Renters won't leave the house I'm buying, they 'can't find anywhere suitable'.

[wirldsgonemad]

But thanks to covid, a section 21 means people have 6 months instead of 2 months to vacate and this means I get charged £4,250 extra in stamp duty, plus mortgage application fees and survey of £1k plus my life being on hold for 6 months.

They are fully aware of my position, they know I'm a single mother of 2 small children and they don't give two hoots that they're actions are costing me £5-6k and months of waiting.

God give me strength to get through these next few months without attacking them on a regular basis.

What would you do in my situation???

Sorry I forgot Scotland is still part of the UK

@NoWordForFluffy

Holding landlords to account and wanting them to adhere to housing law doesn't mean hating them. That's a very childish way to look at it.

Oh the irony. Have you seen what some anti landlord posters have said on this thread? And yet I'm childish for calling them out. Oh dear.

@Needmoresleep

Sorry I forgot Scotland is still part of the UK

Perhaps when you are talking about England you should just say England...

(For example earlier in the week there was one on the Government’s new announcement on cladding

Ah thank you need, you’ve inadvertently solved the puzzle of why a poster randomly (it seemed) started mentioning cladding in a Higher Education thread I was on earlier this week. I was a bit baffled why their mind suddenly went in that particular direction - now all is clear

The cladding problem is awful. I similarly can understand why it would be preying on people’s minds.

I very much hope OPs house does not have cladding as well!

And if I was worried about cladding I would be pleased that I had easy access to expert advice.

[quote Radio4Rocks]@NoWordForFluffy

Holding landlords to account and wanting them to adhere to housing law doesn't mean hating them. That's a very childish way to look at it.

Oh the irony. Have you seen what some anti landlord posters have said on this thread? And yet I'm childish for calling them out. Oh dear.[/quote]
Could you quote specific 'anti landlord' posts please? I haven't seen any

My estate agent told me I couldn’t put my flat on the market if I had tenants in it? This should be the sellers issue not yours

@Zoejj77

My estate agent told me I couldn’t put my flat on the market if I had tenants in it? This should be the sellers issue not yours

You can, legally, put your flat on the market but it’s a minefield so many estate agents advise against it. There’s one in my village that won’t market tenanted properties as they say it’s more hassle than it’s worth.

Zoe, the advice will also have changed. When S21s notices were 2 months it was possible to find a buyer, issue the two month S21 and then only exchange/complete when vacant possession was achieved.

I did this once, as I had a good tenant who I was confident would leave at the end of his tenancy. (He was renting the flat as he had a six month driving ban, so needed to be able to walk to work!) I also bought a tenanted flat once, in part because the tenants seemed perfect and I was happy to have rental income from the getgo. I suspect the agent got me in early as he too wanted them to be able to stay.

Six months notice and the additional COVID tenancy protections make this approach less feasible. You would need a cash and investment buyer. A pretty limited market. Plus a good discount because of the risks involved.

[quote Radio4Rocks]@NoWordForFluffy

Holding landlords to account and wanting them to adhere to housing law doesn't mean hating them. That's a very childish way to look at it.

Oh the irony. Have you seen what some anti landlord posters have said on this thread? And yet I'm childish for calling them out. Oh dear.[/quote]
Point very much proven.

You've been argumentatively clueless throughout the thread. I don't think you understand what anti-landlord means (clue: expecting them to meet their legal obligations isn't it).

@dontdisturbmenow

They've been told to leave. The landlord doesn't want them there. For them to stay is squatting where they are unwelcome. It may be legal but it's daft. And the law needs to be changed You're the exact person that gives landlords a bad name. I agree to an extend but when the tenants are being given notice just 4 months after moving in, it's just immoral -unless of course they were fully aware of the situation and it suited them-.

Yes those poor landlords having their multiple mortgages paid off by the people living in a house they couldn’t give a shit about and only see as an asset
And that leads to this mindset, which is just as wrong and insulting.

Are they 'squatting' or are they still paying rent?

@kimmsutt

Offer them £1500 to move out.

And if there's no other house out there (situation in my area) then what good is £1500?

@Zoejj77

My estate agent told me I couldn’t put my flat on the market if I had tenants in it? This should be the sellers issue not yours

That's bizarre. Landlords can sell a tenanted property to another landlord.

@Needmoresleep

I was not intending to be patronising.

This thread is very long and all sorts of odd statements have been made. (Send in the thugs!)

In case a tenant or landlord is confused it is probably worth repeating every so often, how S21 operates now. It is clear that is not universal knowledge.

I also wanted to promote NRLA, essential expenditure for any novice landlord. (Last year I watched my student DDs greedy landlord make one rookie mistake after another: no inventory, no local letting agent, no up to date contract, no S21 notice, no HMO licence, no response when basic H&M items were reported and so on. He seemed to think bullying was the way forward. Lots in DDs back pocket had he ever tried it on her.)

