To think it’s inexcusable that the Tories haven’t held landlords to account more

[P3trolBlu3]

Just picked up my son from uni. The house he is living in and paid £££££ is awful. It’s all we could afford.

Its cold in the winter, damp and riddled with black mold. The agency and landlord refused to do anything. The boiler kept breaking so they had no hot water, heating and they’ve been without a working washing machine for week.

All together the 3 of them will have paid £17k for the year. It’s such an absolute rip off and in 2024 ludicrous that as a country we can’t protect renters from this.

Why has nothing been done about it?I’m very aware my son is privileged and going home to a mold free, warm house with hot water and a washing machine but families are being left to live permanently in housing like this.

They’ve had 14 years!

Did you notify the council and Enviromental Health?

Did they put the heating on? Did they open windows for ventilation? Did they clean consistently and effectively?

This is why many houses are mouldy.

Did the tenants report it? Lots is in place now to ensure renters are living in safe and healthy properties.

There won't be many landlords and private rented properties left soon anyhow. So that should be a relief to you.

Isn’t this more of a local council issue cause environmental health should deal with it? Legislation already exists to deal with landlords who don’t maintain their properties.

I know this is going to sound silly but I really wish there was some sort of OFSTED for private rental properties. Something that checked in with LL’s and made sure they’re following the law. I used to assume that EA are the closest thing to making sure the law is followed but even they don’t give a fuck

And yes, as pointed out the previous poster, we live in a damp wet country and the vast majority of mould and condensation is caused by inadequate ventilation and inadequate heating.

God I wish there was a register of shit tenants
9 months in no rent paid atall
£3k to evict
cuts both ways but yes they’ll be no private landlords soon so you’ll don will have no rental choice atall

I think that would be preferable. Surely more cheaper housing stock out Bof the rental system would bring house prices down.

And yes yes to some kind of Ofsted scheme. All rentals having to meet a basic standards surely is a basic necessity.

The landlord could get all the damp / mould done and then no doubt the rent would be higher and you've said as is is all you can afford .

Surely having fewer landlords left is a good thing. There will still be the same number of houses, it’s just they will be more affordable and more will be owner occupied.
I like the increasing trend for private, purpose built student accommodation blocks for second and third year students OP. We are doing the university open days at the moment and it seems lots of students are staying in private halls for second d and third years. This means more appropriate accommodation for students and more homes for families in residential areas.

@P3trolBlu3 So your son would have bought a house whilst at uni then if it was cheaper? Ok then.

As others will agree...There will be no rental properties left soon. Landlords don't need tenants. They can sell and invest their money elsewhere.

And as previous poster pointed out. So many tenants are shit. So so shit.

Jesus, that’s a low bar.

A decent, damp proof house should not come at a premium. It’s a basic human right.

There is a lot of really robust legislation in place to regulate the private rented sector - licensing and HHSRS as a start. The regulator is the local authority: underfunding and job cuts means they literally don’t have enough people to enforce it. Underfunding of local authorities has got worse and worse under the tories.

In our university town the university had a list of approved landlords and this helped keep them in check. I don't know if yours had similar?

That said, I don't disagree. I remember a colleague whose dad had become a multimillionaire through his investment properties complaining how unfair it was that her dad was being made to sort out a rat infestation in the long terrace of properties he owned and that really the tenants should just put up with it or sort it themselves. So there are some vile landlords out there.

I would like to see proper investment in decent social housing and much more vigorous punishments for landlords who don't keep properties up to standard.

Good god what an attitude. The landlord shouldn't be letting the property if it is uninhabitable and it is sheer greed to take rent from people it the property is in that state

This isn’t a central government issue. The legislation exists to protect tenants from poorly insulated and unsanitary housing. Use it.

I sometime wonder why damp is more prevalent in tenanted properties…

Surely having fewer landlords left is a good thing. There will still be the same number of houses, it’s just they will be more affordable and more will be owner occupied.

Actually, unless there's more social housing, fewer private landlords would be a bad thing. Loads of people still won't be able to afford to buy even with cheaper house prices.

Also it would be the small landlords selling up. Large ones, with multiple properties, would swoop in and buy the homes up and then things would be even worse than they already are.

The issue really isn't landlords as much as governments both Tory and Labour failing to provide more social housing.

That's what's really needed. More social housing.
Bad landlords (which isn't every landlord) wouldn't get away with it if people on lower incomes had decent affordable alternative of social housing.

Also more social housing would help the economy because it would significantly reduce the welfare benefits bill (a lot goes on expensive private rents) and save the NHS lots of money (insecure, unaffordable, or substandard housing affects health).

I don't know if it is (although I understand some landlords don't get rid of it and instead just paint over to disguise it when doing viewings).

Friends recently bought a new house. From another owner occupier. It has a serious damp and other problems (it was below market price due to the issues so they understood what they were getting into).

Landlords are less likely to maintain their properties properly, fixing leaky guttering etc, so more moisture coming into the house. Also they often have more people living in them generating more moisture. And people renting can’t always afford to heat a property effectively, especially when they have no control over the insulation or the effectiveness of the heating provided.

The problem is the more regulation and expense (via higher tax and no tax allowances) you introduce the more landlords that ARE compliant and do want to provide quality housing chose to invest their money elsewhere.

We had 5 rentals, 5 sets of lovely tenants. But ultimately we sold them as the profit just wasn’t there and they became a liability rather than a steady income.

Shit landlords will always be shit landlords.

There are rules and regulations and the local council have powers to enforce them.

Landlord responsibilitiesYou’re a landlord if you rent out your property. As a landlord you must:

• keep your rented properties safe and free from health hazards
• make sure all gas equipment and electrical equipment is safely installed and maintained
• provide an Energy Performance Certificate for the property
• protect your tenant’s deposit in a government-approved scheme
• check your tenant has the right to rent your property if it’s in England
• give your tenant a copy of the How to rentchecklist when they start renting from you (you can email it to them)

Yabu to expect the Tories to have done anything about it.
Their fundamental purpose is to allow the rich to make as much money as possible and then pay no tax on it. Any kind of market regulation is against their deepest principals.
This is why I am always baffled as to why almost ANYONE would ever vote for them.

Because landlords have no interest in putingthe money to fix it. They use cheap/bog standard paint in bathrooms, etc so it looks fine for viewings, and then when tenants complain about issues like damp they just shrug and say it's standard for properties like that. If you're a homeowner you can choose to look into options to sort the problem out long-term, but tenants can't do that. They know that if you complain too much they don't have to renew the ridiculously short 12 month tenancy, and can get in more people very easily because people are fighting over properties. The housing situation in this country (and many countries) is utterly broken.