Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that buy to leave should be made a criminal offence

68 replies

ReallyTired · 02/12/2015 22:38

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34930602

I feel it's criminal foreign investors buying flats and neither living in them nor renting them out to keep them pristine. I feel that councils should have the right to compulsorily take over the property and find s tenant after two years. I am not sure what can be done if the owner claims it's a holiday let. (Maybe evidence of bookings)

OP posts:
caroldecker · 03/12/2015 00:16

What if i stay for 1 day every 2 years? Not empty for 2 years then.

futureme · 03/12/2015 00:19

Im under the impression there's tons of properties in central London that have noone living in them. Purely bought as an investment from overseas investors with no intention of doing anything just enjoying the market rise.

Taylor22 · 03/12/2015 00:25

The homeless are extremely unlikely to have any claim to these properties anyway. If someone buys a property it's theirs to do as they please.

Also I'd love to see rouge tenants cracked down on. I know good landlords who were not paid rent (which they needed) who then had to pay thousands in court fees to evict these people who had trashed their house. They then can't be touched.
It's not always the mean landlord. People can be shit all round.

janethegirl2 · 03/12/2015 00:27

Hell if you take in tenants that don't pay and apparently that's not uncommon, you can see why people wont rent out their property.

Want2bSupermum · 03/12/2015 02:05

I've said for a long time that overseas buyers with no links to the UK should have to pay a tax of 5% of the property value to the UK government. They are benefiting from our society without paying in.

I live abroad now but I am a british citizen. While I am an overseas buyer I was educated in the UK, worked there for a short period, I still have family and my brother is in the British army. I also maintain my british citizenship. The buyers from the Middle East and China don't bring anything to the table when they buy up property. I'm buying places that are in need of modernization or conversion that I then either sell on for a small profit or rent out. My actions actually increasing the supply of housing by my activity. I also don't do shoddy work to my homes. The structure is in good shape with the heating, electrical work etc all replaced or updated.

Slum LLs should be dealt with by my township here in the US. As a LL you are ticketed and have 1-3 months to make repairs depending on what repair is needed. If it isn't done by then they will do the repair and place a lien against the property that accrues interest. Once the township lien for unpaid property taxes and repairs is 15% of the property value they seize the home and sell it with the tenant in situ. They do not mess around.

M1nniedriver · 03/12/2015 02:20

What happens to tenents that don't pay rent or trash properties?

HelenaDove · 03/12/2015 02:29

Well it seems fuck all happens to landlords or workmen who trash tenants property and cause immense stress to disabled or elderly tenants.

salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=2390

M1nniedriver · 03/12/2015 02:31

Diesnt really answer my question Hmm but thanks for the link!

M1nniedriver · 03/12/2015 02:32

My question was for supermum

Want2bSupermum · 03/12/2015 02:35

In my township tenants who are one month late with rent have 2 weeks to pay. If payment is still not made (6 weeks from when it was due) they are kicked out unless they are in hospital or in care. When that happens you can't kick them out unless they are being paid disability and not paying you anything.

The issue is when they pay partial rent. So if they paid $500 instead of $1000 you couldn't start notice until they were 6 weeks past due with $1000 of rent. In these cases the lease has a clause that enables the LL to not renew the lease. Rules are that if you pay in full the only way they can move you out of your home is if they apply to the court to occupy the home themselves. If you do this and don't occupy you have to pay damages to the tenant and you are looking at jail.

They are firm but fair. As a tenant if you pay your rent in full and on time you have the right to enjoy your home for as long as you wish to. LLs however have the right to kick you out if you don't behave (drug related arrest, community violations such as being loud, not putting your trash out for collection etc) or if you don't pay your rent on time. I think it's a far better system than the UK and the rules mean there are less rental units in poor condition.

HelenaDove · 03/12/2015 02:37

That sounds like a fair system to me Supermum.

M1nniedriver · 03/12/2015 02:42

It sounds fair to me too. LL shouldnt be allowed to let properties that are substandard, neither should they run the risk of having someone decide not to pay and trash the property. It is a huge risk being a LL, it really shouldn't be.

M1nniedriver · 03/12/2015 02:45

Might be a reason people the OP was speaking about are reluctant to lease out their properties.

Want2bSupermum · 03/12/2015 02:45

It works really well apart from the small issue that those on drugs or mental illness where they don't seek treatment end up homeless. We have a local homeless shelter and it's just awful. I think they should have some sort of 'halls of residence' for them so they have somewhere to live and authorities can make sure they get the help they need.

