a partner in your 20s is wise. If you wait until you marry and your spouse doesn't work then there is a consequent to that.

£7500 a year.

So around this bit of London a 3 bed terraced is £375k. However only the deluded think they have a God given right to a house like that at first. Instead you slum it and work up. So you can get a flat around here (zone 5) for £160k (and obviously in the NE where I am from whole houses for under £100k).

So let us say you cannot get a 95% mortgage (the big problem for many) and get a 90% one you need to raise £15k - well that's one yar 2 people saving £7500 each or two years if you only have that one wage.

It is not easy and nor was it for many of our relatives - my grandfather left school at 12 and in 1901 shared a boarding house with 26 other young men. We have it so much better than many in the past and all we can work with is the situation we have now but certainly I stand by my comment that on the whole it pays to work hard and that starts at school. I didn't go out to parties or drink in my teens and worked very hard so I got good A levels. That was a conscious choice. Not everyone wants to make or does make the same choices. Obviously some people have a very low IQ of 90 or were abused as children or whatever but on the whole those of us who consistently have our "jam tomorrow" tend to do better in life. As someone said above not everyone would want to make my choices (no maternity leave, work until in labour, back full time 2 weeks later) etc etc and from the risks I've taken I've done better but could do badly( we sold 2 buy to let flats in the 90s at 50% less than we paid for them so I know all about the risks of buying).

Lotus, have you purchased a property since the new regulations came in?

There are so many more reasons for you to be rejected and not just affordability.

Also, if you use htb, than your paying higher interest rates so a larger amount per month on your mortgage.

It's also a risk to assume that you'll make enough equity on the property to buy the next one. You could equally be stuck with a crappy milestone round your neck.

The problem is NOT how people set about buying a house or not. It should not be so difficult to get on the property ladder, but it is because the powers that be have taken the banks right to risk assess away preferring to give a interest free loan themselves. This, combined with a shortage of affordable housing, increases in working arrangements that involve zero hours contracts and an increase in living expenses but usually not pay, meaning that there is very little left to save. Particularly when you need a little put buy in case your current rent becomes insecure and you need to sort a new one out quickly.

You can quote fictional scenarios all you like, but it doesn't guarantee getting the mortgage loan. It's a big world out there, filled with different lives, and scenarios. It's not all about your life.

I do think Lotus has a point about people's expectations of living standards. My parents married in 1949 and for the first 5 plus years lived with my grandparents before they bought a house. In those days (iirc what I have been told) mortgages were quite hard to come by. I think you had to have been a saver with a building society to be considered for a loan. Nowadays most young couples expect to live together long before the commitment of marriage and often somewhat earlier in the relationship. Jam tomorrow is a phrase very much from my parents generation and their philosophy of not borrowing for things but saving for them.

I would not have dreamed of starting a family before having a secure home, but that is just me - I am pretty risk averse. We also spent the first 5 years of marriage forgoing luxury holidays, expensive new furniture or a fancy lifestyle to use every spare pound to reduce the mortgage such that we had paid off our first mortgage by the time we had our first child and needed to borrow nearly 3 times as much as our original mortgage to get a bigger house. I don't regard that as luck but a calculated strategy.

notauniquename

You might have wrote "I almost wish" but the mere facts that you would write such things at all is quite offensive despite including the word almost.
Your attitude in that post seemed to imply that you think people who have mortgages or who own houses outright have never known what it's like to struggle financially and be unable to save. I know many homeowners who have struggled, have come close to repossession, have lived in cold damp houses because they can't afford repairs. People who owned houses in the late eighties / early nineties will have paid interest rates of up to 17% on their mortgages (bank rates, not base rates) and might have had to cut their food bills to a bare minimum, gone without decent clothing etc just to keep their house and keep their family in a home.
Lots of people with mortgages know what it is like to struggle financially, to use up any savings, to not be able to save, to worry about missing a mortgage payment and getting letters from the bank.
Have you looked at the stats for how many people have missed mortgage payments in the last two years?
Writing that you "almost wish" something bad would happen to people so they can struggle for a couple of years tends to suggest that you dont think any homeowner ever struggles.

