to think those who demonised BTL landlords are (partially) responsible for rental crisis

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Many small landlords are selling because:

• mortgate interest is now only partially deductible for tax
• S21 evictions are being stopped, meaning it will be impossible to kick out bad tenants; the courts are too backed up to actually enforce any evictions even when it's allowed anyway
• Onerous EPC rules coming in which will cost huge sums to rectify
• More and more registers, inspections and paperwork

At the same time, landlords have spent the last few years being jeered as being unethical - and many MNers haven't been shy to raise their voices about that.

The tiny minority of renters fortunate enough to be able to afford a deposit and mortgage might be happy; they will have a bit more choice and a slightly lower price. For other renters they are having real problems.

Shelter and other housing charities should be campaigning for more landlord friendly policies such as easier tenant evictions and restoring full mortgage interest deductions for tax if they want to improve housing availability on a large scale, but they won't because PR-wise it will be a nightmare as their changes will be seen to disadvantage individual tenants.

Yes, there are other factors too - large scale immigration; planning system broken; not enough housebuilding; more singletons/split families and fewer intergenerational families - but landlords selling up because of government policies and societal ostracism is a major cause.

I am not a landlord but have been in the past - there is no way I would become a new landlord in the current environment.

Those who called landlords rent-seeking scum or similar should feel ashamed.

Thankfully it seems like the times are changing if the polls are to be believed. Praying for a more socialist government soon and a fairer society.

The thing is, I don't really believe most people do (or did) 'demonise' btl landlords. I've heard this claim bandied around a lot. And yes, there are always a few people who will make judgments about a whole group without subtlety, who probably do say things like 'yeah yeah they're all scum'. But ... those people are going to have unsubtle views about all sorts of groups. We can leave them aside.

The vast majority of people who are critical of btl landlords have good reason to be so. And I think a lot of landlords take this rather personally. Not all - there are a few posters on here who are landlords, but will always look at a thread in a fair way, calling out other landlords when they're at fault as well as tenants. But I think some people have in mind that being a landlord is almost a charitable activity, and something that ought to be seen as a service. It isn't. It's a business matter, and not one that's easy to do ethically.

As I always post on these, I’m an accidental landlord caught up in the cladding scandal.

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE BUY MY UNMORTGAGEABLE 3 BED FLAT FOR £120k (I.e. my remaining mortgage and £70k less than I paid for it ten years ago)?!!

No takers?! Well that’s a pity, I’ll continue to be the scum of the earth by letting it out at a loss and letting the people who live their continue to do so and pay their rent as they are happily doing.

#notalllandlords.

But seriously, landlords are exiting the market and renters still can’t afford to buy. Both things will get worse as interest rates increase. Be careful what you wish for.

Well he was extremely ill and had just lost his wife of 65 years. It was too much for him to contend with selling there home so he let it out in order to help pay for the carers we paid for to help me look after him, he didn’t set out to become a landlord. Are you suggesting he should have been forced to sell his home?

There are benefits to being a tenant in Germany. However, there are many down sides. Longer leases bring longer notice periods for the tenant. I lived in Germany. I would not call: having to decorate from top to bottom either on entrance or exit, landlords being able to rent houses in very poor condition or without kitchens, replacement expected of anything not returned exactly as rented eg carpets, ‘functioning’. We viewed a house, where someone had died and clearly not been immediately discovered. Viewings were as seen, bed, sheets and all. The smell. 🤮 The landlord was not going to clean anything and we obviously rejected that house.

Germany has a lot of individual landlords as well as large scale professional landlord share schemes. There are enough properties to go round because of these schemes. Germans do not have the same view of house buying. Some will never rent. Others buy shares in the landlord scheme by way of saving for a deposit on a house. Germans don’t normally buy until well into their 30s and often stay in the property for life.

I am a landlord and have lived in rentals in a few European countries and know a bit about how the market operates. There were way and means for landlords to navigate systems in these countries to their favour. None of the landlords we had were particularly professional. Then had exacting standards.

In one country, it was customary to fleece expat tenants on check out for several thousands of euros or more. Someone told me landlords could ask for costs of over 10 k. Ie no cap. Forewarned, I spent 2 days picking the inventory (which had been produced by 2 lawyers) to pieces, adding every single knock or mark on the worktops, paintwork and so forth. They accepted my amendments and the only thing they charged us for was the total replacement value of a carpet, which had seen better days when we moved in for a brand new one. I was fuming as we’d changed another carpet ourselves as it was so filthy. And this was all legal when in the U.K., there would have been a small charge. Doing this was a clearly a money spinner. No one checked if they replaced the carpets before the new tenants checked in. They didn’t btw. Cheeky bastards.

He’d just lost my mum. He couldn’t face selling there home.

Err no. I'm suggesting that it was his choice as to whether he wanted to sell it or not.

There's nothing "accidental" or "forced" about it.

The last housing boom before lockdown was started by foreigners buying great swathes of London. Money laundering in many cases. Russian oligarchs. Landlords were the fall guys.

