Greed of ‘buy to let’

[LittleLottieChaos]

When did people start to think that they should profit from housing? It all feels incredibly Dickensian. Pees me off when I see housing being listed as buy to let investments rather than ‘here’s a house for a nice young family to live in’. Especially with the market so horribly skewed right now.

It is shocking that people seem to think they have a right to profiteer from those less fortunate by whacking on high rents, that more than cover their mortgages. Legit: you need one house, one house only. Or maybe I’m missing something... or these are genuinely just bad people.

Interested to hear how people justify it? Do you just think, fuck ‘em I want to be rich? Do you not think about the morality?

(I rent but am saving to buy an appropriate house to live in... not to profiteer from)

There has been a financial incentive to invest in buy to let for decades - the government should have taxed out these incentives a long time ago. And provided more rights to long term tenants.

So people who rent out properties think the housing market is in good shape generally and see themselves as benevolently providing an important public service?

@AutomaticMoon

I wonder if you can use your inheritance against shared ownership? Not ideal as these properties are above market prices but have security. Buy 30% of something and then you cannot be asked to move or refused your pet. Cornwall has been very active with CPRE and Shelter to protect local housing. The other thing to note is the landlord repair act 2019. If you have an unsafe or outstanding repairs you can claim 20-50% of your rent back! (not many people know this, I didn't). There are nwnf solicitors that will stick a claim in. Our most recent home has was listed too and because the landlord was trying to sell he did nothing. No fire alarms, no carbon monoxide monitor-(both criminal offences) and then a whole host of faults, dry rot, raising damp, leaking guttering, moths, wasps( infestation act of God apparently) , faulty electrical system, faulty heating. I could go on. We left six weeks ago and I have slept for the first time in two years. The worse thing? He was a solicitor and above the law. Well actually he isn't and he is got it coming.
Look into local housing trusts too AutomaticMoon. There may be one near you. The Richmond Trust also helps people with Mental Health issues access decent housing and provides legal support. I am going to put so many pictures up in my new home it will look like a gallery!!

[quote AutomaticMoon]@Maggiesfarm Thank you for the suggestion, I can’t move though. I live in a small town in Cornwall, I have physical & mental illness & ASD but don’t drive, my current home is a short walk from the care home where I do the night shifts only because of bullying on day shifts. I’m alone at night. My mother died last month from covid after fighting cancer for years. I couldn’t even be with her because of covid but also lack of money, she was in another country. I have Interstitial Cystitis which is chronic cystitis that never goes away, I wake up every hr to pee & the sleep deprivation is killing me. My neighbour downstairs slam the doors so hard it shakes my bed & scares me & my dog. I wish I could move but there is 0 on the market that I can afford. My mother left me £50k because she sold her house yet I can’t get a mortgage because of minimum income. And British Gas have added incorrect defaults for every month since I closed the account with them 2 years ago that they refuse to remove so I have to take them to court to clear my name. Lenders don’t take into consideration that the rent I’ve been paying for years on time is less than the mortgage would be. So the money my mother worked so incredibly hard for is just losing value & probably will end up in some inhumane landlord’s pocket. The only way is for me to move up north but my partner’s family is here, this is why we moved here, to be near his parents. But it’s the only solution, although it’s not exactly fair that people have to leave the only support system they have just to find affordable shelter. Sorry for the incoherence, I can barely function from sleep deprivation.[/quote]
There is a lot you can do to help yourself.

Use your 50k to learn to drive and buy a car - then you can do a better job and get a mortgage.

Stick your capital in premium bonds which are easy to access if you need them, so that you don't fritter it away.

Get a joint mortgage with your partner, but with a legally drawn up agreement that the capital is yours if you split.

There are loads of cheap places to buy in Cornwall - especially in non coastal small villages.

You need to help yourself no one else will (or should).

@Ounce I'm sure some do. I don't. For me it's a business transaction. I offer a property to let and my tenants pay me rent to live there. I assume they like living there as I don't increase the rent and they stay for on average 3 years. Same as I pay rent to my landlord every month. I am neither resentful of him nor grateful to him. He supplies me a service I need.

It's called 'capitalism'. There is an alternative: go to live in Putin's russia.

