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?

It's as AngryFishes says.
And, the lack of alternative options means the regulations are useless. Poorer tenants (including vulnerable families and disabled and ill people) can't report dangerous housing - lack of gas safety certificate etc, because they haven't got anywhere else to go. Also, the penalties are pathetic. Paltry fines even when it's something life threatening.

Yes, a compulsory landlording course does seem like it would be a reasonable requirement (I would have preferred to do that than look everything up myself). The letting agents are an issue too. The estate agent I bought from claimed he could let the property out immediately without any refurbishment (at 1.5 times what I am charging my tenant). The builder that refurbished the place for me found the staircase was dangerous and completely repaired it. It had been obvious to me it was not in good repair, but the estate agent clearly did not care.

I think if we have regulations over landlords then we need regulations over tenants so they don’t lie or come up with fake references etc

Equally a quicker court system to get rid of tenants who don’t pay the rent or are a nuisance to the neighbourhood and a more robust tracking system to track where they go next.

Atm those tenants who play by the rules are being penalised for the actions of those that deliberately defraud the landlord and have no intention in paying anything for rent.

Agreed that it would be nice for landlords to have this but it would need to be carefully done in order not to infringe on liberties and also ofc landlords can and do evict so still retain their land and property rights regardless plus the main constraint on recourse would remain the same ie difficulty of court enforced compensation when a former tenant has no funds.

Tenants are not "penalised" by other tenants behaving badly but by renting within a system where there is no tenure security, no pricing regulation, little quality regulation and no regulation re fitness to provide. These issues because they are to do with the provision of shelter impact on national fiscal and health matters and so are properly matters of public policy.

these issues because they are to do with the provision of shelter impact on national physical and health matters and so are properly matters of public policy
I feel this is the heart of the matter, something as crucial and fundamental as the provision of shelter should not be at the mercy of market forces.
No one is able to have a stable decent life if they are constantly at risk of homelessness and so it follows that we cannot have a decent stable society unless we can ensure a stable and secure home for all citizens

Yes tenants are penalised. Do you not think that even something like landlord insurance would not go down and then rents wouldn’t go down if there weren’t so many non paying tenants or tenants that trashed the place.

Do you not think if a landlord has had to send in industrial cleaners etc after the previous tenant has trashed the place that they aren’t going to put a little on the rent to cover the costs over a period of time.
Just a few pounds extra to cover costs over time.
Think about it in terms of shoplifting. The cost of food goes up to cover the losses.
If there were no shoplifters then food would be less.

Really ....you think that if shoplifting stopped Tesco would reduce its prices rather than just pocket the extra profit?

Well if everyone else did then yes.

OP, you're going to love the other thread that looks at STAMP duty that the TENANT has to pay then

The unions have brainwashed everyone to respond the to word 'housing' with the mindless demands for 'social housing'. Why? Why State housing or owner-occupation, with no alternatives.?

N O T everyone's housing needs are met by State Housing. N O T everyone in housing need is a correct box-ticker even to apply for State Housing. Like the 90 year olds living in a bus shelter, he a wheelchair user, unable to get a private landlord because they had no debt therefore no credit record, and unable to apply for State housing because they had no private pension, therefore had clung to some life savings.

If people need clothes, nobody since Chairman Mao would suggest State Clothing.
If there is a shortage of employment, no doubt the unions would love to get the entire country equally brainwashed to parrot that all the unemployed should be given places on the civil service payroll.

Unions once had good reason to exist, when there was no employment law and no health and safety law. Now, they are far too powerful, one runs an entire political party, the other runs the civil service and every public service. If there are four million employees of the N.H.S., the second biggest employer in the world, what are they doing? They cannot all be front line useful. They certainly aren't backroom efficient . Our N.H.S standards., like our State pension, is the disgrace of the developed world.

So, N O, please stop mindlessly calling for State housing for the minority, in a way which is as randomly related to housing need as going into a supermarket with a paintball gun to fire at random, and declaring the person hit by paint gets free groceries for life..

Im not sure i fully disagree. How would you see a solution working?

Landlords need insurance because they are contracting with people who generally don't have the assets to cover costs incurred by landlords in the event of a breach by the tenant. It's the flipside of the financial inequality that allows for private residential letting to exist on the scale it does.