I agree with alwaysfrank about people's living standards and expectations. Back in the 1960's the vast majority of families didn't own a car nor desire to have one, nowadays a lot of families have at least one car and see it as an essential.
People didn't take holidays abroad.
People didn't eat out often.
There was no desire to have the latest gadgets and if things broke people got them fixed instead of throwing them away and getting a new expensive one.
There were no mobilephones, People didn't have gym memberships, didn't buy new clothes very often, used to mend and make do, food choices were different, Christmas and birthday presents were less extravagant.
It wasn't uncommon for several children to share a bedroom (and even a bed).
Of course during the last 15 years we have also seen a huge increase in the price of gas and electricity which is totally beyond the individuals control but has had a knock on effect on many household budgets.
I'm not saying we should go back to those days as I can't imagine that many of us would find it much fun, but it isn't difficult to see that spending is higher these days due to changes in lifestyle and expectations.

Yeah, one person who works ten hours a day 7 days a week, actually I forgot to subtract about 3k that they'd pay in tax.

So one person working a minimum wage job 10hours a day, 7days a week paying rent and bills not running a car, no allowances for buying clothes, (not that they'd have te to do that!) and not eating.
They could personally save about 3.5k a year, so it's not as I first said a three year effort. It's actually closer to six years.

The example is of course extreme, but it was based on what my father in law had said about how he worked long days for a year to get his house, my point being that the game changed since he was young.

Of course you are right, maybe if I'd not had a child at the young age of 25, (not by choice actually) maybe I should have forced the woman (who is now my ex) to get an abortion? Perhaps I should have told her child care was her problem and that she should pay for all of it instead of me paying half so that she could still work. Or maybe I should only pay the minimum I could get away with in maintenance? Instead of paying half of a realistic cost for raising a child?

For what it is worth I've spent the past 14 years living in house sharing arrangements, in places unsuitable to have a child stay overnight.

But you are right. If I just worked that little bit harder, or had tried that little bit more, or if I moved away from my family, friends, child, job. Well whole life really then I might be able to buy a house.

Or maybe if I moved into an unsuitably small 1 bedroom flat with my wife, who is expecting. Then I wouldn't need to save as much.
Or maybe we should have waited to have kids? But given that we're already in our mid thirties I really don't see how much longer we could wait?

In my case I actually have a good job, but after five years of paying thousands in childcare I was left with a lot of debt. (And whilst I pay off over a thousand pounds a month, the interest has been £800 a month at times. So it is an uphill struggle)

Someone suggested earlier that I was bitter, not really, I'm not bitter, actually just frustrated at some of the sheer ignorance shown to how difficult it is to get onto the housing ladder today.

You've sold BTLs at half value in the past? Great that only tells me that you have bought your own house long before today! So really takes away what qualifications you may have to talk about the subject of becoming a first time owner today!

Honestly, looking at your own pay packet how long would it take you to save twenty thousand pounds, which is ten percent of the "national average price" for a house. In the area where I am "starter homes" are around 250k.

I'm not bitter at my situation, but I am exhausted at having to try to explain over and over that it is harder today than it was when you bought a house, being frugal for a "bit" doesn't cut it any more!

I think an analogy is it's like you're standing at the top of a staircase telling a pensioner that they are just lazy because they can't make it up there!

Anyway, the thread isn't really about how difficult it is to buy a house, it's about whether tenants should be able to own the house that they've lived in after living there for years.

Which comes back to the original post I made in this thead.

There are only really two possible views:
Either,

You can be of the opinion that regardless of whether a person rents or owns, the house that they live in is their home, and that they should have the right to own that home.
(I.e pay the landlord the market value and whatever fees are necessary for the landlord to find a new investment of equal value) nobody has suggested that the landlord should be forced to sell at a bellow market rate, or lose out in any way.

Or, where a person lives is not their home and they should have no right to buy their home at all.

But note that second one also says that the actual "right to buy" scheme is wrong and that poor people shouldn't own their homes. And if you don't believe that a where a person lives rented is their home or that they could have any attachment to the house neighbours or areas then is the same true or pensioners in council housing that is too big for them?
Should they be forced to move? (Even when that is heart breaking for them?)

