I'm so sick of people buying multiple properties for BTL

[flashbac]

So the landlord next door has hoovered up another house on the street for BTL. A nice house that wasn't even on the market but they managed to get their mits on it. Yes I know I sound bitter because I am! I'm so fed up of investors hoovering up all the houses. There should be a limit but with most of our government being BTL landlords nothing will change.
I'm sick of the increasing gap between rich and poor.
now runs and hides because reckons half of MN have a BTL or holiday home

@XingMing

It's social housing, in Milan. If it can been done there, why not here?

Too many selfish greedy people.

@Blinky21

Would be nice if landlords invested to maintain their houses too, on my street the rentals are mostly eyesores, not fair on the tenants or the neighbours

Well, quite. Up until 2005, I was involved in the private rental sector for my work and saw, first hand, how many private landlords in one of the most expensive areas to buy property outside London, failed to keep their properties in a good state of repair, whilst still expecting (and achieving) top rental income.

The student and lower-end landlords were the worst offenders, enabled by a slew of unscrupulous letting agents - one of whom still operated despite effectively being blacklisted by the university whose students they served.

There was one particular letting agent who made it their policy never to return student rental deposits by creating any number of fictitious, spurious and out-and-out fraudulent claims as to the state the tenants had left their properties in when they vacated. They were utterly despicable crooks in every sense of the word. One of the director's did end up getting jailed for fraud, which I heartily applauded.

The penny-pinching and blatant greed of so many landlords used to make my jaw clench; one used to count the teaspoons at every check out and charge tenants a minimum of £10 for every missing kitchen item - on a property she rented out for over £5,000 a month. She once tried to charge a tenant £100 for four coffee mugs that wouldn't have cost a tenner in Asda. She was forever being told by tenant adjudicators that wasn't going to fly and to return the deposit in full, but still tried it on anyway. Luckily, the advent of the tenancy deposit scheme, and ready access to adjudication services offers a good level of protection for tenants in that respect, but there are still way too many tenants who aren't aware of those protections or are effectively bullied into not using them by letting agents desperate to keep their landlord clients happy.

I'm not saying there aren't 'good' private landlords out there, but in the ten years I worked in the private rental sector I definitely saw more willing to short-change a tenant (and most often in the student sector) than act in a reasonable or acquiescent manner - in many ways even to the detriment of their own time/costs/blood pressure (recalling the best example of the latter when a landlord actually brought on his own cardiac arrest by screaming at a tenant for cracking a tile on the bathroom floor by accidentally dropping a bottle of perfume on it).

've never seen such a big determination to make use of even the smallest balcony space to grow anything here in the UK - it was as though whole blocks had made some collective conscious decision to do it. We walked down one particular street in Berlin, full of fairly newly-built apartment blocks (there's a LOT of building going on in the city right now) where every single balcony was ablaze with potted plants and flowers, climbing roses and containers growing tomatoes, fennel, chilli peppers, cucumbers and other veggies. It honestly was a weird sight - quite literally took my breath away - because I've never seen anything like it in London. It can't just be that Berliners (and I include the huge population of non-German people who live in Berlin in that statement as there's definitely a certain, holistic vibe to some parts of the city) have some natural affinity for growing plants and flowers, but it sort of feels like there's some kind of unspoken, collective consciousness that's taken hold and by NOT doing it, you'd be the odd one out.

Germany also has some pretty decent laws about not making noise nuisance - but in order to work they have to be accepted. Over here it seems there is always someone who puts their wants above anyone else's needs.

[quote CBUK2K2]@Tabitha005 A house builder needs to make a profit from a project for them to want to do it.

The affordable housing and taxes such as community infrastructure levy have to be added to the costs of the house builder which are ultimately paid for by the people who arent eligible for these subsidised homes. So yet again, this is an example of the "have a little's" getting screwed.

Between 5 and 20% of the cost of a new build home in taxes and subsidies such as this.[/quote]
Yep - and the 'have a little's' end up, also, being the ones bearing the biggest brunt of the effect of council tax and service charge increases, too. The cost of the service charges on some new build flats are eye watering.

And you are a prime example of why people shouldn’t fall for the narrative that all landlords are the bad guys and tenants are poor, helpless victims of capitalism. Shame on you for what you did to your poor LL

Nah, you don't know the lengths they went to try and get us out (legal & illegal) or the legal costs we had to spend, the two years was nightmarish.

It wasn't a BTL and they made a tidy €80k in the 5 years they owned the apartment.

What it does show is that all potential landlords should do their due dilligence before buying a property.

Read Despised by Paul Emburey for a very pithy explanation of why the Red Wall turned Blue @Sommernacht89.

@DynamoKev

've never seen such a big determination to make use of even the smallest balcony space to grow anything here in the UK - it was as though whole blocks had made some collective conscious decision to do it. We walked down one particular street in Berlin, full of fairly newly-built apartment blocks (there's a LOT of building going on in the city right now) where every single balcony was ablaze with potted plants and flowers, climbing roses and containers growing tomatoes, fennel, chilli peppers, cucumbers and other veggies. It honestly was a weird sight - quite literally took my breath away - because I've never seen anything like it in London. It can't just be that Berliners (and I include the huge population of non-German people who live in Berlin in that statement as there's definitely a certain, holistic vibe to some parts of the city) have some natural affinity for growing plants and flowers, but it sort of feels like there's some kind of unspoken, collective consciousness that's taken hold and by NOT doing it, you'd be the odd one out.

