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)

@LakieLady

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.

When the local electricity supplier turns off the power because the electricity wiring in your flat isn't safe and the landlord comes back with his dodgy mates to reconnect to the grid illegally - you can't move out because you cannot take on a 6 month lease, you know it isn't safe and nothing can be done. And the following year you hear on the news that the flat you stayed lived in went up in flames and 2 young lads died - it colours your judgement. He was the worst amongst many poor landlords.

Londongram I hope you gave your evidence to the enquiry ? This is surely a custodial offence?
There was an article in the I yesterday regarding landlord repairs. Not a Tory paper. Let's hope a decent politician reads it.

I don't think I have a right to profit from housing but if I can afford to buy a property and let it out why shouldn't I?
If it is safe, comfortable and well kept why is it immoral to charge a fair rent for it?
It is an investment for my children's future not so I can sit back quaffing champagne.

@londongram, that's appalling. Did he go to prison?

The flat that had no electricity because of water ingress had a shared supply with the nursery below (same landlord), so the nursery had to shut as well. The tenant got into a huge debt (£3k plus), because the electric bills were massive.

She only found out she was being charged for the supply to the nursery as well because her electricity supplier insisted on installing a prepayment meter, and when the credit ran out, the leccy went off in the nursery as well.

The landlord wouldn't do anything about the state of the place. Environmental health issued a repair notice, but the problem with the electrics happened before the notice expired.

The entire property was left empty for a good couple of years after that, and I heard that the woman who leased the ground floor and ran the nursery went bankrupt as a result of losing the use of the premises. No idea if it's still empty.

The tenant and her child were in B&B for a while but she now has a g/f council flat, with garden, in a really nice block.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/26/boris-johnson-tories-economy-rising-house-prices-wages

[quote AutomaticMoon]@Insertfunnyname you’re joking, right? Rents charged are double the mortgages! Why should renters pay double what owners pay? And re: calling the landlord to fix a hole. Absolute garbage, I live in a rotten & falling apart listed building & the landlord does 0 maintenance or fixing. Absolutely disgusting. I am disabled & work as a care worker for pay less than what cleaners & retails staff get, I have 0 help or benefits from the government & NHS, yet I have to line the pockets of morally bankrupt people like you.[/quote]
@AutomaticMoon, please get environmental health involved in the repair issues. They have quite extensive powers, and even my shitty and generally useless council aren't afraid to issue repair notices.

And you should consider applying for PIP if you have a disability, being able to work doesn't mean you won't be entitled to it, also use one of the online calculators to see if you are eligible for Universal Credit. There are very few areas in the SE where you won't be eligible for some help if you're on minimum wage, unless you're working absurdly long hours.

Home ownership isn’t nearly so common in continental Europe as it is here. And even here, it wasn’t all that widespread before the 1980s when Thatcher introduced the right to buy policy.

The problem isn’t with landlords, it’s with the fact that the rental market isn’t regulated in the way it used to be. Hence the profiteering that this has led to.

I'm not able to work and can't leave my violent partner because of nowhere safe to go. I've tried to get help and was even in a refuge but then had to go home because there was nowhere to go after. Domestic abuse worker kept telling me to apply to councils as homeless. Some won't ever answer the phone, another one told me it didn't matter that I was still at risk because I was in a refuge even though I had nowhere to go after except back to partner, and another one kept telling me they'd call me back the next day and never did and I gave up after two months. The council where I live was the worst and told me to just find a private rent. They refused to admit that someone in my situation would only be able to get illegal slum housing. I've lived in that before including somewhere with illegal fire and electrical problems and couldn't complain to landlord as nowhere else to go. I'd rather die than go through it for the rest of my life as punishment for being disabled and a victim of violence and abuse.

I'm not posting here for advice or sympathy because I've given up for me and don't want to go through going round in circles anymore. I just really wish there was honesty and government and other people stopped pretending there's safe homes for people like me. I wish the landlords on here would come on to threads when people ask why women don't leave abuse and explain they don't want people on benefits so then people would stop blaming women for not leaving. I just want honesty.

