To think rent is so bloody unfair

[Tar19891]

My rent is 800 per month. A mortgage on the same value flat would be 450 per month. Not in London obviously. It’s not fair is it?

We let our flat due to struggling to sell a few years ago. Our rent charged was the average in the area but the estate agents took 10% and then they also charged for legionella testing each year which was expensive. We of course had the boiler checked too. Then our freeholders charged for permission to rent the flat as well as their service charges. Then there was insurance. We were still paying the mortgage and with the rent charged we were actually £200 down each month and that's before we paid the tax on it.

I realise while the mortgage was being paid we were still building equity but I don't think we could label ourselves as greedy of having done anything unfair.

@Rosewaterblossom

I'm not even a renter or a landlord but I know from growing up where everyone rented that most landlords will leave their property maintenance to the minimum they can get away with. New windows 🤣 New kitchens and bathrooms 🤣 Most begrudge changing the carpets between (long term) tenants. A new boiler? Only when the old one has died a death and the tenant has been left freezing for a few weeks will the landlord replace it.

And stamp duty/conveyancing fees/surveys are not ongoing fees that landlords pay as a monthly fee. Even after insurance/taxes etc, the profits they make over a year more than cover any extra bills. That and the equity they are gaining year after year.

Stop making it sound like landlords are poor victims just scraping by.. if it were that bad people wouldn't be buying to let and landlords would be selling their properties to get out of this awful situation they are in that are leaving them penniless. Peeerleease 🙄

So true. In our first rented property the landlord provided the cooker. When it broke he left us for 2 weeks with no cooker and then gave us one that was older than our original cooker. Other things were the bathroom was falling apart when we rented and he promised to do it up but never did. Mould all over it and freezing cold. Sink basin that wasn't attached properly. Cracked floor tiles because he'd put wall tiles on the floor (!) illegal lights, the list goes on We got environmental health involved in the end and he kicked us out. I'm afraid I don't buy that landlords pay to maintain the house.

You're glossing over the deposit which owners have paid. 20% deposit would be £24,000.

If you're renting for £800 and you think mortgage would be £450 after paying that deposit you would have to own for more than five a half years to "break even" according to your calculations after paying your £24k deposit.

That's not including all the landlord costs and yes doesn't account for increase in value if the property.

I ended up in a position a few years ago where I was letting out a small flat and financially it was a nightmare. Constant costs, tenants didn't pay rent, I used an estate agent to manage it who created money off me for everything. Sold it when I could because financially it was a disaster. You sound very naïve.

Council does not give shelter to lots of vulnerable even if legally meant to cos they break laws and fail safeguarding and lie and ignore vulnerable including serious domestic violence and they get away with it. This is why lots of domestic violence murders and suicides.

@Rosebel I have been very fortunate to only have to rent whilst at uni. The 2 houses I lived in were absolute dumps, landlords always unavailable & of course we were paying a lot. Same for every student I knew.

I was able to live at home after uni & save up which enabled me to buy something before prices completely escalated. If it wasn't for that I would still be renting regardless of how hard I worked.

@Jobseeker19

I have yet to meet a landlord who pays insurance.

In the case of a flat the landlord would be forced to pay for this by the managing agents. There will also be service charges that can add up to quite a lot of money.

They could also have to come up with a large amount of money for major works.

In our building we have just forked out £15 thousand per flat for fire improvement works. We will soon have to pay for external decorations and lift refurbishment.
Anyone who can't pay risks forfeiture.

@stuntbubbles

And if someone can’t home them selves then the council will give them shelter. Are you quite quite sure about that.

Wish she was right but lives destroyed cos she's wrong. They say council housing is for highest need but I my council serious domestic violence not even allowed on register. Council tries to not help at all and if they made to help, it's unsafe slum temp for sometimes years or dumped in 6-12 month private rent isolated far from home area and support, temp 6-12 month private rent from slum landlord in often illegally unsafe housing. Then in year or two vulnerable tenant homeless again.

@Chestofdraws It’s not one or other.
You can have a system where the free market is at play but have rules to make it fair. That’s what taxation is, redistribution of wealth.

It’s not cheap rent, it’s fair rent. Maybe that is ”entitlement” but it works to the benefit of everyone. That’s what progressive society does.

The most successful societies have equality for women. Despite us being a bit physically crap compared to men and maybe annoyingly needing time off to grow the next generation. Because looking after them, financially benefits everyone.

The old profit off the young by sitting in their huge houses far longer than needed! And before you all say ‘the old are the poorest in the country’ - BS. An old couple, retired, both receiving a pension, no kids at home, sitting on £1m equity in a 4 bed family home they bought for 3 years wages in 1960, no mortgage, free bus pass. It takes the piss.

The over 60s own 6 million spare bedrooms.
6 million!

The rest of us squabble over a one bedroom flat pushing the price up and up because there aren’t enough to go around. Well, if the old stopped being so selfish hoarding their huge a houses, there would be enough to go around - we don’t need to keep building crap new builds.

That’s what progressive society does.

This! it benefits everyone to live in a fairer equal society.

I rent out my flat in the UK while I work abroad. I'm currently renting abroad, and it's bliss compared to the UK. I rent from a housing association but pay market rent. That gives me an indefinite tenancy contract, an annual rent increases capped at 2%, assurance that major issues will be swiftly repaired, and permission to have pets and decorate the place however I want.

To make renting slightly less miserable I try to offer my UK tenants some of the same rights (pets, decoration) and assurances (no rent increase for at least another year).