No landlord should be forced to sell a house because a tenant wants to buy it. If they are buying at market rates then there is no reason that they cannot buy a similar house. If the landlord is willing to sell then of course the tenant should be given first refusal and I would hope that most landlords would give a discount of any savings they make due to not having estate agent fees (but there should be no need for more discount than that).
Social housing is a different kettle of fish because the houses are not owned by an individual who has purchased them with his own money. I don't agree with RTB and think it should be scrapped but we still cannot compare social housing with an individual's asset.
People know when they move into a private rental that there is no lifetime tenancy or RTB available. Of course it would be great if everybody who wants a council house to live in was able to get one but we are very far from achieving that partly due to RTB and diminishing council housing stock.

notauniquename You do seem a bit bitter and seem like you just want to argue with people and tell them what a hard life you have had and why it has been impossible to own a house and why everyone else has had more luck and been more fortunate.
So you had a child young (I don't actually see 25 as that young), I had my first child at 21 but I was already on the property ladder. I wasn't helped with any deposits or given any financial or practical help. I bought as a single person as early as I possibly could. Yes, property prices were cheaper back then but it was still Damn hard to save a deposit and it meant sacrificing going out all the time like my other teenage friends were doing and it meant sacrificing going to uni. Yes, I was lucky that prices were cheaper back then, but if I had waited until I was 25 prices would have been significantly higher and I would have had a child and childcare costs to pay. Whilst I benefitted from cheaper house prices and was lucky in that respect, my decision to buy when I did was down to planning and not luck.

nota, you could have chosen not to have sex. My grandfather who left school at 12 did not marry until 40 because he wanted to have saved up and be able to support a family. I graduated a virgin with law prizes because I put that jam tomorrow so not surprisingly I did not have a baby in those years. Nothing forces people to take down their underwear. They not have sex and get their finances sorted out - have their jam tomorrow.

I certainly agree with the comment above that interest rates are higher if you borrow a higher multiple which reflects risk - the person you think won't pay you back is charged a higher rate of interest.

My daughters bought just before the 2014 rule changes (and before the stamp duty reductions unfortunately for them) but the other daughter remortgaged after - she had ab uy to let loan for the first 2 years and slummed it on floors/back here and then moved in when she got a better paid job and could afford the mortgage and so applied for a new normal residential mortgage after the rules changed and I know they are difficult rules but not the banks but the state which interferes with the banks. So the new rules are an interference with the free market hence the problem caused by them. Leave lending decisions up to the bank and you would not have such tough criteria.

I am a lawyer so the concept of what a word means like "home" depends on the context. In English under the dictionary your home is where you stay most of the time eg my adult child who lives at home yes this is his home although he does not legally own it and I could evict him on a day's notice if I chose. I am free market capitalist so I would certainly not be confiscating owned homes of tax payers and I will be interested to see what the legislation looks like relating to any form of compulsory purchase from housing associations if that proceeds.

I don't see why a property I own should in effect be confiscated by someone who chose not to work as hard at school or have sex before he or she could afford a child.

notaumiquename it was your choice to have a child. You got your willy wet buddy.

There is a risk of pregnancy every time you have sex with someone who is fertile. That's a consequence of having sex. And yes you should being half of everything, that's child's life is just as much your responsibility as the mother's.

I actually find your "woe is me" posts infuriating. Sounds to me that you have made a few choices that didn't turn out for you as well as you'd hoped but you're going to blame everyone and everything else.

It is not easy and nor was it for many of our relatives - my grandfather left school at 12 and in 1901 shared a boarding house with 26 other young men. We have it so much better than many in the past and all we can work with is the situation we have now

My first house had no hot water or proper bathroom or heating when I bought it (at interest rates of around 15%). I worked with what I had & what I could afford (parafin heaters, temporary outside loo). And Iworked a full-time job, a part-time job, and did a PhD to afford a new bathroom & hot water.

I do think that sometimes people see my house now & think I've always lived like this. I was lucky to be born at a time when house prices were (comparatively) low, although they were low because interest rates were very high. As soon as interest rates went from 15% to around 8% (and then lower), the "value" of my first house doubled.