Agree with this. More social housing, more shared ownership allowing more people to take a step to buying. I will never agree we need more buy to let landlords or feel even a teeny bit sorry for them having to sell.

Totally agree. Rising interest rates mean rising mortgage payments, which will more than likely be passed onto tennants sadly.

If that increase isn't welcomed, then I'm sure there's plenty of people waiting to rent that property for the new price.

Rising interest rates only suit people with a lot of money, so I'll echo be careful what you wish for

The upcoming changes to the EPC for rentals are going to be very difficult for LL and tenants.

Much of the housing stock in the UK is Victorian and Edwardian, charming, lovely and spacious but very challenging to get up to level C. With no wall cavities you need to insulate the inside or clad the outside, which costs a fortune, is often not in keeping with the heritage of the building, and could potentially cause problems in the future including damp and fire risk ( considered safe now- but that’s what they said about Grenfell.) We were quoted on 25k to do the work on a 3 bed semi, plus we’d have to replace the windows because of the extra 10cm of insulation externally. To save a projected £150 a year in fuel costs.

It’s madness. That’s why we’re thinking of selling, and there are many small LL doing the same.

My experience of landlords is they generally change the rate which the market will tolerate (shocking I know !)

They will be able to put up rents provided the market will tolerate that. If it won't, they won't be able to without voids.

The idea that they can put up rates indefinitely to cover mortgages is a bit fanciful.

Because if they could put up rents to that higher level, they would be doing so already - otherwise they are giving away free money. And landlords don't tend to do that.

1/3 rent
1/3 own mortgaged
1/3 own outright

Wonderful that you were always an ethical landlord - thank you.
I still am, and it is getting harder. I haven't put rents up in 4 years, all tenants are paying what was a low rent even 4 years ago, but I have no plans at all to exploit this crazy situation. Tenants' incomes haven't changed, so telling them their flats are worth another £150 a month isn't a possibility, financially or morally. It's harder for me because everything I have to pay for to maintain the homes is more expensive, more difficult to source, and electrical/gas inspections cost more. So my (already modest) income goes down and my worries go up. I have a few tenants whose rent is paid by Housing Benefit - their Local Housing Allowance hasn't been increased for years so the ones who have been struggling for years still need me to drop an occasional food and welfare box round... Please appreciate that some of us landlords feel more like social workers with diminishing returns...

I really feel for people in holiday let areas. Often seasonal work areas with low wages, why would someone long term rent to a family for £1000 a month when they could make £4000 a month on air b and b for a good chunk of the year. Plus it pushes prices up making it more unaffordable for locals.

I definitely think more social housing is needed , and selling off council housing without replacing it was a recipe for disaster. but I still think there would be a need for private lets as well.
People on temporary contracts, student house shares, people moving to a new area, people who's house is under repair/not habitable - all might want to rent for a temporary period but wouldn't necessarily need social housing. (And not all council/LA are more responsible LL than private. There were some horrific reports about social housing in Croydon during covid )

Yes, they're doing it to make money. Why is making money a problem? They provide a home, someone pays to use it. It's a business transaction.

It’s the tone of “I’ve worked hard for it” like us feckless renters haven’t.
for what it’s worth I have 100k deposit, I just can’t get the value I need to buy somewhere within even an hours commute of work (self employed dh, so cannot move area).

Or because he's single, works in a valuable but low paid job, and helps support his ailing mum. If he wanted to but I would sell at a below market rate to him to reflect his long term decency. He doesn't want to buy.

For some people home ownership isn't the be all and end all. With ownership come maintenance costs and responsibilities that I'm guessing he doesn't have the flexibility to absorb.

But hey. I'm clearly evil. I didn't BTL either. We couldn't sell for a price that would clear the mortgage due to some unsavoury things locally at the time so we let out. Now we're in this situation.

Tarring everyone with the same brush isn't going to cut it.

id agree it’s a business transaction if it wasn’t for the fact it controls your life, your child’s schooling, if they can follow their friends to secondary, if you can have pets, put a picture up, decorate their bedroom. Even do some messy play.

we have a rental...charge low rent...lovely long term tenants....we also have a labour councillor....famous for his stock of slum houses and beds in sheds...never touched by the raids and inspections due to political correctness issues.....the bad ones need to be dealt with ....

Quite.

A family member is renting a house owned by an old lady who has had to go into a care home. Her family prefer to use the rental income towards her care home fees and top it up from their own resources than sell the house, because it would eat into their inheritance.

And because they're cheapskates, they're slow to do repairs and usually try and bodge them up themselves.

What about on heating, water, or food sales then?

Landlording is a job that inherently requires a class of well-off people doing no work and a class of people working to support them but unable to make any gain from their work. They are a form of making money from money akin to usury, which was banned in many traditional societies because it causes huge social divides and resentment.

We would not need private rentals if they had not driven up the price of housing to extortionate levels.

So no you are totally unreasonable as well as irrational to blame the victims of Britain’s amoral shit for it being shit. HTH.

It shouldn't be allowed to be a business transaction.