Labour’s tenants’ rights bill

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I’ve read about some of the changes that are being proposed by Labour. Some of them I am in favour of - such as the right to have a pet etc.

But AIBU to think that this will make the shortage of rental properties even worse? Landlords have been selling up in their droves due in part to changes in tax law. All I see in my home town is a massive amount of demand and not enough housing stock. A friend of mine works for an estate agent and they can received up to 100 phone calls and emails on any one property. They have to cap viewings at 6 or 7 (otherwise they would never get any other work done!) and so many people are not getting a look in.
I know MN feels badly towards LL in general, and I’m certainly not saying they’re all wonderful people doing a public service, but if it’s made more difficult for them to evict problem tenants, more difficult to increase rent when mortgage payments go up, tied in with the tax law changes, I fear that many will simply give up, sell their properties and walk away from it. Not everyone who is looking to rent will be able to buy those properties and we will have an even smaller supply of rental homes available for people.
Also, I can see a lot of LL hiking up rent as much as they can in advance of this bill being passed. I just don’t think this is going to end well, although I hope I am wrong!

Last Sunday, nearly 1,000 people arrived in small boats. Those people all need to be housed somewhere. It's not impossible to imagine a government programme of house-buying to accommodate them. It already exists in some areas: housing associations look to buy back the same houses that were sold under the right-to-buy when they go up for sale. That's not going to depress house prices even if landlords are selling 'in their droves'.

So the bill just makes it more difficult for private renters to find accommodation and more difficult for them to move when they need to.

Good intentions maybe, but doesn't address the problem.

The pet thing is an issue. I used to rent out my flat after I had to move for work. The deeds on my flat say that pets (apart from a hamster, goldfish) are not allowed, and if I break these I risk a huge fine and potentially can lose my flat. So any rule which saud I had to allow pets would mean that I couldnt rent my flat out, and it would have sat empty, which isn't helpful for either myself or tenants looking to rent.

I’m a landlord (Boo! Hiss! 😉) with a few one bed flats that are let out to young professionals at an age /stage of life where they don’t want or can’t buy a property. They typically stay for one or two years, look after the place pretty well and all is good. It’s this market that will suffer most if/when landlords sell up.

I’m considering my options after nearly 10 years in the game as the income/profit returns are shocking compared to other investment vehicles and the capital growth isn’t great in areas that have been flooded with new build developments.

A word on pets - there isn’t a right to have a pet - there is an obligation on the landlord not to unreasonably refuse a request for a pet. A reasonable refusal could be to do with the suitability of the property or other restrictions typical in leaseholds. There may be other reasons landlords rely on (unavailability of insurance for example) which unless litigated means that pet owners can still expect to be turned down in favour of other applicants.

See my comment above - leasehold restrictions will still be good reason to refuse a pet

Before assured shorthold tenancies existed we had protected tenancies. There were no S21 notices as the tenancies were not granted for a limited period. I worked as a homeless officer then, ( yes I'm that old!). I dealt with very few people who were homeless as a result of being evicted in the private sector. It was mostly accepted that tenants stayed, if they wished, for life.
As soon as assured shortholds became normal, people who had previously never thought about being landlords started to buy properties. A big plus for them was that they could issue a S21 and the courts could not refuse possession.
I don't see it as a bad thing that tenants have greater security of tenure. It ensures that tenants can actually make plans for their life and the landlord knows he has a tenant who wants to stay.
I agree that courts should be set up to deal speedily with possession orders if the tenant has broken a condition of their tenancy. But if they weren't dealing with S21 notices, and there was greater stability in the private sector that should help.

The problem isn't the renters bill. The lack of housing isn't due to shortage of willing landlords. Its due to massively insufficient housebuilding over the last two decades

Renters get the right to request pets, not automatically to have them. Landlords can refuse on reasonable grounds.

It's a good idea to research what's actually going to be in the bill rather than listen to people with a political axe to grind

Decent article below

www.totallandlordinsurance.co.uk/knowledge-centre/renting-to-tenants-with-pets#:~:text=In%20line%20with%20the%20original,a%20description%20of%20the%20pet.

I don't see it as a bad thing that tenants have greater security of tenure. It ensures that tenants can actually make plans for their life and the landlord knows he has a tenant who wants to stay.

Well yes….and no

Recent events have shown that highly leveraged landlords have been hit very hard by mortgage interest rises (naively believing rates would stay low for ever) which has necessitated rent rises which may not be affordable to the tenant (particularly those on benefits which often don’t cover the whole of the rent anyway). So whilst long term tenant can be a good thing, if events transpire that means the landlord cannot afford to provide the property at all then the law should give some protection to the landlord too.

As a LL sometimes I accept pets sometimes I don't - depends on the tenant.

However when you have 70 people chasing 1 property I can choose to be picky.