I was lucky, but I also really grafted all through my 20s. I did not have the typical young free & single lifestyle then. I worked, I saved, I scrubbed & painted. And I put off having children till my early 30s, and then my DH died when our son was 3, so "children" became "child."

So there are all sorts of reasons why I personally, feel my "luck" was also partly created by bloody hard work & considerable sacrifice. And why the OP's idea is utterly stupid and the OP is VVU. And if it ever came to pass, the tenant living in my property would be evicted asap, and I'd never renew a lease. So any tenant would be far less secure than now.

I think this is called the Law of Unintended Consequences, isn't it?

I'm not blaming any one else for anything in my life.

But good to see there is a consensus here the poor people should not own houses nor have sex.

Presumably they should be forced to break rocks all day whilst handing over the proceeds to their landlord?

The post above is classic "I bought at 21 on my own it was all down to hard work"
Today, no uni means a minimum wage job. As pointed out. Even someone working a 70 hour week on that will take years to save.

It's not about wanting pitty.

What I am telling you is that what you did is impossible in today's world.

You could not leave school at even 16 and work long or hard enough to get a house on your own without help by the age of 21.

Your opinions, whilst founded in your own experiances are outdated in this respect and therefore wrong.

Whilst you believe that you worked hard (and I have no doubt that you did), you also had quite a lot of luck to have been born in a time when that was possible.

Today that is simply not possible.

You can figure this out for yourself, knowing national minimum wage, 6.70 average council tax etc, a single working person today will not be approved on a mortgage with a 10% deposit. Based on affordability calculations (e.g they could not possibly afford to pay mortgage repayments, council tax, bills and also eat.) that's before you take into account that many people on minnimum wage don't get enough hours to do 40 hour weeks.

Oh yeah, mortgage repayments, because first time buyers can't get repayments only mortgage now. I guess at the time that you bought you could. (But that's of course to do with your hard work, not at all luck or the fact the circumstances which you bought under were different)

someone on a zero hours contract will not be approved for a mortgage, realistically ever.

What you did is impossible now. No matter how hard you work.
What someone's granddad did is impossible and irrelevant (as already pointed out in this thread my grandad was able to buy a large house 6bedrooms) and have a large 10kids family when he only ever worked in unskilled jobs. Again something that is impossible today.)

Keep telling yourself that you have all you have through hard work and graft. Ignore that you were lucky enough to have lived in a different time with a different economy.

As for my decisions and choices. I don't regret having a child, I don't regret paying for daycare so that my ex could work, I don't regret paying over the bare minimum I could get away with in maintenance so that my child could have a better life.

Because all told I will be debt free in a few years and will have saved for a deposit a few years after that. My life is not terrible. And yes, some of that will be from hard work, but a lot of it will be based on a huge foundation of luck (like being able to live with parents, I've got friends whose parents are dead and therefore cannot do this.)

So now not only are poor people lazy and unwilling to work hard, they should also never have sex. I'd heard that Katie Hopkins was on here, but now I know it's true.

"poor people should not own houses."

Everyone has the right to a roof over their heads.

But the right to own that roof? Even if they have no money? Who's going to buy it for them? Only 40 years ago, half the population were renting and there was no sense of entitlement or being hard done by because of it.

There are upsides and downsides for every generation. Yours is finding it harder to buy property. But it has a higher standard of living, better access to higher education and will live a longer life.

You play the cards that fate deals out, take responsibility for your choices and get on with it.

nota, the only consequence of your attitude is you are unlikely ever to have anything much and those of us with the different attitude will so if you could change your mind set you might get a property.

it is not impossbile some fomeone like I am to come from a poor home. My cleaner (muslim)'s son is doing the LPC (law post grad course) which my daughters did and I did in my day. There is nothing special about her son who was born here or privileged. He just happened like me and my daughters to work very very hard at school to pass the law exams. So I am just saying families with that work ethic and ambition can still do well even in 2015.