Just to make things clearer the rental market in 2021 is regulated more than in say the 1990s. Landlords have to have energy performance certs., gas safety check certs, they have to have a new thing - checking the electrics too. In some parts of the UK they have to register (not England unless it is a HMO). They are taxed on profits they do not make if they have a mortgage - as cannot deduct the interest cost fro the loan. They pay 3% extra stamp duty land tax in England when they buy. When they sell they pay 28% capital gains tax on any gain on the capital value. They pay up to 45% tax on the profits.

However I agree we no longer have the rent Act 1977 and rents are not fixed at a low level for life with no right to remove people. When we had that there were virtually no properties available to let so tenants were damaged and you only had Rachmans around to let to anyone.

The regulations they have like gas safety or stuff like that doesn't matter because people like me can't report anything illegal because nowhere else will take us. That's why lots of women like me stay with violent partners because we're not safe if we leave as it's just an unsafe home we'd have to live in.

I let to students and young professionals.
If you have excess cash and don't need a huge house yourself it's a good investment. Though more and more I'm thinking it's worth putting into the stock market as the amount of admin managing buy to lets is insane.

I think it's greedier to buy just for Air BNB which seems to be the new trend...

[quote LakieLady]@londongram, that's appalling. Did he go to prison?

The flat that had no electricity because of water ingress had a shared supply with the nursery below (same landlord), so the nursery had to shut as well. The tenant got into a huge debt (£3k plus), because the electric bills were massive.

She only found out she was being charged for the supply to the nursery as well because her electricity supplier insisted on installing a prepayment meter, and when the credit ran out, the leccy went off in the nursery as well.

The landlord wouldn't do anything about the state of the place. Environmental health issued a repair notice, but the problem with the electrics happened before the notice expired.

The entire property was left empty for a good couple of years after that, and I heard that the woman who leased the ground floor and ran the nursery went bankrupt as a result of losing the use of the premises. No idea if it's still empty.

The tenant and her child were in B&B for a while but she now has a g/f council flat, with garden, in a really nice block.[/quote]
Yes he did go to prison but then he was back to being a slum landlord again when he came out - I see that he has recently been banned again an probably fined. I'm sure there was legislation back then too - we could have reported him but where would we have lived? We would have been homeless - we couldn't afford to move - two of us were unemployed, the other a student.

We have a shortage of housing in the UK, and an even bigger shortage of affordable housing. Added to that we have seen interest rates at a very low rate for many years which means people will look for other ways to provide good returns on investments. Buying extra properties has provided a good return for those who've done this.

If you're starting out and need a place to rent or buy, it's become very difficult, particularly in the South of England. Wages have been static for public sector workers but housing cost have seen huge increases. For those who have bought recently some will have a huge mortgage. If the interest rates go up (unlikely) they will be struggling with very large monthly payments.

A cap on house prices would be a start to stop the prices becoming unaffordable. Re London, where there can be alot of foreign investors stimulating growth and leaving property empty for most of the year, it's time the govt tackled this. Either they prevent foreign investors buying or they put caveats into the deeds which state the property has to be inhabited.

Areas in the South West have been depopulated because of second homes and people wanting holiday lets. The local people can't afford to buy and stay in the area. Some areas like St Ives in Cornwall are trying to tackle this

Buy-to- let as a popular business exists because the house prices rise at an unsustainable rate. The reason: demand does not meet supply - prices rise - the well off profit. Can't swim against capitalism. Why does supply not meet demand is the more crucial question. A book I read called 'Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back
by Guy Shrubsole' gave some insights. In 1066, William the conqueror made the ultimate land grab- he declared that ALL land belonged to the Crown.
To this day all land, freehold or leasehold ultimately belongs to The Crown.
For instance, if you die without a will and an heir cannot be found, the land passes on to the Crown. This is the legal concept called Bona Vacantia.

Effects of William's land grab continues to this day, he parcelled the land off and gave it to barons and noble people who children inherited the land. For instance, the richest land owner in England is the Duke of Westminster, estimated land wealth, 10 BILLION pounds, and the wealth can be traced back 1000 years

1760, George the III gave the government the right to manage the Crown land efficiently and to pay the royals an income, a practice which of course continues to date.
They get about 80-90 million pounds a year for expenses from the Crown estate for which they do not largely pay tax.
The Crown now owns about 1 million acres of land in the UK.