So landlords will always need that additional protection. And no, I don't think rents will magically become affordable to the tune of £12bn a year just because premiums fall slightly.

It seems to me you're grasping at straws anyway, saying that you want to regulate tenants in order to save them money. You just want to regulate them as a kind of tit for tat, like "well if we're going to regulate landlords we need to do the same for the other side" when actually regulating private residential letting is to do with as @Yohoheaveho says trying to have a stable healthy population because that means you have a better workforce who will pay taxes and benefit the economy etc.

Reminds me of a problem my tenants caused. Lovely property with modern central heating which they couldn't work. Rather than reading the manual to find out how to turn it on 24/7, the tenants fiddled with it then gave up. Students who went hone for Christmas.

On boxing day, I got irrate phone calls from the owner of the business below my flat, whose entire stock had been soaked and ruined by the overflow from my central heating, which the tenants had somehow managed to activate. My central heating system was damaged, but the food shop below had to close for 2 weeks for repairs. The owner threatened to sue me. Fortunately insured.I've also had tenants sit on radiators and break them and draining the system as a result. You cannot even guess what sorts of accidental damage people will cause.

Two Christmases ruined though. A lot of tenants just don't care about properties that don't belong to them, safe in the assumption that someone else will pay for the damage they cause.

Obviously, the rent has to factor in some level of the neediness of tenants, and the liklihood of non payment of rent too.

I've just finished dealing with the non draining dishwasher, sink blocked with food waste, broken WiFi, inability to rest the central heating and change the bathroom light bulb and tenant locking himself out. In the last week alone.

I'm not complain, just pointing out that a lot if tenants now are incredibly needy. I actually find my student tenants much less bother than the single male Monday to Friday lets who pick up the phone the MOMENT the slightest thing goes wrong. Have I mentioned the one who pushed the mibrowabe against the ch boiler on off switch, this switching it off? Cue complaint central heating was broken and could I get a plumber out. Talking him through the likely cause did no good. It was only when I drove out at 8.30pm at night to move the microwave that he was all apologetic.

Some tenants really need a live in nanny.

If your boiler is overflowing it has a pressure fault.

You sound a bit needy.

Also, the overflow pipe goes outside. Why did yours go downstairs? Did you use a dodgy fitter? Always best to go by word of mouth I find.

Like a PP on my 20s(professional job) I lived in a house share with others - lucky you to be able to afford to rent your own space. Shame for the families who are priced out of rentals by you.

I agree. I pay 1135.00 a month for a tiny 2 bed flat in the less desirable part of town. Both me and my partner work full time but In 'low skilled' jobs so we take hone 2.5 k between us. We are in our 50s and also have a 12 year old Dd so there really is no chance that even if we were able to save a deposit we would ever get a mortgage
We had to jump through numerous hoops to rent this flat, yet it will never truly feel like our home.
I think we will be working until we drop dead so we can pay for someone else's retirement

The 1135 a month rent will be taxed so will come back to the state in large part. The landlord probably also has a mortgage to pay on it. The landlord might be getting £500 a month back on it. It might well currently be reducing in value every year.

@20mum

The 1970s called, they miss you. Unions too powerful? Hahahahaha.

Social housing has a place, not for all but for some. The idea that the market will sort everything out is manifestly false.

Lol @ the idea of landlords paying tonnes of tax. Have you seen the list of deductibles? According to every landlord on this thread they're not making a profit due to costs incurred from upkeep so no tax payable.

Are you saying this is an unrepresentative sample and therefore that their cogent testimonies of hardship should be ignored?

To be clear, that's fine by me.

@AngryFishes

Lol @ the idea of landlords paying tonnes of tax. Have you seen the list of deductibles? According to every landlord on this thread they're not making a profit due to costs incurred from upkeep so no tax payable.

Are you saying this is an unrepresentative sample and therefore that their cogent testimonies of hardship should be ignored?

How long have you been a landlord for? Never? Oh I see. That's why you are so knowledgeable about landlords' finances.

@BarryWhiteIsMyBrother just going on what the landlords themselves have said on this thread for the previous 30 pages of it: that none of them are making a profit. Therefore they won't be paying tax.

I hope you're not doubting them otherwise that makes you a landlord hater 😠

I'm a landlord and I pay a lot of tax. HTH.

Well obviously then there is no issue.