To welcome rent controls in London

[Cameblackbenzleftwhite1]

Many other cities have them like Berlin and new York and it seems to work well. Helps people live in a city and not cleanse all the poor people out.

Daily mail foamers are hating corbyns plabs, so that probably means it's good.

Yes. It just prevents people from being able to find an affordable rental by driving up prices/decreasing the amount of rental accommodation available. The result is a dibs based system where those who have been there for a long time pay very little while those who have to move in order to you know, get a real job that pays a decent amount of money loose out for all their hard work. If you want to live in an expensive area you should be prepared to work for it.

How do rent controls drive up prices? They are a means of stopping prices going up.

Yy to the need for social housing. Labour are proposing a two pronged approach by committing to build more of this also. We could afford it as well if we stopped chucking £10 billion a year at private landlords to prop up a bent market. You'd get a fair few houses for £10 billion.

Ttbb "If you want to live in an expensive area you should be prepared to work for it."

I know it's you Ttbb but even so...

my area is considered expensive by many. how did I afford to buy? By being born when I was. 5 years later - no fucking way could I be here.

oh and the rent increases in this area....! the mind boggles.

" Someone wanted the housing association to clean her windows in MN the other day"

If you are going to slight social housing tenants tell the full story about the other thread.
a. shes not on the ground floor.

b. im not the OP from the other thread but it was in our tenancy agreement and service charge that the HA clean the outside of our windows and the guttering.

But to certain MNers the tenancy agreement only matters when its the tenant breaking it!!!!

c. it is what the service charge pays for in many cases Ours include the cleaning of the communal hallway.

the outside of our windows and guttering are no longer included though because the caretaker was made redundant and not replaced. This has happened on many housing schemes including sheltered housing ones.

Well well well!! Having gone back to the aforementioned thread its the same old names popping up to have a go at tenants again. So predictable.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3044891-to-ask-whether-the-council-cleans-the-outside-of-your-windows-ever?pg=1

Just thought id leave this here to help with the selective memory some seem to be afflicted with.

so much depends on how the "rent control" is set up.
where I live it means it can go up as much but not more than 10% each time a unit is vacated/change of tenant and can go up only every 12 months for long term tenants. so not a total freeze.

The best way to bring rents down is to build more social housing. We've had housing association build a whole raft of flats on the site of an old school locally and it's had quite an impact on rental values.

LL's like myself who rent at that level haven't been affected. The flat downstairs from my tenant has been empty for two months because the LL wants £200 a month more than what my tenant and the social tenants are paying. People won't get it because there is a lot of available rentals because 56 HA flats have just been finished.

It's exactly the same with childcare imo. New nursery opened in the new school/community building. Costs waaay less than the local private nursery. Less than a year later the private nursery has lowered their price from their previously ridiculous level (their charge was as much as my friend pays in central London despite us being very far from central London, but as the only provider locally they could charge what they liked). Same when the local Early Years officer changed and became way, way more helpful for people considering childminding.

I hope that housing legislation becomes regional.

The bedroom tax has created a housing crisis, here in Liverpool, for the first time ever. There isn't enough two bedroom house, the two bed flats aren't suitable for children, so we have families who are being left without secure homes and are being driven further into poverty. The set up costs for a private tenant can be up to £1k.
Many single people have now been rehoused, but not without having to pay around £14 a week for a year, either from their benefits, or low wages, whilst they waited.

Rent controls didn't work here, either, when we had them in the 80's.

The north does not need the same policies putting in place in regards to housing, as the South may need.

The HA has had to sell off a large % of their three beds stock, which is short sighted, but they've had no choice because they can't rent to someone who under occupies and contrary to the gutter press, large families living on benefits, are in the minority.

I read this from Shelter a while back (post is from 2014) and it make sense to me - not rent caps which can be bad news but different measures to increase stability, give people more secure tendencies etc:

blog.shelter.org.uk/2014/02/are-rent-caps-the-answer/

Shelter have responded to Corbyn's speech here with a bit more detail:
blog.shelter.org.uk/2017/09/old-fashioned-rent-control-what-is-it-good-for/

To me a huge problem is tenancy lengths. It's horrible to be on a rolling contract after 6m/12m where the landlord can increase rent at any time, boot you without much reason etc. It allows rents to increase rapidly and makes people very insecure.

I agree a shift where tenants take responsibility for everything would be hard but I also think it would come naturally to an extent. We rent from an acquaintance. He charges slightly below what he could get for the property but in return he has motivated and trustworthy tenants. He does major jobs but we look after the property well, repainting as necessary, we replaced some carpets that needed, sorted the garden which it badly needed. We are secure here with no short term agreement and we know rent won't increase for no good reason so the whole LL/tenant relationship is much more reciprocal and less us vs them. So if Corbyn takes Shelter's approach I think that could mitigate some of the problems with rent caps but still improve things for renters.