I think you mean it is hard to get an interest only mortgage now. Yes and we had repayment mortgage at 12% when we both worked full time with a 2 week old baby back in the 80s.

30 years on today I started work at 6am (I don't need anyone to weep for me of course). I have also dealt with children who are here (teenagers) and will drive them later to a GCSE and probably stop work into the evening. I don't mind that and I picked work I would enjoy.

"But good to see there is a consensus here the poor people should not own houses nor have sex." No one is saying that. I am saying there is free state education in the UK and nothing to stop lots of teenagers getting good A levels, picking a high paid career, moving hundreds of miles from family as I did etc etc. You work to make yourself better off.

UptheChimney's post would be similar to us. Both working full time jobs plus commute to London, then immediately you get home childcare until you go to sleep, breastfeeding the baby at night etc and then when we had our two buy to lets in my late 20s taking it in turns to mind the 3 children 4 at weekends whilst the other one of us was painting the walls, cleaning etc. Hours on hands and knees to save the cost of getting someone in and then selling those flats (I accept unusually) in the 1990s recession at 50% less than we paid but we did repay the loans and both had quite a few jobs. My children's father worked Saturdays too for a time and I used to mark exam papers to pay for our summer holiday.

In other words let us help people like nota find a way to buy sooner.

The post above is classic "I bought at 21 on my own it was all down to hard work"
Today, no uni means a minimum wage job. As pointed out. Even someone working a 70 hour week on that will take years to save.

Firstly, I didn't buy at 21, I bought in my teenage years. I my first child at 21 because I had the security of a roof over my head and had met my partner by then (who I am still married to today).

No it doesn't necessarily mean that and the number of graduates who are in minimum wage jobs tells us that university isn't always the answer to riches or even a well paid job. Many graduates are unable to find any work above minimum wage pay because they have no relevant experience. Many people who leave school and do apprenticeships or train in careers where there is a shortage of skills (plumbing, electrician etc) earn far more than minimum wage. I was earning less than 10k a year when I bought my first house and was working two jobs in order to save quickly and move out. I had a shit childhood and was physically abused throughout and couldn't wait to leave home. It was my determination to leave that caused me to get a job (2 jobs) as soon as I left school and save every penny I could to get the deposit required for a house as fast as I could. I stayed at home and put up with the almost daily abuse knowing that as soon as I had the cash together I would leave home and have somewhere safe to call my own.
The jobs I was doing were not well paid, one of them was a part time cleaning job to top up the savings that I could make from my full time job as a junior in an office.
I was a poor person and I bought a house and I had sex. I don't go about saying that poor people shouldn't have sex or buy houses, but I think if you choose to have children without owning a home then you have to accept that it might be incredibly difficult to become a home owner.
Of course not everybody wants to be a home owner and it's not always because they don't have the money.

It's not about wanting pity.

What I am telling you is that what you did is impossible in today's world.

You could not leave school at even 16 and work long or hard enough to get a house on your own without help by the age of 21.

Your opinions, whilst founded in your own experiances are outdated in this respect and therefore wrong.

I am mid thirties so I dint imagine that I was born in a different century to you and possibly not even a different decade.

I am mid thirties so I dint imagine that I was born in a different century to you and possibly not even a different decade.

you and I are approximately the same age, and I am also a home owner. So, if you bought in late teens, you bought about 20 years ago. Things were VERY different 20 years ago. Very different.

I live in London. Even in outer London a 1 bed goes for 150-200K. At 10/hour, assuming only 60% of your pay gets eaten by life (food, shelter, tax etc, that of course is ludicrously low), it will will take about 3-4 years to come up with a 10% deposit. And those are wildly optimistic numbers.

The fact that people can't buy would be ok if renting wasn't ridiculous or, more importantly, completely insecure.

I earlier acknowledged that things are different now. I also earlier acknowledged that London is very different. The point I was making was to a person who seems to think you have to be really old to own a house without having had financial help and without having been to university. There is no reason that other people who are mid thirties could not have been home owners in most areas in the year 2000.

you and I are approximately the same age, and I am also a home owner. So, if you bought in late teens, you bought about 20 years ago. Things were VERY different 20 years ago. Very different.