@londongram

There has been a financial incentive to invest in buy to let for decades - the government should have taxed out these incentives a long time ago. And provided more rights to long term tenants.

Are you even aware that landlords can no longer deduct mortgage interest from the tax they pay?

That is literally 9ne of the most highly taxed landlord regimes in the world, and obviously favours rich landlords who can afford to buy property outright.

As for the poster who inherited 50k...thats 50k more than I've ever had handed to me.

@CirclesWithinCircles Yes I was aware - by the time that change came in the damage had been done...people were relying on property to advance themselves financially. But it's still not enough, second home owners need to pay more council tax too.
I don't believe all landlords are shits but I have never encountered a good one and we were good tenants - paid on time, looked after the property etc. We usually live in our own home and only used rental properties to assist with location moves and property renovations but it certainly made me feel for those who are reliant on landlords and will rent their entire lives.

Don't you realise that without buy to let you would not be able to rent

That is literally 9ne of the most highly taxed landlord regimes in the world, and obviously favours rich landlords who can afford to buy property outright.
Evidence would be good to support your point.

Also not great allowing foreign landlords to buy property for investment and leave it dormant.

[quote londongram]@CirclesWithinCircles Yes I was aware - by the time that change came in the damage had been done...people were relying on property to advance themselves financially. But it's still not enough, second home owners need to pay more council tax too.
I don't believe all landlords are shits but I have never encountered a good one and we were good tenants - paid on time, looked after the property etc. We usually live in our own home and only used rental properties to assist with location moves and property renovations but it certainly made me feel for those who are reliant on landlords and will rent their entire lives.[/quote]
And who do you think is going to pay all this punitive extra tax?

I've rented numerous times, and I've never exierienced a bad landlord. My preference when renting abroad in fact has been to rent somewhat scummy, cheaper properties needing work done, but in a nice area. I could do that in Holland and Germany because the rental market isn't so over regulated as in Scotland. The Scottish government seems to want at least every hmo to be near enough 4 star standard, and that pushes up prices. Can't speak for England or renting family homes there, but should my exierience in renting be discounted.

Every additional charge the government puts on rent pushes rents up or has the effect of reducing available properties to rent. The government is treating the rental market as a cash cow because people are sucked into believing this socialist/communist claptrap when the real reasons for the problems in the British property market aren't addressed - centrally controlled planning permission with zoning favouring big developers, lack of maintenance of social housing, low salaries which haven't increased over the years in line with inflation elsewhere and fairly high income tax for middle income earners with few deductions possibly now. Oh, and bad public transoort meaning a lot of people have to live in exiebsive areas.

Our retirement plans were scuppered by the premature and very sudden death of my partner.

The only way I can think of to supplement my pisspoor pension provision is to sell my house in an expensive area, move to a cheaper area and use the leftover equity to buy a flat to rent out.

If anyone can come up with a better idea, I'd love to hear it. (Equity release on the current property is ruled out because the house and area won't be suitable when I become more decrepit).

Evidence? You want me to provide you with a survey of world tax regimes?

I've actually posted several examples on thus thread already. I did previously point out that I'd pay slightly less tax for the property I'm stuck with and can't sell if renting it out in Norway. I calculated the tax payable. In the Netherlands, tax on rental income is payable on a percentage of cadastral value, not actual rent. Landlords aren't taxed more punitively as running a business unless they rent out more than 3 properties. Here, the tax regime favours corporations buying up and renting properties. In the Netherlands, non profit companies often own social housing. Safety standards are not as high as in the UK. Both the Dutch and German markets are still very hard to find a property to rent at all. 5hat tends to happen in places where the economy is good - rents go up, there's more competition for rental prices.

Excuse me if I don't allocate you hours of my time in providing you with court standard 'evidence" here. If youre interested in the subject, go and do a bit of research and find evidence yourself and exiabd your knowledge of beyond your own country. Or even just read past posts on here as a starting point, if it's not too much effort for you.

Evidence? You want me to provide you with a survey of world tax regimes? You made a big statement I thought you'd have evidence at your fingertips...it seems not.

