To hate landlords?

[MsPeachh]

Last month, I had to move suddenly. I found the flat I’m in now, it had just been bought by my landlord and I’m the first person in after the former owner moved out. It’s an ex-council house that the owner had purchased under “right to buy” and now I have to pay a third of my salary to a private landlord for what was originally meant to be affordable housing.

I’m a scientist in my late twenties with good qualifications and I feel total despair that I might never be able to afford my own home, and I will be lining someone else’s pockets via rent for the rest of my life. Let alone what anyone in a position less fortunate than mine is supposed to do.

To make matters worse, I looked up my landlord’s info on Companies House and I discovered that they have 22 properties in my area! It’s a village on the outskirts of a town where lots of people move when they are ready to move out of the hustle and bustle and settle to raise kids. And more and more of these properties are being snapped up by this landlord. It makes me sick, honestly. I know a lot of people become landlords accidentally in later life due to remarrying etc and ending up with two houses between one couple, but this landlord sucking up 22 houses in such a small area disgusts me. I feel like I’m completely losing hope for the future of people my age and younger as house prices keep soaring and soaring.

AIBU?

Behind*

Landlords provide a home. I remember when you could not remove tenants ever and some rents were £10 a year for life held over from Rent Act days and no assured shortholds. It was not good for tenants because there was no property available to rent and people slept on parents' floors or joined a 30 year council house waiting list. At least today there are properties available to rent so in that sense it is much better than it was.

Also you can agree long term tenancies. My sons have always wanted tenants to stay longer but the last ones left because they moved cities not long after their first child arrived, after only a year and the current ones leaving next month ave stayed a year despite saying it would be their family home for years because their relationship broke up (they have a child). We would have been more than happy to offer them a fixed 2 or 3 year term but they only wanted to be tied down for a year. My daughter who is a tenant and a landlord took on a 6 month tenancy as she wants to move after 6 months (young people often want to move).

Did your sons offer a break clause when they discussed the possibility of a three year lease? Because if not, that could be why the tenants turned it down ie they didn't want to have more onerous/less flexible obligations than an owner occupier.

Saving up for a deposit is hard and requires sacrifice, but that has always been the case - it's rose tinted glasses to think houses were ever really affordable. My parents were so called 'boomers' who supposedly had it easy. They moved in the the in laws in a tiny terrace to save for a house, there was no minimum wage and my mum was paid less due to being female. House prices at the time were based on a single income (as that was the norm). They made sacrifices to save for a house.

DH and I made fewer sacrifices so it took us longer - I refused to move back home, we put off having kids, we lived in shared accommodation.

One possibility for certain private landlords who don't want to recover the homes for personal use, might be to donate them to the State/institutional investment landlord's pool of housing, in return for a guaranteed income and relief from risk, plus a promise to buy it from them at adjusted market rate if the capital is needed

I get the rationale there but doubt it would work ... after all what's to stop the state changing the goalposts once the arrangement was in place?

The landlord renting out at 'a loss' won't be losing any money. They own a valuable asset (bought at an inflated price thanks to the housing bubble), and it's an asset that they could sell if they chose to.

Interesting about Singapore. What happens to the 10% who can't afford to buy? Are they left homeless/in slum housing, or do they rent the government owned flats at an affordable price? And is there a housing safety net for the disabled, who can't earn or whose income is limited due to their disability?

Wrt moving home We could follow the continental Europe model and/or mass council housing (NO right to buy). Secure tenancies and rent control, but tenants are free to give notice if they need or want to move. That means there will always be affordable stable housing available wherever in the country they choose to live. It means also that people on low incomes and the disabled have access to affordable stable housing. Before anybody suggests everybody 'gets a better job' remember that we all need people to work in those lower paid jobs. Society wouldn't function without them.

Probably less complicated to go back to how it was before the 90s ie only evict in limited circumstances.

Think we're moving back there anyway as we seem to be having more renters now and laws are gradually adjusting accordingly. We only had a bulge of owner occupiers when wages were more evenly distributed in the post-war consensus years. As soon as you get more inequality you're always going to get a landlord class. The question is how you control them, and I think it's becoming clear to all parties that they do need a bit more reining in as a matter of policy. I mean it's in no one's interest to have over a third of the population living in insecure housing with little regulation.

I agree. We don't have to own. It's nice (as is owning a yacht) but unnecessary. What is necessary is secure tenancies and rent controls - with no bar to housing for the disabled and people on lower incomes. Banning crooks, fraudsters, and violent criminals as landlords would be good too. Perhaps it could be similar to eligibility for a pub licencee.

I mean, I guess we could try to have less inequality too, but I'm not holding my breath.

@SheepandCow Singapore government rents to poor people at a very low cost- think $50 a month. Very small flats but they are maintained by the government and often very near or in the same block as the people who bought their flats . In Singapore lawyers and doctors often live in the same blocks as working class- main difference is the interiors.

The real losers are the foreigners who aren't eligible for any subsidy but then they do go back to their home countries in the region and their savings go very far. Expats pay very high market rent but then they also earn a lot more/pay less tax.

@SheepandCow agree we definitely need regulation about who gets to be a landlord. Tenants have to provide references, proof of employment, proof of residency, bank statements, background checks etc. There should be at the very least the same requirements for landlords. They control people's home environments fgs.

