To think hording something essential for life is despicable

[sandrabedminster]

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/special-reports/i-have-three-properties-at-age-33-and-3000-a-month-to-save-do-i/

Its not jealousy before someone says it, I own my own home but I doubt my children will ever be able to. But shelter is something essential and all this speculation is causing lots of damage as prices are pushed ever higher. I know a friend that spends 70% of net income just on renting something that is too small for her.

That's rather weak as a criticism Just5mins. It would be more accurate to see that it's amazing how defensive those on the losing side of high levels of inequality can be. Which at the moment includes the poorest levels of society through to the old lower middle classes, basically anyone on less than about £35000 household income who has no realistic support from anywhere else (we do not all have that bank of mum and dad or nice supportive parents we can go and live with the richer people can naively presume on. Nor should we have to). It is starting to affect those higher and higher up the chain, fortunately for those at the lower, since no one in the higher groups gives a damn about the lower. It's worth remembering that the only reason they give a damn about the middle is because they are more vocal about kicking up a fuss. In the winner-takes-all world that is being created nothing less than being an all powerful multi-billionaire media host is really considered important on their own merit. Yet we can't all be that millionaire now, and steps are being taken to ensure that only their children are worthy of becoming the next generations'. That restriction restricts us all and impoverishes even those children eventually.

Blimey that's the response I get for agreeing with you?

Remind me never to disagree with you.

sounded like a criticism. Perhaps I ama bit over-defensive! Which illustrates the sociological problems of a divided society turning against itself nicely

"It makes sense that renting costs more, because you are paying for a service when you rent that you don't get when you buy and have to be responsible for everything yourself."

Look- you seem nice, and I kinda regret picking on you...... but this is the biggest crock of rotten shit yet in defence of landlords.

When you buy a house, yes you have to pay for everything on top of the mortgage- but that's because it's your house, and once the mortgage is paid off you get to keep the house.

When you rent not only to you have to pay the mortgage on a house somebody else gets to keep, but there are clearly some greedy landlords around who expect you to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their house on top of their mortgage as well.

Do you honestly honestly think that private renters are getting a fair deal in situations such as you describe?

I'd actually have a lot more respect for private landlords if they just admitted they wanted to blag a free house of the back of someone else's hardworking (or the taxpayer) and they didn't care who or what they had to exploit to get it.

Because that's the truth, and we can all see it clear as the nose on my face.

Exactly, SaucyJack.

How can anyone say renters ought to pay more than an owner-occupier does to live in the same place, when the owner-occupier gets to keep the property at the end and the tenant doesn't - it's ridiculous!

Of course rent should be considerably cheaper than paying a mortgage - because you don't get to own a house after 25 years!

How can this not be incredibly obvious??

Saucyjack, but there are clearly some greedy landlords around who expect you to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their house on top of their mortgage as well.

This is precisely what happens when you rent in Belgium as we do. There is no wear and tear when you leave either....it has to be in the same condition as when you took it over.

Saucy, landlords will charge whatever market rent they can get. The amount of rent they can charge on the open market depends on the type of property they have and supply and demand in the area. It doesn't depend on how much their mortgage is and how much they've had to spend on maintenance in the last year.

I honestly honestly think that plenty of renters are getting a fair deal, yes. I appreciate that many aren't, but again, the minority of bad landlords that don't provide the service they are paid for doesn't mean that all landlords are morally wrong for being landlords. In exactly the same way that a minority of bad tenants doesn't mean that all are out to screw over their landlords.

You can't keep judging a whole system negatively because of the personal situations of some of its users.

I have a lot of sympathy with the difficulty first time buyers have nowadays, why wouldn't I - my own children are going to be victims of the ludicrous house prices we have at the moment, but it's not all the fault of landlords, even the BTL ones.

The people I know who have a rental property (and me included) are not rich, greedy people. They're people that have made the most of the resources available to them in order to provide for their families and there future in the best way they can. I'm not blagging a house of the back of someone else, my flat is already 100% mine. I charge someone to live in it and in return for the rent they pay they get somewhere nice to live and all the problems associated with the property are mine, not theirs, to deal with. I don't see how they are getting this terrible deal that you seem to insist they must have. There is no exploitation going on in my, and many others, rental arrangements.

I also have a number of friends who worked very hard (no hoarding at all) to buy their own flats. They then met and married someone who they moved in with (or vice versa) and the vacated flat was then rented out. Similarly, people I've known have inherited flats (after paying inheritance tax) from a deceased relative and these again were rented out. So the question is, Would these people be expected to have sold these flats just for the greater good and because they feel sorry for renters who can't get on the property ladder? This is just not realistic. Naturally, they kept hold of their investments and they will part of their pensions. Why wouldn't they? Sometime I think we just have to accept that all things are not equal. I went to a state comprehensive, my friend went to Eton. I live in a small house, whereas my neighmour's and friend's houses are bigger. This shit happens and that's just the way life is.

scary that's interesting about Belgium. I wonder if all those who scream about the state of renting in the UK know that?

There are people who prefer to rent because they don't want to be having to find money when the boiler breaks, or the washing machine, or the electrics fuse. They dont want to be worrying about how they'll afford the mortgage if the interest rates go up, or how they'll cope if they get into negative equity. They are happy knowing if they lose their job, get into financial difficulty, or want to relocate for work, they can give a months notice and leave.