I think you should be more bothered about people who have a second house as a holiday home, most of the year it's empty and these really are taking housing out of the market, areas like Cornwall and Norfolk have seen locals priced out of the housing market by the wealthy buying holiday cottages at inflated prices. At least buy-to-let is creating housing, not everyone wants to buy a house, my partner works on short term contracts and has to move around the country, letting works for him.

@DdraigGoch

Oh and we need to close the loopholes which allow second homes to pay reduced or no council tax.

I agree with this.

And there should be greater powers for councils to take control of properties left empty for no good reason.

Thanks to the ridiculous housing market I am in a rental. I can no longer afford to buy thanks to people buying up properties here with 'London' money. Thanks for that! Pushing locals out of the housing market is appalling. My landlord has 4 properties, always complaining about how tight things are paying the mortgage. There needs to be tighter control over all rented housing and a much more genuine rental market with capped prices.

@Roxy69

Thanks to the ridiculous housing market I am in a rental. I can no longer afford to buy thanks to people buying up properties here with 'London' money. Thanks for that! Pushing locals out of the housing market is appalling. My landlord has 4 properties, always complaining about how tight things are paying the mortgage. There needs to be tighter control over all rented housing and a much more genuine rental market with capped prices.

Always makes me wonder why people think they have a “right” to live/buy somewhere purely because they’re local.

It’s archaic IMO.

I’ll say it again. This “loop hole” closed years ago. It is not a thing anymore.

There is a shortage of housing in the south east and a lot of it comes down to the policy of not allowing building on the green belt. There is no shortage of housing in the north and house prices are very low in some areas.

There should be massive incentives for companies to relocate to areas that are less affluent/expensive imo. The regional inequalities won't go away until employment opportunities are evened out between regions.

Stricter controls over industrial/business/retail development in the overheated south would help. Concreting over the green belt and sticking houses on it would only increase regional inequality, and be immensely damaging environmentally.

They're building loads of flats on the flood plain where I live, despite it having been under several feet of water only 20 years ago. The flats are likely to be £250k-300k minimum, and one of the developments has a lovely outlook over an industrial estate on one side and a supermarket car park on the other. On the opposite side of the river, planning permission has been granted for 400 homes to be built on an existing industrial estate, which will result in the loss of loads of jobs.

@londongram

There has been a financial incentive to invest in buy to let for decades - the government should have taxed out these incentives a long time ago. And provided more rights to long term tenants.

Please englighten us as to what financial incentives are currently available? Most property related incentives have been closed in recent years for BTL-ers. Shame that Labour didn't close the loopholes in their 13 years. It's ironic that it was the Tories who took away the tax incentives!

People with little understanding of financial markets, investment classes or any other instruments of wealth generation, default to property as a way of trying to build capital and a stronger financial position.

I am fortunate to own outright but I put our additional money into other asset classes. I don't think this is clever at all, but it doesn't have the same storytelling value to it so I don't tend to boast about it like others on this thread.

Good luck to them but it's faintly tiresome to hear some people proclaim themselves as a Kwok or a Donald Bren, as if there's some sort of brilliant strategic intelligence to what's going on.

Some people are thinking of 'landlords' as being like Peter Rachman of 20th century history, but they are nothing like, they're just ordinary, like ourselves

There are many good landlords, who own a proeprty or two and treat tenants fairly. But there are still plenty who treat tenants like a cash cow, won't carry out repairs and generally behave appallingly.

I worked in housing support/homeless prevention for many years, and saw at first hand how very badly a bad landlord can behave. And the impact of the bad landlords is significant, because so many of them seem to own loads of properties.

When you've had to help a family who've got to move urgently because water pouring in through a roof has left them without electricity, or without heating or hot water in bitter weather, the postman won't deliver because it is dangerous due to falling roof tiles, and a landlord will do nothing about it, it colours your judgment somewhat.

...as it did for all of us when we saw the report from Croydon. Oh but wait - they aren't one person so aren't a target. Even though their shitholes are legal because housing association are exempt from regulation.

There are a lot of people in receipt of housing benefit who choose private rental properties. Also many houses sold with sitting tenants. Locally i have noticed many rental properties being sold on the open market as due to Covid owners have suffered financially and need the money