Another factor in people becoming landlords was in the late 90s Gordon Brown started to tax dividends on private pension funds, reducing the value of pension savings, so people started to look at where they could get a better return on their saviibgs, property.I read today that one option to start to pay the cost of covid is to tax pension savings, it wil! Have repercussions.

True @Lincslady53. A lot of people lost pensions outright as well with all the psuedo-liquidations/dodgy M&As that were all the rage around that time as well. Under a labour government, I ask you.

@Mybobowler the person that saved to buy a house and pays the mortgage decided to rent it to you and you call that person a parasite?
That's extraordinary. Earn more money, make more sacrifices and buy somewhere it's an easy thing to do.

Thanks for the reply hopingforonlychild
I think the Singapore system sounds quite good (I'm a fan of their handling of Covid too).

I think definitely landlords need some kind of vetting. I remember reading about a murder. The man, a known gangster, was in prison for killing a stranger. He was also a landlord. I know I wouldn't feel very safe sleeping in his property knowing he might have a key!

It's also risky giving in-depth personal financial info to any old potential criminal.

The cope in this thread! Pity the poor hard done by landlords. Diddums.

[quote BlueJag]@Mybobowler the person that saved to buy a house and pays the mortgage decided to rent it to you and you call that person a parasite?
That's extraordinary. Earn more money, make more sacrifices and buy somewhere it's an easy thing to do.
[/quote]
Who does the (essential) jobs that don't pay much, and where do they (and their kids) live?

Interest rates (kept low to prop up the housing bubble) over the last decade have pretty much decimated savings. Not good for young (need to save for a deposit), nor old (pension savings).

Being a landlord is super stressful. We get no tax breaks, we have to follow so many regulations to stay legal like Gas/elec certificates. We have to comply with the law at all times. We have to comply with energy performance certificates as well.
Also service charge in flats. Insurance. Non paying tenants. We do not line our pockets until houses are paid for. That can take 25 years.
We provide a service take or leave it. I'm currently cleaning and redecorating a house that we rent. I've been on my hands and knees for two weeks now. If we were rich we'll get the staff to do it but we can't afford staff.
I think tenants can be a nightmare and hold stupid grudges to people that provide a service. Don't like it buy a place of your own... can't afford it don't blame landlords. It's your own fault for not making more sacrifices like no holiday, new cars etc.

@BlueJag you sound very stressed. I think you should earn more money, make more sacrifices and then you can pay staff. It's an easy thing to do.

@AphidTwin

I don't think all landlords are Evil People.
The system is broken. That's the problem. The blame mostly lies with the governments of the last 30 to 40 years.

@BlueJag If it was so stressful, why do it at all? No one is forcing you.

This reminds me of Basil Fawlty screaming at his guests- You swan in here expecting to be waited on hand and foot! Can't you see that I am trying to run a hotel here!

All you get with some of these suggested controls is higher rents with charges for the licenses/controls/permissions being artificially inflated and going to private companies who have somehow established themselves in a false (compulsory) market.

Doesn't England have landlord registration? In Scotland, there is landlord registration and HMO licensing for properties with more than 2 unrelated tenants, and, all the safety measures which can mysteriously only be provided by one or two authorised contractors.

Landlord registration includes a criminal records check and fit and proper person test, as does hmo licensing. There are severe criminal penalties for transgressions, including jail. Letting agents must go on a 2 week course costing £1500 provided by authorised private limited companies - with no guarantee as to the qualifications of those who teach it!

Does this make the Scottish property market any better for tenants than say, The Netherlands which doesnt have such controls?

Not really. Rents for decent properties have to be higher to pay for it all (circa 8 safety checks on an hmo annually plus hmo license at £2000 and landlord registration). Total around £4000 each year plus the cost of the latest change in safety requirements which can only be provided by a certain company.

So the money goes towards running a council department and keeping some favoured individuals' companies going. Not towards eg secondary glazing to lessen road noise or new memory foam mattresses for the beds, or new kitchen units.

And since the statutory notices scam in Edinburgh (where flat owners had communal repairs notice work carried out, often incompetently, and were overcharged tens of thousands of pounds and it basically turned into a multi million pound mini industry for the boys) I think many oslf is are rather cynical about such council run initiatives.

Scotland's property sector is now the most over regulated in the world, outside certain select new York apartment buildings. Far better to have something like the German system, where tenants themselves appoint a building hausemeister. Although obviously its even harder to find a rental property in many German cities than in the UK.

Then if you have a job which makes you a higher rate taxpayer, you can only deduct a small amount of mortgage interest, so end up paying tax on a certain proportion of profit not even made.

I'd agree with that @SheepandCow. Private residential tenants are fucked because of close to half a century of terrible housing policies, not because of individual landlords.

However, landlords benefit from a grossly unequal balance of power, so I can see how the average tenant with a boot stamping on their face for what feels like forever would get a bit upset about it.

@ApplePie86

Sorry but YABVVVU

It was entirely your choice to rent the property and pay a third of your salary for the privilege.

If you don't want to rent then save up a modest 5% deposit and buy somewhere with a similar government scheme to previous owner.

Just as you have chosen your job, your landlord has possibly chosen to be a property owner/developer or whatever.

Just because they own multiple properties doesn't mean they haven't worked exceptionally hard to do this.

Very unreasonable to hate your landlord for this reason.

It's never a 'privilege' love