A single person or a couple with no dc in a well paid job is my preference. They're out of the house all day and no kids are drawing on the walls.

I've had my fingers burnt a few times so I have to think about my own family not someone else's. Tenants who don't pay means my family goes without. I take. I risks these days.

Last sentence should say:

I take no risks these days. I have my own criteria and I stick with it

Yup - when you stop the incentives and take away the profit you’re just encouraging people who are willing to cut corners.

The decent, law abiding landlords will sell up whilst the unscrupulous ones who didn’t give a shit will continue not giving a shit.

Lending is getting more, not less expensive so those who aren’t on the housing market because they can’t afford to be aren’t going to be able to get a mortgage anyway.

There’s always going to be demand for renting, not everyone in rented accommodation wants to buy, some rent for temporary jobs, new relationships, short term after relationship breakdowns. Alsorts of reasons. The demand for renting won’t disappear even if house prices fall.

We had several rentals and sold them. One buyer wanted to give us cash under the table to decrease the purchase price. I imagine he falls into the category of LL I’ve set out in my second paragraph…

Private LL’s don’t make up enough of the market that the small % who do sell will suddenly even out the housing market.

Not all renters want to or can buy. So for renters it's a problem.

As mentioned up thread, we only need to look at Scotland to see how badly this will work out for renters.

Why weren't they paying rent? If they were supposed to be paying rent then your friend should have issued an S8 eviction notice for rent arrears.

But rent-arrears aside, if she's made a commitment to rent out her house and make it someone else's home, then she can't just demand it back and expect someone else to become homeless. Private rentals need to be a long term commitment. It's not fair on the tenant. In France, rental contracts are generally a minimum term of 3 years for an unfurnished rental, with 6 months notice required from the landlord when the term ends

In fact, in France they even have rent control agreements where in certain areas of high rental demand, there is a cap on the maximum rental charge.

Any person who is a tenant is entitled, by law, to be evicted in the legal manner. So correct notice and then a possession order from the court. It's covered by the protection from eviction acts.
A tenancy exists if rent is requested for exclusive use of a property.
Rent arrears would mean a S8 notice and then court order.

Landlords won’t be buying new properties to let in the same way they have in the past. Locally large houses are bought up in cheaper areas. The owner puts in a loft extension and a ground floor extension and turns the house in an HMO. Higher rental yields and easier to get rid of a problem tenant.

I feel, the rental market isn't going to collapse this time round either.

Collapse might be too strong but lower supply means higher rents and it’ll be the more vulnerable section of the market who will feel it more

I agree with the changes to S21. More and more private tenants will be renting longer term, and they deserve security.
It will change the business model and some landlords will exit the market. Good. Too many landlords don't see themselves as running a business, but owning a passive investment that requires zero effort.
The government should simultaneously strengthen S8 to allow landlords to evict tenants who don't pay rent or behave anti-socially. They also need to sort out the backlog in the courts (which will take money up front) and get them working efficiently again.
They also need to work with the build to rent sector, and make this a more attractive prospect for bondholders. Lots of build to rent going up where I live.

Friends of ours who rent have just been served a section 21 eviction notice as LL selling due to new laws.

They can't afford, nor want to purchase a house, there are no rental properties in the village atm.

Theyre looking at love 7 miles away, kids changing schools, clubs etc

Won't help renters though.
I work in this market and finding properties for clients with good budgets, excellent jobs, no bad credit can be hard enough due to a lack of stock so God Help everyone else

Aggressive alcoholic tenant who abused his partner was allowed to get a puppy. It has shit and pissed everywhere, upstairs, downstairs. Destroyed the brand new carpets we put in for them. There was actual lumps of shit in the adults' bedroom, god knows how they lived like that. I was extremely relieved we didn't have to go to court to get the house back.

What is the max you can raise rent by under the new proposed laws?

I doubt prices will drop, there may be a bit more availability but if you haven’t got the deposit and need to rent how will that work? What happens if you are a uni student or on a short contract and don’t want to move. There is a place for rental in our housing mix. Empty homes owned by speculators and not enough building are the bigger problems.

It's just another ill thought out policy from the 6th form kids that are now running the country

If you’re in a mid sized town there’ll be a few hundred homes on the market at any given time. Let’s say landlords panic and sell up. Even 100 would be enough to rock the entire local rental market, yet not be a huge number in terms of overall sellers. It might lead to accepting offers that are a bit lower but it’s not going to take 10-20k to help people on to the ladder.. you’d need to be halving prices at least and that simply won’t happen. The market will suck up any properties and the renters will get shafted even harder.

It's ok Labour are building 1.5m house over this parliament so they'll be loads knocking about. Works out at about 25000 a month/800 a day (maybe not as my maths isn't great) although not sure they've managed many of those yet but we'll see, obviously they would have costed this plan and have to workforce (well the 6 main house builders will have) to throw them up on double quick time.