Landlords response to Labour proposal

[Stellaris22]

Surely it’s becoming increasingly difficult to defend landlords.

In response to proposals to make renting fairer and better for tenants landlords have responded with typical ‘we’ll increase rents’.

Yes there are good and bad tenants just as there are good and bad landlords. LLs need to stop the saviour attitude of thinking they’re helping people who can’t afford to buy. They can’t afford to buy because of their high rents!

Good to see Labour (hopefully) tackling the private rental sector.

@Shakeoffyourchains
Im struggling with your list.

First point - what government intervention is supporting the market?
Is it because they’ve lapsed in building social housing since Maggie’s Right to Buy + huge immigration and are therefore having to pay private LLs to house people?

Point Two - LLs just won’t sell their properties into the open market if CGT is set at a ridiculous level. As someone said up thread, council tax is paid by the tenants, so that doesn’t work.

Point Three - You are correct. What WILL work is to build more affordable social housing which will take the heat out of the private rental market. If that ever happens…. I wish Labour luck in starting the ball rolling.

There is an opportunity to satisfy a need in society. People need housing. It’s top of the hierarchy!
We live in a capitalist society. People will make money where there is a need. They will make more money when there is a shortage.

Its a hard pill to swallow… but that’s the country we live in at the moment.

There seems to be no quick fix, but rapid growth in social housing stocks would go a long way to help.

It's not rubbish. It's a legally recognised term, used by the government and everywhere. It's to show the distinction between a house bought for the purpose of renting out, and a house that has been unexpectedly made empty, often temporarily.

Ot sure you can use section 8 if you want to sell. Happy to be proven wrong though.

I know that some mumsnetters believe there's no such thing as an accidental landlord, but I genuinely am one, after my mother's death.

There's nothing I want to be less, and the property is a millstone round my neck. It has a long term tenant, and I'm prepared to get a lot less for the property (which is already a cheap small house in a cheap area) by selling it with a tenant in place. But with the new rules (which will probably be in place by the time probate and everything is done) no-one will want to buy a house with a sitting tenant that they can't get rid of easily. Especially when said tenant has missed payments and has not looked after the property at all.

I foresee loads of tenants being issued with section 21 notices in the next few months, making it even harder to find homes, and making rental costs very much higher. As soon as I'm able to, I'll be tempted to do the same. Putting the tenant first is unlikely to be possible.

We are similar (3 houses). Charge way below average rents but the houses are a bit tired. But our tenants can do what they like and have pets/sublet etc. All have been there for years. We would only ask them to leave if we wanted to sell, so not an issue. We also respond to any issues and fix problems, but otherwise leave them alone. Do have to have gas checks/chimneys swept etc though.

Not all landlords are dreadful - although I do get it must be horrible to rent privately and never know when you might lose your home! Not sure of the solution though, except for far more council housing.....

Letting agent working with diligent LLs… most of mine consider it business as usual, however, single resi. landlords are selling, mainly due to the threat of CGT, not changing legislation.

Nobody chooses to remove a good tenant.

The real problem is that there are not enough houses. It has nothing to do with LLs because the people living in those rented homes won’t magically disappear, they need somewhere to live to! So to believe this will suddenly free up housing stock or drop purchase prices in areas of high demand is naive at best. The bottom line is there is a chronic lack of housing supply.

There has always been terrible LLs and they need targeting, there are measures in place for this already, but government enforcement is lacking. What should not happen is that good landlords have no way of redress when they have a bad tenant (and those are as rare as bad landlords but certainly exist).

Anyone believing these reforms are a magic bullet is naive at best and ill informed at worst. Government are simply hiding behind landlords for their lack of foresight for the future and that’s all governments, not unique to a single party.

What I can tell you is that there will be a ying/yang process to this, intentionally or not, as there is with every piece of legislation that is newly introduced at any point in time.

They are both pursuing the same agenda. To push private landlords out to make way for corporate rentals.

Labour sort out rental section? When a Labour MP has been called out for being a landlord of substandard properties ??!!

Haven't RTFT and am also neither a landlord nor a tenant so probably shouldn't be posting here. However I do know people who privately rent. They're not in favour of the proposals, despite hating the insecurity of Section 21.

