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!

@P3trolBlu3 no I recognise that - but if it’s not functional you can’t test it.

Unfortunately with a shortage of housing, tenants are just left to pay over the odds for substandard properties. Students are especially vulnerable to this issue as rentals in uni towns and cities are usually snapped up by Christmas for the following September and some students just take the property regardless of the state it is in just in sheer desperation. My DH intervened in issues with DDs student house when she had been fobbed off by the agent and landlord. Amazingly as soon as DH contacted them they fixed things pretty quickly. Sadly students are still getting poor treatment and it may be necessary for parents to get involved.

Yes he might be in student housing. But I know from my own experience the profit was absolutely minimal, hence pulling our money out.

Student housing is also high risk but I won’t get into that. There’s so much purpose built student housing I am always amazed there is the demand to fill it - but again I guess that depends on the area.

Honestly?
Scapegoats!! Landlords can never win. Decent landlords are out here and have very very few rights against tenants. Paying or not.

I don’t call £17k with clearly zero money spent on the property a minimal profit.

No money grabbing, lazy landlords like the above can’t win. It’s not ok. Would you want to live in housing like that?

Young families will be trapped in accommodation like this. It’s not ok.

Student landlords/agencies are complete bastards. They’re not like ‘regular’ landlords who mostly give a shit about their own properties (we rent out and I’d live there - we did years ago!).
Unfortunately they have students over a barrel so can and do rent their places in a vile state. It’s supply and demand.
DD has been lucky this past year as her landlord isn’t specifically a student landlord, in fact she will be the only student this coming year (due to swapping courses her housemates have graduated but she’s staying with different housemates). The house is decent and the rent isn’t increasing.
In comparison DS’s place looks grim in photos and his rent is a lot more (in a more expensive city, but still) and I resent paying £2K more a year but there’s nothing we can do.
Damp is the worst though - DD’s first house stank and she came home ftom
uni and all her clothes smelled

Well, similar student experience in Glasgow, and that’s on the SNP - government and council . Landlords flouting the laws in place to protect renters, council choosing to ignore.
I do have sympathy for those landlords who obey the rules and then have shit tenants - it’s extremely hard to evict them in Scotland.

So, good tenants can suffer from shit landlords, and good landlords get penalised for following the rules. It’s not a great model for housing.

My own Son had a similar property in his second year at Uni. damp,mouldy and also a mouse for company some nights! I agree with you that LL should be held to account, problem is they dont have to buy property! Rentals are in high demand, and they will just evict people who complain! The whole system stinks.At least our children are off Uni for over 4 months, and come back to warm clean homes .My own DS has just bought a house with his GF, so should be free from renting again .Im sure your DS will be similar

its extremely unlikely that the LL walked away with the £17k profit don’t you think ?
Just over £1400 a month. LL will have insurance costs, mortgage cost etc.
Do you expect LLs to do it for free?

Agree with PP re landlords leaving the market in droves, it is no longer profitable due to high interest rates and taxation. It was thought that these measures would fix the market meaning more properties for first time buyers but this really is not the case. We now have less supply meaning higher rents, people are desperate so they will accept less quality rentals and some landlords will absolutely take advantage of the situation. If the government want to keep rent costs down they need to make it attractive for private landlords to rent property and work with tenants and landlords to have a scheme where a minimum standard of housing is maintained perhaps linked to tax relief or another incentive.

A shorterm tenancy will be a rolling monthly one after 6 months (or whatever the original term the contract stated, rarely more than 12m) so once that 6m is up, a sect 21 can be served, you ought to know this.

Even the Tories abandoned Renters bill was shitte, a tenant could still be evicted if the ll wants to sell/move back in/ or put a family member in.... so no fault evictions would still exist.

Tenants somethings don't take care of a property because the LL doesn't either and they know they can be booted out with little notice at anytime.

I wonder if the recent rent increases we've seen because of rising interest rates, will drop back down when rates fall? no they wont.

The sooner we get back to council provided social housing the better, BTL has been a disaster for tenants.

There does seem more of a drive with damp and mould in the social housing sector since the death of Awaab Ishak. There's a deeper story there and having looked in detail there were concerns raised with the way the family were living that was potentially exacerbating the situation, but the council worker who raised that concern was vilified for pointing it out. However, the case does seem to have placed the onus more on landlord than tenant now. I was successful bidding on a ground floor council property the first week of May but they won't let me move in until September at the earliest because they discovered a problem with damp and mould in the basement below the flat. I don't think this shift in ownership of the problem should only be happening in the social sector if there is indeed more the landlord can do, but often people are unaware of how the way they live could inadvertently be a contributory factor.

What town is it?

Nope, we need social housing built whilst we move from the BTL model but we cannot do one without the other.

SH will lead to lower rents, secure tenancies (for good tenants) and more money in the local economy.

Governments will not met our housing needs unless they allow councils to build.

