Emergency rent freeze laws passed !!??

[happyfishcoco]

Emergency rent freeze laws passed in Scotland
and Welsh maybe follow.

YABU = vote agree to rent freeze
YANBU = vote for not agree to rent freeze

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-63164850.amp

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-63131075.amp

"Young people in Ireland face 'terrifying' rent crisis due to chronic housing shortage | World News | Sky News" news.sky.com/story/amp/young-people-in-ireland-face-terrifying-rent-crisis-due-to-chronic-housing-shortage-12687688

It's a cluster fuck in Ireland,.

I don't think there is any talk of that for selling, just renting and it's not been formalised yet.

@colddayinhell - these are precisely the tenants that private LL will avoid - those on benefits.

In a market of increasing costs, LL will look to maximise yields & reduce risks.

If you have 100 applicants to rent your property & can pick/choose - why would you go for someone on benefits?

Can you report to the council? Hopefully the landlord will be fined. People shouldn't have to live like that due to greedy landlords.

Indeed. But they will have a real alternative to renting if they want to. Its unreasonable to withhold an alternative because some adults might make poor decisions.

And, yes, it will be more expensive. As I have often said when you rent, you aren’t just ‘paying the mortgage’ for your landlord, you are also borrowing their deposit, using their credit rating and their cash reserve for emergencies and repairs. Those things take money, and good decisions (and luck). That’s what landlords DO. They take on a additional, somewhat larger, element of the risk of lending out a valuable asset that mortgage lenders are not prepared to.

But I was really thinking out loud more about mortgage lenders becoming almost ‘super-landlords’. So rather than there be expectation that the loan is ever repaid or any substantial equity built, the idea is you have a lifetime term secure tenancy, so long as you pay the mortgage.

You might need a way of securing the state of the property if you found that people didn’t look after their properties, be it down to a reduced sense of ownership or economics, as people wouldn’t necessarily have skin in the game. And yes, people really do need to understand credit affects their credit rating. And there are sheets people who will be irresponsible with credit. I think we need a lot more financial literacy in schools, although it’s been a bitch for me personally, I do also support tighter restrictions on lending.

All in all, I think it might start to make renting look much better value for money that people think it is.

In my area 1/3rd to 1/2 of all rentals are paid by LHA/UC. If landlords stop accepting tenants on benefits this would reduce their pool of tenants massively and cause a massive drop in rent prices and house prices.

LHA acts as a floor for rents which also pushes up rents for everyone not receiving housing benefits. LHA is basically a landlord benefit so taxpayers are heavily subsidising the pension/mortgage of wealthy landlords and pricing themselves out of affordable housing at the same time because LHA keeps a floor on rents/stops house prices falling to affordable levels.

The current interest rate increases are NOT a ‘slight increase’. We are likely to see interest costs treble, at least. I don’t believe ANY business plan routinely accounts for absorbing treble their main cost without raising their prices.

Many landlords run their let as a side hustle or very small business to support retirement or something. I don’t think there is intrinsically anything wrong with that, if they are letting good quality safe housing. I don’t understand why you do? I’d rather have me as a landlord than the likes of Jacob Reece Mogg.

@Eeksteek I don’t disagree with the word youve written

@BangingOn It's actually coming in sooner in England and Wales - 2025 for new tenancies, 2028 for existing ones. www.cbre.co.uk/insights/articles/what-do-the-proposed-epc-regulations-mean-for-the-residential-rental-market

Well no they are proposals. Nothing is definitive

So send landlord bankrupt or selling their properties on the cheap causing a house price crash. Whereas tenants can just get their benefits topped up if government wants to or work a few hours to cover the extra mortgage interest.

there should be no freeze

Poor landlords. While people on benefits have it so easy.
Strange how landlords can never work a few more hours.

How do you think they afforded the houses in the first place ?

Inheritance. That's how I've afforded mine anyway.

Since I own the property outright I'm personally not too concerned about the rent freeze, even if it ends up lasting longer than 6 months.

Yes, there are documentaries about this on Youtube. The one issue I can remember is that rent-controlled housing tends to be under-occupied, which causes other housing to be over-occupied.

There was a dramatic example in the USA, where there was no shortage of housing at the start of world war 2, then the government introduced rent controls, and by the end of the war, there was a massive shortage of housing, even though the total number of people and the total number of houses hadn't changed. Eventually, the government repealed most rent controls, and the shortage of housing vanished shortly afterwards.

Well, if tenants can work a few more hours to cover the rent increase, it follows that landlords can also work a few more hours to get the extra that they would otherwise have asked from the tenant. Not really much of an argument.

Both me and DH already work 50+ hours a week. I could work a few extra hours but why would I? I'm not going to rent out our house at a loss and work even more hours to subside someone else. I'll just sell up.

It is not at a loss. You are buying a valuable asset withe the rent.

You realise that the (Scottish) rent freeze is only up until March? By the time you regain possession, it'll be almost up, and certainly so by the time you'd actually be selling it. So you'd be selling the property at a time when you'd actually be able to raise the rent.

Depends how much equity you have. If the rent doesn't cover the mortgage, tax and repairs and the house is low value, you could easily eat up the equity.

Oh yes, tenants can just ask the government for more money and it will be handed to them, no problem at all.

You clearly have no idea how the benefit system works. Housing benefit does not cover private rent costs.

The tenants can work more? So can the landlords then.

You're not subsidising someone else. They are paying your mortgage for you.

If the rent doesn't cover the mortgage then they aren't paying the mortgage!

Thanks for the link, I knew about the proposal for tenancies but the previous poster was talking about house sales which is a different ballpark.

There's nothing on MN that brings out the stupidity quite like any thread that mentions landlords.

I get that it's frustrating when you want to own a home and can't afford to. The housing market absolutely needs some kind of policy shift. That said, there will always be a need for rentals. Lots of people need short term accommodation as well as longterm. Students, overseas workers, anyone in a job or placement that moves them about. I've been in those rentals myself.

The biggest challenge is that more and more people are living alone rather than in shared homes (either with family or friends) and we just don't have enough housing stock for that.

If lots of small landlords start selling you will have vulture commercial landlords buying up everything and essentially setting the rental price for whole areas. As it is lots of us rent out a single property we once lived in ourselves. I literally run mine at a loss because my tenant is on benefits which aren't raising in line with interest rates and inflation.

I also notice that some of the biggest bleaters on these threads are quite happy to have their week's holiday in tourist spots when that is what has made these communities so expensive for people to live in and almost impossible for locals to rent in.

So many generalisations about landlords how we're all scum. It's lucky I don't apply the same generalisations otherwise I would say things like 'Never let to single mums' or 'Never let to single men working in hospitality' simply because I had a bad experience with one once.

Landlords are supposed to accept all abuse while treating tenants like our own beloved children. And then people wonder why so many are thinking, 'Nah, fuck that' and selling up. Cue wails about how there are no rentals.