One of them was saying the other day how hard it's become to find a rental nowadays. It's definitely changed from when I was younger and renting. These changes proposed by the government will increase that difficulty. Not everyone is in a position to buy even with more properties on the market.

It will particularly hurt the most vulnerable and poorest. They won't have any extra security. Landlords who want them out will simply put rents up instead of using Section 21.

The only way ending Section 21 would help tenants is if there was also a return to rent controls and housing benefit fully covering market rent, but I suspect that won't happen. And if there were rent controls more landlords would sell up - which will increase homelessness.

The obvious solution to the housing problems (and cost to the economy of private rent housing benefit and cost of temporary accommodation) is more social housing.

Ending Section 21 would be a good thing because housing security is so important - but should not be done before ensuring there's more social housing for tenants who can't afford to buy. More social housing should be the government's priority.

I think extending the section 21 notice period (perhaps making it longer the longer the tenant had stayed) would have been the best option to give tenants more security with out putting landlords off.

That's probably a better idea at least until more social housing is built.

Even better would be a return to full housing benefit (temporarily until more social housing was built). I understand what's given now often only covers rent for 'slumlord' housing. Substandard, often unsafe.

Although rent controls would be great in theory, I realise that would lead to more landlords selling up and increased homelessness. Dreadful for those affected - and expensive because temporary accommodation costs billions (despite often being substandard). And homelessness has other individual and societal costs too.

It’s a simple fix. Set up a premium bonds type thing. Goverment backed. People can put in £50-1000 but can’t touch it for 2 years. Use that money to buy houses and rent them out at a reasonable rate. At the end of 2 years you get your money back plus 6% interest. If 2 million people paid in it would buy a fair few houses.

If I won the lottery tomorrow, that’s what I would do. Not for profit. Just because society needs affordable housing and decent landlords.

How the Housing Crisis began

watch the link it explains the reason for housing crisis really well and it’s not a lack of landlord but an excess of buy to lets and the Tories removing safe guards and the major villain is the buy to let mortgage. So we come back to the banks again.

Do like in Japan where you get prison time if you mess up as CEO and have to publicly apologise instead of bailing them out with tax payer money.

and to prove the point an AI simulation confirms that removing landlords fixes the housing crisis.

There is more empty houses and flats than people needing them but people own 2nd 3rd 4th homes or rather leave them empty than lower the rent or are not even living in the country for most of the year.

It’s not a lack of the physical housing but too few people owning too many of them.

When is this RR legislation becoming legal .

I’m so thoroughly sick of landlords being vilified every turn,
I'm a landlord have been for years , I always do my best for tenants, properties are immaculately clean and in really good state of Repair for each new tenant,
years of cleaning up behind tenants when they trash places is expensive and soul destroying
replacing broken items fixing stuff that they’ve broken, constantly redecorating
ongoing maintenance etc
its not easy and tbh there’s no money left to do anything!
mortgage rates are huge. There’s no tax relief on interest payments anymore. I would advise anybody thinking of getting into it not too.
its hard work really hard work , oh and then there’s the other whole thing
income from rental properties is classified as unearned income , rendering it impossible to get a home mortgage yourself.
then you are trapped as a landlord if you want to sell to 40percent tax and then payment of your mortgages fees etc
it’s not easy ,
if I sell up I have no income, and my trades men lose work and my tenants are then out at the mercy of the u unscrupulous landlords we are not all the same some landlords are really good stop bashing landlords

@Platypuslover Definitely a large part of the problem goes back to the 90s when Buy to Let became a big thing - and it really took off under the Labour government of the time (who also didn't end right to buy), so the blame is previous goverments both Tory and Labour.

However we can't go back in time. How would removing all landlords fix the housing crisis? Loads of people still wouldn't be able to buy, especially those most affected by the housing crisis - those on the lowest incomes.

Unless you're suggesting forcing lenders to drop their minimum income requirements for a mortgage and accept benefits? Personally I think it's not a bad idea to use housing benefits to buy homes. It's certainly cheaper than long-term housing benefits (which many will always need - lots of jobs are low paid but essential, plus there's disabled people or people who can't work because they're carers).

