To ask for your experience as a buy-to-let landlord?

[iPaid]

I'm thinking of buying a house or two and renting them out to hopefully fund my retirement in 15 years or so.

Would appreciate any advice or sharing of experience - good and bad!

[cruikshank]

And JanetBlyton, I think it's definitely a problem that 27% of private renters are paying more than 2/3rds of their income in rent, or that £12 bn a year goes to private landlords.

The price of housing needs to come down. It needs to come down soon, otherwise all of the money that this country generates is just going to go to servicing debt to banks and the bill that the tax-payer meets for private landlords is going to go up and up. Which is fine, if you want to live in a society where wealth, including money generated by tax revenues, coagulates between a few people at the top of the pile. If you think that's a bad thing, then you should be concerned. Just think how much could be done with £12 bn a year if it wasn't going to private sector landlords who are doing a piss-poor job of providing housing.

[JanetBlyton]

I certainly know the pain. I paid £90k a year on my interest only mortgage because I was foolish enough to marry a man who earned less than I did and then divorecd him.

Private landlords do a wonderful job. I remember back to the early 80s just before shortholds came out. there was nothing to rent and people slept on floors because a tenant could get a tenancy at £10 a year for life and could pass on tenancies to children and they could never be got out of the property. It didn't work then and it would not work now if it were brought in.

[cruikshank]

If private landlords do such a wonderful job, why are they charging so much that the state has to subsidise them to the tune of £12bn a year and why are 1 in 3 private sector rentals deemed to be substandard?

[NadiaWadia]

Thanks again Janet and special. Yes, sounds like induction hobs are more trouble than they're worth, really. I'll make a note never to get one myself! When DD originally reported this (at the beginning of August) the agency told her to check she was using the special pans for induction hobs. So she went out to buy some specially, but nothing happened. And now they have had an actual engineer say that spare parts were needed and the landlady's response is to act dumb and ask again if they are using the right pans. Followed by radio silence from the agency. Are they saying the engineer they supplied is making it up then? We are quite confused. I suppose ll is just trying to delay the inevitable/wriggle out of it if she can. I mean I understand that repairs could cost her a lot of money, but I think she should be looking at borrowing money herself to cover this if she needs to, rather than expecting her tenants to live for months without an essential facility that was agreed in the tenancy. Ultimately it is to her benefit to maintain her property, isn't it?

Re: replacing the washer dryer with a washing machine only, spot on about the damp and mould! They have a windowless bathroom which smelled quite strongly of mould when they moved in (doesn't now, thanks to much cleaning and a cheap chemical dehumidifier). Towels and bathmats left in there stay damp, so having tumble drying facilities would have been such a help. The landlady is aware of the bathroom problems, so is being a short-sighted cheapskate, to be honest.

[donajimena]

Thanks to my lovely landlord I get to live in a nice house in a nice area and I don't have to pay maintenance fees.
I've just had a new boiler.
I would like to buy but I can't afford it. Even if my rent were 200 pcm less. I've been lucky and have been in this house for 8 years. I have been on the shitty end of the stick too having moved into a beautiful property only for the landlord to sell up at the end of my six month tenancy. That pissed me off.

[cruikshank]

I have been on the shitty end of the stick too having moved into a beautiful property only for the landlord to sell up at the end of my six month tenancy. That pissed me off.

You're not alone. 29% of all homelessness applications accepted by councils are due to termination of ASTs. Doesn't sound so rosy now, does it, JanetBlyton? Also, plenty of private landlords flout the law and evict even within the AST term - over 5,000 in London alone last year. The law as it stands does not protect tenants.

[specialsubject]

the '1 in 3 substandard' is extrapolation from shit statistics. Obviously even one crap rental is one too many, but there ARE laws and there ARE enforcement routes.

...which nadia needs to use. As she rightly states, the cost of fixing things in the rental is not the tenant's problem. Landlords who can't afford to run their rental property should sell up. The place sounds more of a dump the more I hear; windowless bathroom with no extractor fan? Shocking.

although selling up produces another river of bile....

[kirinski]

cruikshank
You seem very opinionated on the subject.
Truthfully, if you were to inherit 300k plus tomorrow, (and assuming your mortgage was paid off), what would you do with the money.
Give it to poor? Really??

No offence intended. Just genuinely interested.

I would love to invest in good businesses which benefit society as a whole, but to date I failed to find any that would bring me sufficient profit. Buy to let is a legitimate, and at times profitable, business.