In addition to this income, the Duchy of Cornwall owned by Prince Charles in his personal name. The Duchy owns about 7500 hectares of land in Cornwall and he is the freeholder to many leaseholders who pay him 'ground rent' for farming on his land. In other words, the feudal system still continues.

The Duchy of Lancaster is owned in the Queens personal name and the Duchy owns about 53000 hectares of land.

Buckingham Palace is in fact unregistered property, there is no legal owner but there is caution against the title stating that Queen Elizabeth 'is intersted in the land as beneficial owner'
There is common misconception that Buckingham Palace is owned by the Crown Estate.
Sandringham Estate and Balmoral Estate is owned by the Queen Personally.

You can see that land is still owned by the royal family and nobility in the UK. who rules us, essentially the upper classes ETON OXFORD clones, decedents of the landed gentry. They fight hard behind closed doors to maintain the status quo. There is huge movement to abolish 'leasehold', which exploits leaseholders with ground rent, unreasonable service charges, legal cost when extending a lease, freeholder charges fees to make alterations to the a leaseholders own home. Now recently charging for removing cladding bankrupting and making destitute home owners. This movement ( not to abolish leasehold) has been lobbied by Prince Charles personally as one the largest freehold owners of the land. The majority can be distracted with immigrant scapegoating and foreigner bashing, so the system continues....

[quote AutomaticMoon]@Insertfunnyname you’re joking, right? Rents charged are double the mortgages! Why should renters pay double what owners pay? And re: calling the landlord to fix a hole. Absolute garbage, I live in a rotten & falling apart listed building & the landlord does 0 maintenance or fixing. Absolutely disgusting. I am disabled & work as a care worker for pay less than what cleaners & retails staff get, I have 0 help or benefits from the government & NHS, yet I have to line the pockets of morally bankrupt people like you.[/quote]
Your landlord sounds poor and there's no excuse for that. But your view of the numbers are slightly simplistic. Home owners and decent landlords pay a lot more than just a mortgage - for example, the maintenance of a house costs money that you just dont see when you're renting.
BTL might have been easy money for a short while but those days are gone for most people.

The hate/spite aimed at landlords often seems to be based on made up numbers - by people who have very little knowledge about the costs and legislation involved, or even their own rights as tenants.

(I also see many renters who are in a far stronger position than they realise - who seem to believe that the landlord has far more power than the law allows.)

pees me off too - the reason i cant buy a house is because all the 'fixer uppers' that use to be on the market when someone passed away or moved on are now snapped up, have a basic face lift and whacked up for rent at twice the monthly cost of a mortgage payment. I cant afford to save while being fleeced for rent either so the 20% deposit required for a mortgage is out the window too.

So many people around here brag about having a few rental properties as well as their nice big house while others cant get a foot on the ladder and are crammed in like sardines. So selfish and greedy.

House prices are not just simple supply & demand, the availability and cost of credit is a significant factor

@user1468761869

Buy-to- let as a popular business exists because the house prices rise at an unsustainable rate. The reason: demand does not meet supply - prices rise - the well off profit. Can't swim against capitalism. Why does supply not meet demand is the more crucial question. A book I read called 'Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back by Guy Shrubsole' gave some insights. In 1066, William the conqueror made the ultimate land grab- he declared that ALL land belonged to the Crown. To this day all land, freehold or leasehold ultimately belongs to The Crown. For instance, if you die without a will and an heir cannot be found, the land passes on to the Crown. This is the legal concept called Bona Vacantia.

Effects of William's land grab continues to this day, he parcelled the land off and gave it to barons and noble people who children inherited the land. For instance, the richest land owner in England is the Duke of Westminster, estimated land wealth, 10 BILLION pounds, and the wealth can be traced back 1000 years

1760, George the III gave the government the right to manage the Crown land efficiently and to pay the royals an income, a practice which of course continues to date.
They get about 80-90 million pounds a year for expenses from the Crown estate for which they do not largely pay tax.
The Crown now owns about 1 million acres of land in the UK.

In addition to this income, the Duchy of Cornwall owned by Prince Charles in his personal name. The Duchy owns about 7500 hectares of land in Cornwall and he is the freeholder to many leaseholders who pay him 'ground rent' for farming on his land. In other words, the feudal system still continues.