If you have no evil, immoral landlords, who will these people rent from? Will they be forced to buy because someone deems they are being exploited and lining some rich persons pocket?

Not everyone wants to buy, even if they're in a position to do so.

There are a tiny amount of people that would prefer to rent.

I'd rather they had someone regulated and professional to rent from.

"Saucy, landlords will charge whatever market rent they can get. The amount of rent they can charge on the open market depends on the type of property they have and supply and demand in the area. "

They will charge the maximum rent they can get away with, because for all of mumsnets' protestations they are in it for the money, not humanitarians doing it out of a kind heart. They have more power than tenants do in this because you have to live somewhere, have a fixed address, to have a job and do anything other than barely survive. Also there are now estate agents who guarantee to cover landlord's rents even when they don't have tenants, so there is very little to stop rents going up and up, which is what is happening. Homelessness is also up incidentally, by a quarter since 2010 I think.

The rest of your post Osolea is similarly narrowly focused. Your belief seems to boil down to, a few very fortunate individuals choose to rent at certain times of their lives, therefore everyone who rents is fortunate. You ignore that most people don't get a choice, not being fortunate enough to afford to buy nowadays, and once they are in private renting they are trapped. I wonder what you will be saying in 20 years time when the generation of lifelong-forced-private-tenants hits retirement and either have to work until they drop, which will blindingly obviously be at earlier ages than homeowners and landlords, or push the housing benefit bill through the roof. Silly me, it'll all still be entirely their own fault for not working then too won't it, even when you're comfortably retired at 60 and they're dying in work at 75.

Lollie lots of people work very hard nowadays and it brings them no reward. Work does not pay enough nowadays to cover buying houses. You are quite right to say that we are not born equal. It doesn't make it acceptable to deny more opportunities to those of us born with less through no fault of our own. It doesn't make it acceptable to those of us born with less that those born with more get to levarage their wealth at our expense. Which is what economies built on family connections and land ownership are all about.

YANBU. The Torygraph. Tories know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The great council house sell off of the 80's was the most divisive piece of post war policy. The legacy is a decline in home ownership and an increase in insecure tenancies. It is a race to the bottom. The Thatcherite dream of the "home owning democracy" is a fallacy for millions of people. 39% of Tory MP's are landlords.

Gosh, we should quickly re-nationalise the water and energy companies too, and supermarkets.Collectivise all farms!

You may mean that to sound silly but ... actually, that is sensible.

I don't think "hoarding" houses is such an evil thing to do IF you let people live in there for a reasonable rent.

But ultimately, I do think it would be better for every person to have a small piece of land that they own and can use however they see fit - giving it to a farmer to farm on, live on it, whatever.
The way it is nowadays, you depend on other people's mercy to find employment, etc, and the ideas of paying every citizen a small income (which would be about the same idea as giving them a fair share of the land) haven't been implemented yet.

Specialsubject when you move out of a rental in Belgium, they gouge you for everything down to the lightbulbs. A Dutch friend moved, and thought she'd got off lightly with exit costs of about €2.5k.

I don't use the microwave that came with this property, as I have my own, so I cleaned the one with the house, and then don't use it. The built in fridge is just used for milk/juice/wineo, so I use mine for everything else, and the dishwasher gets cleaned very frequently.

To be fair, UK tenants are also expected to leave the same number and type of working light bulbs as they found, and to leave the place as clean as they found it

But wear and tear (eg walking on carpets...) Is not chargeable. Which seems reasonable to me.

When my friend moved, one of the lightbulbs had popped. The guy doing the inventory for leaving wouldn't let her fetch one from her car, where she had a stash, but charged her €12 for replacing it.

They will charge the maximum rent they can get away with, because for all of mumsnets' protestations they are in it for the money, not humanitarians doing it out of a kind heart.

That's pretty much obvious, no one goes into business or makes an investment out if the kindness of their hearts, but the motive if many who are just trying to provide for their own futures isn't exactly a horrendous one.

Is there some reason why you think a private landlord shouldn't be able to charge enough that their expenses and time are paid for?

I get that it can be shit for people who want to buy to be stuck with renting, really, I do, and I have not implied that I think everyone who rents is fortunate. Some will be in fortunate positions, some won't be, same as homeowners.

I also get it that there are landlords out there who who rent out hovels to people who have no option but to take it, I just can't agree that the vast majority of landlords are exploiting people. Are doctors exploiting people because they make a living out if sick people who have no choice but to need them? Are teachers exploiting families because children need an education?

Are doctors exploiting people because they make a living out if sick people who have no choice but to need them? Are teachers exploiting families because children need an education?

These are both free at point of use....

...which as the landlord I would then have said 'don't be ridiculous' when I saw the proposed deposit deductions. That's nuts.

it is if the place is stripped of them that it becomes an issue.

If houses are treated as investments/commodities inequality is inevitable.

It'sall, that's not the point, the point is that they are people who are earning a living out of someone else's basic need. They aren't bad for doing that. Landlording isn't a fundamentally bad or immoral thing to do.

What about dr's who practice privately then?

Teachers in private schools?

What about dr's who practice privately then?

Teachers in private schools?

There is a very good free at point of use alternative available to all.