I have lived through communism and socialism, by the way. It does NOT work.

[WalfordEast]

Im currently renting out my place as living with friends and need the extra £.

The only thing I will say if you do it alone- is make sure your only accept tenants who have references from previous landlords. I had a friend who gave it to the first person to view, and their security deposit didnt even make a dent in the damage. Sure, its not cast iron- but I made sure I did and there have been 0 problems. Luck? Who knows. Might take you longer to find someone of course but its advice I strongly suggest you take on board.

[JanetBlyton]

Good advice re. references.
On the law we have some of the toughest laws in the EU to protect tenants. You cannot even get them to leave if they don't pay the rent without 2 months of no rent and massive legal costs and a court order and even then you tend not to get any of that money back even if you need it to feed your children or pay the mortgage.

We did try tenancies for life which could even be inherited and it stopped private landlords operating. What is the piont if the rent is fixed even if inflation is high and you can never get someone out? I know someone who rents a house in Kensington and has for about 50 years under one of those tenancies - the rent is very small. I think it's a pre 1989 regulated tenancy. Another man I know pays just about nothing on a similar tenancy for a flat near Bond St tube from those days - he probably began renting it about 40 years ago.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

I have one property I own outright and one on btl. Both are family homes, let long term on standard tenancies. Btl is not the money-raker it's made out to be. I just don't understand the vitriol landlords get on here. There are crap landlords, sure, but there are crap tenants, too.

In the SE at least, the shortage of affordable homes is at least partly caused by foreigners investing in large amounts of oroperty-sometimes swallowing up whole estates. It's shocking.

[cruikshank]

We really don't have laws that are even nearly comparable with other EU countries in terms of tenant protection. In France, tenancies can only be terminated in the case of owner occupation, sale, or breach of agreement. In Germany they can only be terminated by non-payment of rent for two months, breach of contract, damage to property, sub-letting or again owner occupation - and even in the case of owner occupation, the landlord has to prove that s/he would suffer a detriment if not occupying eg if it meant them having to pay higher rent themselves elsewhere. In Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland and pretty much everywhere else in Western Europe it's a similar story.

Here, tenants have got six months' occupancy (and as I said above, there are thousands of landlords who flout even this) and after that their tenancy can be terminated at any time on two months' notice, just because the landlord wants to.

And the countries that do have proper protection for tenants are also the countries with the highest number of renting households, so it's not as though these systems are unworkable - they are eminently workable.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

cruikshank the situation on the Continent is very different, yes, due to the different mindset as regards renting there. It sounds far more sensible. BUT the mindset in this country is one of the vast majority wanting to own, not rent. I agree with Janet about the law being more skewed in favour of tenants than it has since the late 70s. I think many landlords will be driven out of the rental sector in the coming years due to even greater regulation.

I have a friend with a long-standing tenancy. He's vulnerable and unable to care for himself. He pays a peppercorn rent and would find it extremely difficult to settle elsewhere. He's set the property on fire before now, and my friend is terrified that it'll happen again. She wants to sell the property but can't. She's stuck.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

long standing tenant ffs.

[cruikshank]

Of course people in the UK want to own - if they rent, the roof over their heads can be taken away from them for no reason.

I don't understand why you think the law is skewed in favour of tenants now compared to the 1970s - the 1988 Housing Act got rid of security of tenure (which tenants in the 1970s had), which pretty much trumps everything else - if a landlord can evict for no reason just by giving two months' notice, it doesn't matter a bean that tenants can technically ask for repairs to be done etc. And actually the landlord's repairing obligations, in the absence of specifically drafted contractual terms to the contrary (which most tenants do not have) are fairly nugatory anyway - the basic requirement, which is all that most landlords are subject to, is to keep the property in 'tenantable' condition ie carry out structural repairs.

[cruikshank]

As for your friend, she should seek legal advice. Under the Rent Act, she would have good grounds for evicting her tenant as he has damaged the property - it falls under the discretionary cases, so she would have to go to court, but in the case of a tenant who has set fire to the property then the exercise would be pretty much rubber-stamping. If her problem is that she is unwilling to do this, that is not a fault with the law. Landlords have always been able to evict tenants that damage property.