That’s £1440 between the two of them, per month, no mortgage, and free transport!

That’s more than a singe working adult earning £20k a year will take home!

Renting has its uses but why on earth the UK has such a crap system compared to other countries I don't know.

@Jobseeker19

I have yet to meet a landlord who pays insurance.

My mum always did as did DH grandma

@nosafeguardingadults

Council does not give shelter to lots of vulnerable even if legally meant to cos they break laws and fail safeguarding and lie and ignore vulnerable including serious domestic violence and they get away with it. This is why lots of domestic violence murders and suicides.

This is my point glossed over earlier on the council may well tell you to stay till the better end rocking up legal fees as well as everything else in the way of costs, but actually won’t help you in the end anyway so seriously you are better off getting on with the move because the landlord will have insurance that will cover their legal costs which is passed on to the tenant.

Accidental landlord here. We pay the service charge, tax, estate agent monthly fees and insurance. After all of this we make almost no profit.

@SwanBuster

'You will own nothing and be happy'

@LardyDee - the price floor is set on Univeral Credit's housing element. Which is set quite high indeed to protect landlords.

YANBU - housing speculation and the use of shelter as an asset has corroded the social fabric of this and many other countries. At this point in the cycle, consider alternatives to home ownership. There are different ways to play this rigged game.

Salary sacrifice pension schemes, universal credit 100% disregard, vanguard ETFs are all good keywords to begin with. Let these corrupt f**kers pay your rent with their fake printed money.

The local housing allowance (LHA), which is the maximum UC and housing benefit will pay, is set at what the average of the lowest 30% of rents was 3 or 4 years ago. It hasn't been increased for ages, but rents have gone up massively.

The average rent for a 3-bed property in the area where I work is now over £2.5k per month. The local housing allowance is £1,200 a month. Rising rents are a massive cause of poverty, esp in London/SE.

Even if they increased the LHA, the benefit cap would mean that many households wouldn't benefit, because of the benefit cap.

Such entitlement. Isn’t food, clothes and heat also a basic right? Where does your basic rights stop in terms of what you think you should be given by the tax payer?

So you think free school meals are a bad idea then? That’s your taxes paying for food.

I also don’t believe the government should pay for everything. Their role is make the systems work .Food , clothing, utilities and housing are available and affordable to everyone.

@BambinaJAS
We bought DS2 a flat in 2017. Sold it three years later for less than we paid after agents fees.

Not building social housing is a top level political decision and requires reform at national level. Buying social housing undermines its sustainability. If you want social housing you need to consider whether owning is really your goal. There are affordable part buy schemes to get a first foot on the housing ladder.

If we got rid of the antiquated planning permission process in the UK, you would see just how fast social housing can be built

We wouldn't, because the govt wouldn't allow councils and housing associations the necessary borrowing permissions to fund the building of social housing on a massive scale. It's money, not planning law, that hinders the building of social housing, esp as councils can give themselves planning permission (although proposals can be called in by the Sec of State for Levelling Up etc).

It's very shortsighted, as in the medium to long term, social housing is cost neutral. Rental income pays off the cost of the build, and once that is paid off, the income (less costs of maintenance and management) can be used to build more homes.

My MIL has lived in her council house for 61 years. She's probably paid for it several times over.

@Rrrob

Accidental landlord here. We pay the service charge, tax, estate agent monthly fees and insurance. After all of this we make almost no profit.

Good. No one should profit from providing shelter, a basic human need.

People are full of shit, if you could afford a second property, you would do it too. Anyone who says they wouldn’t is a liar

@ohmydayzz

A monthly mortgage payment would be wholly dependent on the amount of deposit and length of mortgage?

YABU.....

Well it's never going to be a 100% mortgage is it? No bank does them. Minimum of 5% deposit is needed. And they'll only do a max of 40 years I think for mortgage and that's only if you're very young, they won't do that for a 40 year old.

So you can work out the maximum the mortgage payment would be based on that can only be lower after that. And yet still, some places charge more for rent, a lot more. Plus its doubtful that anyone renting out a property only put a 5% deposit down, as any profit they make wouldn't actually be that much. Or have a property mortgaged for 40 years. Doesn't make any sense business wise.

@DogsAndGin

The old profit off the young by sitting in their huge houses far longer than needed! And before you all say ‘the old are the poorest in the country’ - BS. An old couple, retired, both receiving a pension, no kids at home, sitting on £1m equity in a 4 bed family home they bought for 3 years wages in 1960, no mortgage, free bus pass. It takes the piss.

The over 60s own 6 million spare bedrooms.
6 million!

The rest of us squabble over a one bedroom flat pushing the price up and up because there aren’t enough to go around. Well, if the old stopped being so selfish hoarding their huge a houses, there would be enough to go around - we don’t need to keep building crap new builds.

That’s utter bollocks! These people live in houses which they have bought and paid for. It is their house to do with as they wish. It’s notTHEIR fault that the country has changed over the period where they were paying for their houses, and most of them will have been paying off their mortgage at a time where interest rates were 10+%, and they spent time struggling to pay. Interest rates have been artificially low for the past 25 years.

Funnily enough I was going through old paperwork of my parents’ this week and in the 1960s their mortgage interest rate was 7.5%. How did they afford to build their house? They lived with their parents to save a deposit, then they waited a few years after that till they had a family.How did I afford to buy a house? By doing exactly the same.

How many of the people on this thread have parents or grandparents who bought their council house and made a huge amount of profit from it? As I said previously this is where the rot set in.