Germany also has some pretty decent laws about not making noise nuisance - but in order to work they have to be accepted. Over here it seems there is always someone who puts their wants above anyone else's needs.

100% I was also astounded by the peace and quiet in the middle of a city. My brother's flat overlooks communal gardens and, into the evenings, after dinner time, it was so silent you forgot you were smack in the middle of a big city.

Noise complaints during lockdown went stratospheric in my local council area, so I think you're right about the selfishness of some people in doing exactly what they want to do and screw how it impacts everyone else!

@DynamoKev, there are selfish greedy people on both sides of the fence, and a fair few who are barely house-trained.

@sweetchocolatecandy. Bollocks. A landlord should know the laws that affect them just like anyone else trying to run a business.

I'm renting our my flat while I work abroad for a couple of years and I made sure to read all the info out there about my rights and responsibilities. Any landlord who doesn't is an idiot and fully deserves to be taken to the cleaners by their tenants.

@ChateauMargaux Why would farmers sell their land? These people aren’t just hoarding land and not doing anything with it, it’s being farmed. Feeding millions and employing thousands.

You are literally describing what my job is, I’m a land agent. People like me decide what to do with huge swathes of land across the country on behalf of land owners. A colleague was working very hard to restore peat bogs for carbon capture, I was working to ensure the land was being managed to prevent flooding in low lying areas. I’ve worked for three of the people named on your list. You can’t do it all however, there has to be a balance between food production and conservation. I’d argue that those subsidies are actually subsidising food prices though, if we take them away farmers entirely food prices will rise.

@Sweetchocolatecandy The balance of power is so squarely in favour of the tenant in the UK it's a wonder anyone chooses to be a LL.

There are in my experience an awful lot more nightmare tenants than landlords.

@elbea Food prices actually reflecting the cost of production doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. It would certainty make people think twice about waste.

@Journeyofthedragons A property going up in value does not mean a LL has made that value.

The balance of power is so squarely in favour of the tenant in the UK it's a wonder anyone chooses to be a LL

No one is forcing them to become a landlord 🤷‍♀️

[quote CBUK2K2]@Journeyofthedragons A property going up in value does not mean a LL has made that value.[/quote]
I'm sure there was taxs and expenses along the way, gross profit if you prefer.

@Journeyofthedragons shame on you. Not sure why you're so proud of your actions.

Taxes dammit

BTL that are rented out properly to people who need & want to rent are not so much of an issue, plus the government would have a large deficit in income were it banned and they were not getting the extra stamp duty, capital gains, income & corporation taxes.

I do think there should be a law against leaving property completely empty for long periods of time

I do have BTL properties; one has a relative in - divorce and low value marital home made it impossible to split value and even buy 2 bedsits

After 3 redundancies for DH and 1 for me we chose this way to try and cover our pension income - don't think there will be a state one when we retire

Out of our tenants, only 1 is currently looking to buy in the near future

@the80sweregreat

Many politicians have a huge interest in properties and buy to let's. Once the chancellor dropped the stamp duty for a while , who do you think were on the case to buy even more ? He wasn't thinking of the normal people ..

The SD drop didn't apply to BTL

[quote Macaroni46]@Journeyofthedragons shame on you. Not sure why you're so proud of your actions. [/quote]
Because they didn't read the standard simple two page contract that THEY gave us (in Dutch) and I managed to understand?

I saw that their residence sold for €1.8m last year, so no need for you to worry I'll sleep soundly.

@Journeyofthedragons You seem to have got a pretty typical tenants mindset, on top of the capitals gains tax, estate agents fees and legal costs (probably adding up to 30% of that 80K). They've had to maintain the property for 5 years while you were in it. Even if you assume you only have a basic landlords insurance and home care type policy you'd be looking at £150/m . So there is another £9K gone.

They've had the hassle and effort of being a LL on top of this for 5 years.

Being a LL is not an easy or in a lot of cases very profitable game.

The majority are people who are trying to rent their old house or flat as a bit of a pension plan because the govt have decimated private pensions.

@CBUK2K2 well,you obviously lap up that Sun/daily mail or even worse daily express shite.I have not been born in this country.I travel once or twice a year to my native country for a short time.It is astounding,how in the last 14 years,this country has steadly gone downhill.It always amazes me,why british people vote to become poorer and unhappier (you would think with a clown at the helm,they would at least laugh sometimes).

@Sommernacht89 No, its the very basic economics of supply and demand.

1 in 10 people in England was not born here, that means an awful lot of people have chosen to come here creating a surge in demand.

It's strange how you identify the UK has gone down hill over the same period in which we've had unparalleled migration.

Being a LL is not an easy or in a lot of cases very profitable game

I know, I've been one.

Quite agree. I'll be glad not to be as soon as possible.