[specialsubject]

I'm not an HB expert but I still don't see how the figure of rent more than 2/3 income works.

proof please of the 'thousands' of landlords that flout the law. Remember that all the statistics you see are EXTRAPOLATIONS.

yes, there are the beds-in-sheds crooks, who do need to be dealt with. You get those in Eurotopia too. Yes, there are the buy-to-leave lot in London, a simple law change would stop that - but guess who a lot of those people are?

talking of which - one size does not fit all in Europe (which is a large part of the problem with trying to stick us all together, we only signed up for free trade). Germany, France etc have completely different histories and mindsets. We can't move to what they have, it would never work - change the law here to give infinite tenancies and every single landlord would evict. All the houses would go up for sale, and so prices would drop, but it still isn't going to get easier to get a mortgage.

German law apparently says that rent increases are capped at no more than 15% in 3 years. Bring it on - that is a HUGE Increase!!

tenants in England/Wales can negotiate a tenancy as long as they like, subject to mortgage and insurance restrictions (which do need to change, although the MN bile is never spewed in the direction of the mortgage and insurance people).

of course as an EU citizen (at the moment) who prefers the systems of other EU countries you have the option to go live under them. Plenty of room and need for working people in Germany which is why they are opening the doors.

[howrudeforme]

My family has fallen apart and we're being forced to sell up. In the settlement I'll get a lump sum and because I'm also losing my job in this I'm moving back to my parents (as I won't be able to afford London) far away from all my ds knows. With the lump sum I'll buy a small property to let.

It was never and ambition and I'm resentful of having to do it, but I need to be able to support my ds in an area that has very few jobs and low pay. Keeping a lump sum in the bank will lose us money.

[cruikshank]

specialsubject, actually the UK isn't that different from the rest of Europe, historically speaking, until we get to the latter part of the 20th century. 100 years ago we were largely a rentier economy - 77% of people rented and there were only tiny incremental rises in the rate of home ownership for several decades after that. Post-war, from the 1950s onwards, home-owning increased in incidence more rapidly, until there was a 50/50 split between renters and owner occupancy in 1971. It continued to go up until 2001 reaching a peak of 69% but has declined since then. So your argument that 'things are just different over there and we can't do that' doesn't really wash - there has only been a period of 50 years in the entire history of our country where there are more owner occupiers than renters, and the figure is now in decline.

As for the existence of longer tenancies in the UK, they are vastly different to those on the continent because they create an obligation on the tenant, in the absence of a break clause, to pay the rent for the entire period of the tenancy which is a very risky term to sign up to. In France, Germany, Spain etc the tenant can give notice.

And incidentally, I don't see what on earth was inaccurate about what Maursh said further upthread.

[specialsubject]

bollocks - you can have long tenancies where the landlord cannot break it (unless there is a breach) but the tenant can go at a month's notice for any reason. I know several tenants with this arrangement, including mine. If that's what people want, fine with me.

bollocks - Germany is not overcrowded (hence the eagerness to take refugees). The countries of the EU are all very different.

and so on.

for those too young or too ill-informed to remember; interest rates have been well into double-digits in the last few decades. Rents have been cheaper than mortgages at times. and could well be again.

You hate me because I do something you consider immoral, i.e. asking people to pay for a life essential. Same as the food sellers, the mortgage companies, the NHS (via the tax system), the opticians and others.

Unless you and your fellow haters provide life essentials for free, you clearly consider these morals for other people.

or it could just be playground jealousy, which is as logical.

[m1nniedriver]

being a landlord is immoral?? Do me a favour it's providing a service. If you don't want to rent from one don't. It's not difficult

[JanetBlyton]

Those who hate landlords seem to be perfectly happy with moral issues such as being allowed to own their ow personal property like their car or handbag or savings or kitchen table and are usually happy that we can sell services to people such as painting and decorating or food. I don't see why housing should be any worse although now we have Corbyn as leader we could be in for some interesting times - like 10 years of Tory rule.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

I think the days of small btl landlords are coming to an end anyway. Many lenders are stipulating strict terms and conditions when lending, such as only letting to employed persons, for example. And many insurance policies are wary about insuring properties where children are living.

I don't get the "security of tenure" argument either. Anything is negotiable. And many renters do not want security of tenure; flexibility is more important to them.

My rental properties are in far better nick than where I'm living now. One is having new windows and a boiler; the other was bought specifically as a btl and brand new throughout.

And letting fees aren't just expensive for tenants. They're expensive for landlords too. The good ones are worth it, but many aren't.

I think many people who have never owned are naive about the real costs and responsibilities of property ownership tbh.

[ReallyTired]

I respect Jermany Corbyn even if I don't agree with his polices.

[MrsJorahMormont]

Ha! So the thread is still running :o

I'm quite pleased about JC - I think he will shake things up a bit.