I am not convinced about registration. My impression is that each time there is any form of new requirement, good landlords comply, others don’t. If estate agents are to be believed, very very few landlords have bothered with HMO licensing in one borough. It was seriously expensive even though our property was already well maintained (the borough supposedly has the most onerous requirements in the UK). Unless enforcement happens it is simply a tax on the better landlords. This borough won’t enforce. Their council housing wait list is about 100 years long and they can’t afford for landlords to sell up and make their tenants homeless.

Licensing is for most councils a handy money making scheme. As you say, without proper enforcement it's just a tax on good landlords.

A system of registration like Scotland is different to the type of licensing you're considering, I think. That's the type of registration we've been advocating.

It appears to be quite strict.

This - old - article is interesting too: www.lindsays.co.uk/news-and-insights/insights/is-the-net-finally-closing-in-on-un-registered-landlords

The Scottish system is the one I've referred to many times on here.

It's not perfect, but it's a massive step in the right direction.

The council here has had a pilot scheme for the last three years with LL's voluntarily registering with them. It's made a huge difference locally. Quite a few shit LL's have sold up (as they thought it was going to become a bigger thing) because they wouldn't sign up. A lot of really shit quality places have been made better places, or bought by better LL's, as a result.

that article refers to Scotland.

the answer to the question is 'no' in England, where there is almost no enforcement of property standards. This especially applies in London, where high demand means a dodgy landlord can rent out a shithole and have desperate tenants willing to take it.

@murbblurb

that article refers to Scotland.

the answer to the question is 'no' in England, where there is almost no enforcement of property standards. This especially applies in London, where high demand means a dodgy landlord can rent out a shithole and have desperate tenants willing to take it.

Yes, that was the whole point, @murbblurb, to illustrate the system in Scotland, as per my post above. At least try to read the posts above you, other than to snipe unnecessarily.

I still suspect that Scotland does not have the housing pressures that exist in London. In the short term London councils can’t afford to have lots of landlords sell up thereby reducing rental stock.

That said the licensing process we went through was really strict, including DBS, compulsory membership of the NRLA, and weird stuff like professionally drawn up floor plans, which were then rejected as they had not told us that the positioning of the smoke alarms had to be included. More bizarre was that the housing department had no idea or advice about how their additional HMO licensing tied in with planning requirement for planning permission to have an HMO. (HMO for them was any property with two or more households, ie two friends sharing a two bed flat.) The fees are huge and the admin desperately slow and unhelpful. It took months. The property itself was fine so the only outcome was more money for the council, and a shortage of properties for sharers. A pity in a University town. We only did it because we did not want to have to evict the then tenants. We now let to a family and won’t renew. . Estate agents tell us that very few applied for licences. The number of letters we get asking about the availability of the property from corporate employers tends to confirm that. Lighter touch councils seem to have more good quality rental properties available.

I'm not sure we should base rental legislation on what happens in London alone.

@Needmoresleep

I still suspect that Scotland does not have the housing pressures that exist in London. In the short term London councils can’t afford to have lots of landlords sell up thereby reducing rental stock.

That said the licensing process we went through was really strict, including DBS, compulsory membership of the NRLA, and weird stuff like professionally drawn up floor plans, which were then rejected as they had not told us that the positioning of the smoke alarms had to be included. More bizarre was that the housing department had no idea or advice about how their additional HMO licensing tied in with planning requirement for planning permission to have an HMO. (HMO for them was any property with two or more households, ie two friends sharing a two bed flat.) The fees are huge and the admin desperately slow and unhelpful. It took months. The property itself was fine so the only outcome was more money for the council, and a shortage of properties for sharers. A pity in a University town. We only did it because we did not want to have to evict the then tenants. We now let to a family and won’t renew. . Estate agents tell us that very few applied for licences. The number of letters we get asking about the availability of the property from corporate employers tends to confirm that. Lighter touch councils seem to have more good quality rental properties available.

Scotland as a whole does not have the pressures London has. However, some parts of Scotland have just as much pressures as many parts of England.

Legislation for the whole of England doesn't need, nor should, simply be focussed on what people in London would want.

One poor example of a housing department also doesn't show that a system is shit. It shows one poor housing department.

I recognise that Scotland may be different, but certainly in London, and probably other parts of England, housing departments are often not great. In particular several, and I have worked in social housing, adopt a less than constructive stance when working with private landlords. It’s as if there is a political orthodoxy that private landlords, by just being, are bad people.

@Needmoresleep

I recognise that Scotland may be different, but certainly in London, and probably other parts of England, housing departments are often not great. In particular several, and I have worked in social housing, adopt a less than constructive stance when working with private landlords. It’s as if there is a political orthodoxy that private landlords, by just being, are bad people.

That's not a reason just to not bother introducing any sort of landlord registration system.

The way to fix things isn't just to shrug shoulders and say "Ach, that won't work".

I think this might be the landlord of the house OP is buying