The only way, other than than the option above (benefits used for mortgages instead of private rents) is more social housing.

Council houses should never have been sold off.

A lovely chap in his Nineties and his wife a bit younger used to live in a council house in the 1950's to 1980's and they said in the early days, people looked after them, but he said as time went on, they became more run down and 'edgier' {SE London}-

Stephen Lawrence had been murdered not too far away which was also very off putting.

when the 'right to buy' came in, they didn't buy the house they'd had for decades as they didn't like how the area had become.

Why did they sell them off? It was obviously a terrible idea.

This couple had a small win on the Lottery which amazingly enabled them to buy a place in the area where they were born {Cheaper than SE London}

We don't have a housing crisis, we have a families crisis, half of our friends have split in the last 3 years, so now in each of 8 cases we have a single adult in a 2/3/4 bed house with their kids spending alternating weeks at each or half the week at one then swapping over. In all cases the parents want to provide an equal home for their kids as their ex, so they buy over-sized houses for their needs, and they are mostly empty for 50% of the time.
We also rent out 6 properties (very reasonable rents btw) same thing - in each case 4 single mums, 2 single dads, each with one or two kids split between households at weekdays / weekends etc.
So obviously we don't have a housing crisis, and building more is not solving the right problem, so it won't work.

I too noticed the amount of couples splitting {with and without children} and this does mean people are rattling about in houses ''too big'' for them- with spare rooms.

But these people won't sell , despite not needing all that space, and nor do they want to be renting rooms out in their house to people once they are over 40.

Their student days are behind them, and sharing bathrooms and kitchens is a pain.

A friend was looking to buy a house to live in {not rent out} and one he looked at was a rental previously - he said it made him feel really awkward and uncomfortable as there were lots of women sleeping in the rooms as he was being shown around...a house of multiple occupation.

It must have been horrible for the women, too, having a random young man and an estate agent look into their bedrooms {It was the middle of the day} There were children there, too.

Goodness knows if the house was sold where the people would go - the chap said there were probably 10 people living there including kids, in a 2 bed house.

No, you are right, but my understanding reading about the changes is that new mechanisms will be introduced for landlords wishing to sell or move into their premises.

These will come with strings, for example if you give a tenant notice to move out because you are selling you cannot re-let the property for 6 or 12 months, to prevent landlords using that reason as a work round s21.

I really hope they make it impossible to home a second home or investment properties. Ever heard of a lodge or caravan as a holiday rental?
Homes were built for families to live in primarily not investments. So wrong to charge extortionate rents and limit the potential of social housing and also getting people on the ladder.
Landlords should be told they can only charge social tariff the local authority charge or sell property back to local authority as social housing to reform things.
Landlords are in it for money not to create beautiful family homes for struggling working people. It’s an investment and until that investment because less so nothing will change.
Landlords are going to hate me for saying this but are you glad the rents you are charging and also do you genuinely give a toss about tenants. I have a friend whose kitchen is diabolical, she won’t ask for a new one because she’s worried he will put the rent up and she will be homeless. It’s not on. Everytime they need working doing the landlord puts the rent even though they claim the expense on self assessment at tax. Yep we see you landlords! Do right by people, fair rent, decent homes or sell up.

@Mrsgreen100 yres
@Mylittlespuds i did genuinely care now not so much hence changing to air b and b model no regrets

We don't have a housing crisis, we have a families crisis

We also have a lot of empty homes in places people don't choose to live - 250,000+ long term empty properties with 50,000+ of these in the North East.

We learned over Covid that we don't need to commute daily to centralised offices. There was a massive opportunity to achieve genuine levelling up by removing the South East focus on wealth generation and infrastructure investment. But commercial landlords (such as Alan Sugar), and businesses structured around the commuter market (Pret, Evening Standard, Metro) pressured a return to the old ways.

The term accident implies you have no control over a situation. So no, accidental landlord is not a thing. Moreover it’s offensive to those struggling to save for a deposit.

You choose to rent a property out. It’s not an accident.