Tenancies not tendencies

(Nb - landlord with vested interests)

I think it's a terrible idea. In practice I expect landlords will do whatever they can to be outside the rent control system - up to and including just using the property for holiday lets instead - and that the knock on effect will be poorer property condition and less property available. I think building more (and getting rid kf land banking and other bad practices by the major developers) is key. And any empty property should be taxed until it's unviable to keep it empty.

Sorry but I don't think this will happen. Had it before and it didn't work.

Very nice explanation from WiseDad. I'd never thought of the economics of 'right to buy' - really interesting.

Economics is an amazing tool for understanding how consequences will play out. I found reading Hidden Order by David Friedman fundamentally changed the way I understand the world.

Unfortunately, I think lots of politicians could do with reading it too!

Thanks Nordicwannabe.

Also there is another book that is useful. Google "economics in one lesson" by Henry Hazlitt. It's old but very good on why price controls don't work, why tax and spend doesn't create more demand but shifts it to other things potentially less desired and less efficiently etc etc

I would really recommend it to AnneGrommit who seems to think think that people shouldn't have free enjoyment of their own property.

Right to buy is such a massive culprit here. I briefly worked for a RTB mortgage company and the figures were absolutely shocking. So many rtb purchasers sold on the second they were allowed to do so, many making a significant profit but those properties are all now owned by private individuals or investors making an absolute killing rather than the state holding a massive amount of assets and property that can be rented out affordably.

The government should only implement rent controls if they're willing and able to by up the properties that will inevitably flood the market when ll realise they can't get someone to buy a house for them and make enough extra to serve as a pension or second income stream.

" If you want to live in an expensive area you should be prepared to work for it."

Most people don't want to live in expensive areas tho.

They just want to stay living in the ordinary towns where their jobs and DC's schools are without their rents being put up £1000 a year for no fucking reason whatsoever.

Economics is an amazing tool for understanding how consequences will play out.

You are using economics to put forward a one sided view there will be plenty of good and bad points with rent controls, to just put forward possible bad points is disingenuous.

The real problem is right to buy and buy to let. If rent controls stops people from taking on huge buy to let io mortgages and pushing up the prices. That will help the whole economy as most of people's income won't be taken up with mortgage or rent and will slosh around in the economy.

When the boomers are gone young people who spend up to 70% of income on rent and mortgage won't have money to spend on much else.

Rent control in other countries has often meant that well off older people pay a fraction of what their younger and newer neighbours pay which is obviously unfair. I have a relative who has lived in an apartment in an affluent area of Manhattan since 1970 just off Park Avenue. She pays less than a $1000 a month due to rent control. That's ridiculous. Even she admits it! She also owns a beach house which she can afford due to her ridiculously cheap rent.
My ILs are from a country which has rent control. They own a building and have a tenant who has lived there since the 70s and is a high profile and wealthy lawyer. He pays half of what my MIL's maid pays to live in a virtual slum.

Eliza "Rent control in other countries has often meant that well off older people pay a fraction of what their younger and newer neighbours pay which is obviously unfair."

We don't have to repeat the mistakes made in the past you know! Rent control can be run a whole bunch of different ways.

@geoff409
I think you might have misunderstood something there.
I'm from Germany and we have very strict rules regarding renting.
I've never ever heard about somebody renting and being responsible for the electris, that's completely forbidden.
There are clear laws on what is landlords responsibility and what is tenants responsibility. Normal upkeep (lick of paint, etc) is tenant, but everything belonging to the building itself like electricity cables, windows, water pipes, etc is clearly landlords.

The bedroom tax needs reformed as well. Housing benefit for social tenants needs to go too the same delivery as private tenants.

my tenants sister was in a 3 bed social housing flat. She only needed a 2 bed but the housing association didn't have any Her rent was £5 less than 2 bed lha rate, but she lost 14% for the bedroom tax. Luckily she was able to get a swap into one of the new builds, but for that whole time she's been making up her rent whej she really shouldn't have been.

NotEnglish I have a feeling geoff409 would be moving the goalposts pretty damn quick if the house next door to him was rented and the tenant took his MN advice and started fiddling with the electrics.

It would work if there were at the same time a massive government backed housebuilding programme.

The only time house building has matched demand is after WW2 when the government were building millions of new homes. If it's left to the private sector, supply is kept low to keep prices high.

Why should renters have any other protection besides regular contract law?

You are buying a service. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a sad symptom of the entitlement of modern society.