The Duchy of Lancaster is owned in the Queens personal name and the Duchy owns about 53000 hectares of land.

Buckingham Palace is in fact unregistered property, there is no legal owner but there is caution against the title stating that Queen Elizabeth 'is intersted in the land as beneficial owner'
There is common misconception that Buckingham Palace is owned by the Crown Estate.
Sandringham Estate and Balmoral Estate is owned by the Queen Personally.

You can see that land is still owned by the royal family and nobility in the UK. who rules us, essentially the upper classes ETON OXFORD clones, decedents of the landed gentry. They fight hard behind closed doors to maintain the status quo. There is huge movement to abolish 'leasehold', which exploits leaseholders with ground rent, unreasonable service charges, legal cost when extending a lease, freeholder charges fees to make alterations to the a leaseholders own home. Now recently charging for removing cladding bankrupting and making destitute home owners. This movement ( not to abolish leasehold) has been lobbied by Prince Charles personally as one the largest freehold owners of the land. The majority can be distracted with immigrant scapegoating and foreigner bashing, so the system continues....

Best post on this thread so far. If we release just a fraction of this land to the public, the right owners of this land, our housing crisis will be solved.

@Lostatsea1988 ‘I’m alright, Jack’

@NotImpossible you’re privileged if you think the landlord cares about the law. My neighbours were illegally evicted because they wanted regular maintenance done. It’s bizarre that privileged people think I just don’t know my rights & that’s the problem & it’s pretty gross that privileged people shamelessly brag about the great lives they can achieve by exploiting the proletariat

@Brindisi32 that’s exactly what’s happening in my town in Cornwall, nobody I work with in the care home can afford any of the inflated house prices. I have autism & agoraphobia & don’t drive so I have to stay close to work but there is nothing within a low income budget even with a 50k deposit

@safeornotsafe
‘The regulations they have like gas safety or stuff like that doesn't matter because people like me can't report anything illegal because nowhere else will take us. That's why lots of women like me stay with violent partners because we're not safe if we leave as it's just an unsafe home we'd have to live in.’

I’m so sorry you’re not in a safe home, some people on here speak with such privilege that it’s clear we’re living in different universes. They seem to think just because the rules are there, anybody enforces them - nobody does! My NDN got illegally evicted because they just wanted the landlord to do his job & fix some things up. In this small Cornish town there’s 3 main landlords who inherited all the rental properties. Local people have to move away because we cannot afford it, it’s demoralising

@LakieLady Thank you, when I lived in Brighton I tried to get help from Environmental Health & it was pointless. They thought it was perfectly fine to live in a (also listed) building that had soaking wet cold walls & night storage heaters that didn’t heat properly yet cost £300 in electricity on ‘economy 7’ plan for a 1 bed flat... here in this small Cornish town our MP doesn’t help people & the police are derelict in their duty of care re:antisocial behaviour; the town has been taken over by ‘souped-up’ care & bikes, racing at all hours & making infernal noise... so I don’t have much hope for EH. Also if they make the landlord fix this building, us 4 tenants will become homeless, there really is nothing else for us, we all have dogs which landlords have a blanket ban on which is what forced all of us into this particular building. The other 3 tenants rent via agent & I can categorically say they had no help with the maintenance issues at all. In fact the landlord shouted at one tenant for the hair her dog left in the corridor. Landlord is so tight, the lights in the stairwell go out after 2 seconds so you’re midway on the stairs in the dark, trying not to break your neck. There’s a broken intercom that causes no end of problems with deliveries. Many interior walls are wet & cold, so I can’t have any furniture or anything near/against them. So sorry, I forgot what my point was, I have been sleeping in 1 hr increments for 8 years, my memory is shot.

TLDR: thank you for EH suggestion, I haven’t been able to get help from them before, in a similar situation & my mental health is very bad so I cannot deal with trying to beg & cajole people to do their jobs, that’s why I can’t deal with NHS either... I don’t have the mental capacity. I know autistic women who function better than me & they get help, I guess I was never in the right post code 😣

@NotImpossible I’ve been renting for almost 20 years & I never had any maintenance done ever, every place was in dire condition & rent at every place was at least double what the mortgages in the area were