This.
And an incoming Labour government will make the situation worse with more onerous tax grab.
The RoI makes it much less attractive to rent out property now -when I have sold and reinvested will have a much better income stream.We have been responsible landlords, keeping the property in good condition s s respecting the tenants. Bbuyers will not be letting the property -it is on a street close to an oversubscribed primary, and the three viewings we had yesterday were young couples and a family with a pre-school child…So will definitely be a reduced housing supply under Labour, and those rending landlords far more likely to be the sort that don’t maintain their properties and ignore legal obligations.
That 17k the OP is so incensed by would be peanuts for a responsible owner when insurance/maintenance/gas and elec checks/ tenancy agreement fees taken out and what’s left is taxed at 40% (and if it a company there will be other running costs)

I don’t expect them to be ripping off tenants and making them live in dire living conditions. If you can’t afford to be a landlord and reach basic criteria legislation should be in place to stop you doing it.

Childminders wouldn’t be allowed to care for children in accommodation such as this so why is it ok for landlords to fleece families with young children by providing accommodation such as this?

This

I'd like to see more landlords face criminal charges.

Because landlords do the absolute bare minimum to comply with the law and do not maintain. You get a smoke alarm and carbon monoxide monitor if you are lucky. You have to move in on top of the previous tenant's mess and dirt, often because the previous tenant didn't see why they should pay for the LL's work or was angry with the LL for having to live in a dirty mouldy unmaintained house. So the problem goes on for years and gets worse.

My current LL (a builder 😂) painted the walls a vile shade of dark blue to hide the rising damp, instead of sorting the problem. So now it has spread across the room. Oh, and installed a non-open window in the same room.

Also many rental properties are often old or single-brick.

National register of rogue landlords and tenants urgently needed. Also it should be possible to report substandard properties and require LLs to have an EH inspection every two years. It's not rocket science.

They already do - -has the OP reported to the LA? Or just an anti-Tory vent?

If previous tenants did not do a professional clean they should have been charged for it from their deposit.
If tenants are ‘living in a dirty house’ (students -.surely not… 🧐 ) its
’s because they don’t clean the house they are living in.

I don’t call £17k with clearly zero money spent on the property a minimal profit.

I looked at buying a buy to let flat in Marylebone a couple of years ago. Rents are crazily high but the rental yield was 2-3%. The only reason I'd have made any (income) profit was because the base rate was 0.25% (it's now 5.25%) so there was a notional profit of maybe 2% after mortgage costs. That is before any insurance, service charge or maintenance costs. Yes there's the opportunity for capital uplift but house prices in that area have fallen since 2016. Longer term landlords may find it easier if they paid much lower prices for properties.

The landlord of my son's student house pays for house insurance, council tax, gas and electricity and all other costs of his house. Plus the much higher wear and tear of letting to students who party and don't treat the house as respectfully as other groups.

I know MN hates landlords but it's a transaction like many others in a capitalist society. If I bought a rental property, I'd be looking to make a profit not a loss. I'd maintain it well (my friends are landlords and bend over backwards for their tenants) but demand and supply dictates the going rate.

Much of the legislation is driving out landlords. The trumpeted upside of reducing house prices hasn't occurred in most areas which have seen rising prices. However it does reduce supply and therefore has contributed to steep rises in rents.

Blaming people in damp riddled accommodation with little ventilation is not ok. It should be part of an independent inspection process. Is it damp and mold free, does it have good ventilation, does it have good laundry drying facilities and space ( a tumble dryer or outdoor line)….

If no then surely it’s not fit for renting. You can’t blame tenants if a property has a clear historic damp and mold problem, not enough windows or windows that open, no space for a tumble drier or a drier not included, no outdoor space for laundry, a faulty boiler and this faulty heating and hot water system….

Not enough are. Councils are also stretched to the bone down to a real term cut in the region of 40% in their funding from central government over the last decade courtesy of the tories. Hence some going bankrupt and ultimately the withdrawal of vital services. Tory voters really are turkeys that vote for Christmas.

Why shouldn't it be a rant? Are we not allowed to rail against a self serving government that has encouraged dangerous levels of inequality?

You'd have to ask the OP directly wouldn't you.

Much of the legislation is driving out landlords. The trumpeted upside of reducing house prices hasn't occurred in most areas which have seen rising prices. However it does reduce supply and therefore has contributed to steep rises in rents

Pray tell us all what this legislation is? ECP, electrical and gas safety certs are cheap as chips, sect 21 changes not happening, neither is the move to a min ECP of C.

Tax relief on mortgages? why should you get that? You re already allowed to write of expenses against CGT if you sell.

So rents have risen because house prices have gone up/shortage of supply? not because of costs, so greed plus many LLs do not have a mortgage but why should a tenant have to pick up the bill because the LL didn't account for rates rising to long term uk averages?