Keep, unfortunately people don't like to acknowledge this. Even when shown statistics and facts. It's too uncomfortable when it doesn't match their personal narrative. They can't bear the idea that objectively, the situation is different that that the reason they have what they have isn't just because they're a superior human.

Lotus - as a free market capitalist, what would you do about the rental sector? High rents, so the state has to step in with HB, insecure tenancies, with consequent social problems, and exorbitant agency fees to tenant as well as landlord.

And where do you stand on social housing and RTB?

There is no reason that other people who are mid thirties could not have been home owners in most areas in the year 2000.

sure there is. what if someone went to university and didn't start work until 22?

Also, "London is different" is cold comfort to the 20% of the UK that lives in the London area. So, it sounds like in order to have invoked your plan you would have to 1) not live in London 2) not gone to uni 3) worked pretty damn hard 4) known that prices were going to get crazy so bought at the best time. Hardly something everyone can do.

as a free market capitalist, what would you do about the rental sector? High rents, so the state has to step in with HB, insecure tenancies, with consequent social problems, and exorbitant agency fees to tenant as well as landlord.

build some damn houses. That's on the government. The restrictive planning rules have choked supply. The government can make it a lot easier for the private sector to build and build fast. Make private tenancies more secure. That's also on the government. Discourage empty homes.

there are lots that can be done. yet their response is more HB. that doesn't actually make more dwellings.

"The post above is classic "I bought at 21 on my own it was all down to hard work"
Today, no uni means a minimum wage job. As pointed out. Even someone working a 70 hour week on that will take years to save."

Its not true that no uni means a minimum wage job. People without qualifications often have to think outside the box in finding ways how to make a living. Most homeowners in the UK don't have degrees.

sure there is. what if someone went to university and didn't start work until 22?

That was their choice, it doesn't mean that they couldn't have made a different choice and instead gone to work at 16 and got on the property ladder as soon as it becomes possible to apply for a mortgage. Going to university is a choice. There is not reason that somebody can choose not to go to university and instead start working and saving at 16.
I have no problem with people making the choice to go to university but I do have a problem with people insinuating that it is somehow essential to do so and it is therefore a barrier to getting on the property ladder before the age of 22.

notauniquename your difficulty in buying is not down to btl landlords. Its due to choices you made in your own life, that are specific to you. You seem surprised they have consequences which affect you through your entire life. But what on earth do you think having a child at 25 would do? Your choices...

But still, you wish ill on other people, so they can lose their jobs for a couple of years and risk losing everything, so they can be in your position.

FWIW my year at uni had several single parents, who had no parental help and who lived in rented accommodation. They are all earning I think its fair to say in the region of 65k pa plus. Ditto my friend's years who were studying medicine although they tended more towards being married young parents for religious reasons

Its down to your own ability and your ability to work hard. If you have children before you have established your career and housing, you have to work doubly hard to make up.

Or maybe if I moved into an unsuitably small 1 bedroom flat with my wife, who is expecting. Then I wouldn't need to save as much. Or maybe we should have waited to have kids? But given that we're already in our mid thirties I really don't see how much longer we could wait?

I have friends with one baby who do live in one bedroom flats. Are you suggesting there is something wrong with them? They are young, they want to move up the housing ladder but accept that at the beginning, they won't get their ideal home. Most people who buy start off with a studio or one bedroom flat. Very few people buy a family sized home as their ftb. This seems to have passed you by in your rant against btl landlords. You have done things in the wrong order, and you seem to think it unfair that it has consequences. You want a bigger house but you can't afford to buy one, so its the fault of someone else.

In my case I actually have a good job, but after five years of paying thousands in childcare I was left with a lot of debt. (And whilst I pay off over a thousand pounds a month, the interest has been £800 a month at times. So it is an uphill struggle)

Again, that's your circumstances. I don't see what it has to do with btl landlords. I have never heard someone who moaned and whinged as much as you. I would never put up with that attitude in a partner - you come across as an utter nightmare. You are very lucky to have a partner at all who would put up with your circumstances - maybe you should focus on enjoying what you do have, and stop blaming everyone else.