Want2bSupermum · 03/12/2015 02:47

Also if a tenant trashes a home it's a criminal offense and you again are looking either at community service for a first time offense and jail if subsequent offense. Good luck renting with that on your record!

M1nniedriver · 03/12/2015 03:18

I rented flats when I was a student and never saw a penny of my deposit. On one occasion the property was in better condition when we left than it was when we moved in. There was very little we could do about it at the time. It was really unfair.

I'm now in a position where I rent out a flat and wouldn't dream of acting the way some of our LLs did. I think it has gone too far the other way now. I know the couple that rent my property well, i haven't increased the rent, nor would I. I still love the flat and any repairs etc are taken care of asap. They have decorated and made it their home. I will sell it as soon as they are ready to leave.

I would like to keep it but the risk of someone moving in and deciding not to pay is too high. It takes months and thousands of pounds to 'evict' people like that. It should be easier to reclaim your property in these circumstances. The law is not on the LLs side at all.

KakiFruit · 03/12/2015 08:09

YANBU but criminalising it is impractical. The best way to stop this, and buy-to-let, is to make it hugely financially unattractive.

Original poster
ReallyTired · 03/12/2015 15:41

I had experience of hideous landlords when I was in my twenties. I had one creep who used to let himself in and then attempt to convert me to Christianity. The hit tried to take my deposit. I did get some if it back because my father gave me legal help.

In my experience most tenants are good people trying to live their lives. There is an element of risk with taking on a new tenant, but there are ways of protecting yourself.

New builds are given tax relief and developers do get some state help. It is not right for much wanted flats to stay empty.

OP posts:
Bananalanacake · 03/12/2015 16:27

Well he clearly wasn't a Christian then - Money is the root of all evil and all that. If a LL tried to do that to me I'd have told him I'm a satan worshipper and set up a devil worship shrine with stars and sheep skulls - whatever they have, making sure it's easy to clean away obviously.
Oh, and I totally agree with you, what about that massive estate of social housing flats in Elephant and Castle, how long have they been empty, they could be made into homes for people on low wages.

TheXxed · 03/12/2015 16:40

Yanbu, if you are in Canary Wharf, imperial Wharf or central London at night you will see that none of those flash new developments have the lights on. No one lives in them.

Theoretician · 03/12/2015 16:42

I've said for a long time that overseas buyers with no links to the UK should have to pay a tax of 5% of the property value to the UK government. They are benefiting from our society without paying in

In Switzerland (I think) owners are taxed on imputed rent. I think if we had this in the UK, applied to all owners, then not only would it solve the empty flat problem, it would remove the unfairness that a renter needs to have two or three times as much taxable income tax to support the same lifestyle as a home-owner with a paid-off mortgage.

Just googled and apparently the UK used to have this. From Wikipedia

Sometimes governments have attempted to tax the imputed rent (Schedule A of United Kingdom's income tax used to do this), but this tends to be unpopular.[citation needed] Some countries do tax the imputed rent, like Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Switzerland.[1]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_rent

Theoretician · 03/12/2015 16:43

two or three times as much taxable income

sleepwhenidie · 03/12/2015 16:57

I agree that the taxes on such properties should be much more punitive. Making the practice of buy to leave illegal seems a step too far, not least in terms of implementing/policing it. If the owner (and to see this you would often have to look through a corporate veil) of such properties is non-UK resident for tax purposes then there should be higher stamp duty on purchase, higher council tax and capital gain on sale. There are certain neighbourhoods in London which really are ghost towns, with owners living in UAE/Malaysia etc and buying properties here up like yhey are playing Monopoly. It becomes self perpetuating, pushing prices higher by reducing supply and needs to be made much less attractive as an investment.

Want2bSupermum · 03/12/2015 16:57

I think imputed rent tax would be a great idea for those not paying taxes as a resident. I don't keep my places empty. They are either rented out or sold. I also don't sell to corporations but to families. I do not support using homes in the UK as an investment like a securities traded on an exchange. I like to consider myself as providing a service, either via rental or renovation.

specialsubject · 03/12/2015 17:02

buy-to-leave is an almost exclusively London phenomenon and could be sorted with a few tweaks to the financial rules. Ignored by successive governments. Easily solved but too many politicians have rich buddies.

took a whole 3 posts to turn this into the usual bile-spewing against ALL landlords with the usual assumption that ALL landlords rent out dumps.

Swipe left for the next trending thread