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!

All across Europe there are rent controls, long-term tenancies, non-eviction laws, strict monitoring of standards etc. and these countries seem to be able to make it work. In many countries, renting is seen as the norm.

There are also many types of landlord in other countries. The "private landlord" that is typical in the UK is not so common in Europe, where there are council properties, housing associations, co-operative housing schemes and private companies that build, rent and maintain properties such as block of apartments based on a known rent and a known return on investment. What is also far less common is the idea of property as a speculative asset, and the hiding of the identity of the real owners. Certain cities in the UK (e.g. London, Leeds, Manchester) also suffer from property inflation caused by money from "dubious sources" being invested there with little or no real control.

It’s just another exercise to divert the public money (benefits) to corporations. Corporations don’t like small landlords and the middle class in general.

Large pension funds etc will snap up the cheap ex rentals going on the market, especially that a lot of them are being sold with sitting tenants. In a decade private renting will be dominated by corporations and rents will go up. We will continue to subsidise rent with benefits, so taxpayers money will be going to large global corporations instead of small individual landlords. You tell me if this is progress.

The proposed law says that landlords can increase rents once a year and only to ‘market levels’. But if two massive corporations or banks own all the private rentals in town, they will be in effect dictating what’s market rent in the area. Just charge each new tenant £100 more and in 2 years the new market rent for the area will be higher. Then increase it for the remaining tenants. Then start charging new tenants £100 more, etc etc.

This is what’s happened to vet fees once the big global capital dominated the market. They all charge the same high fees and the service has not improved. But unlike owning a pet, having a roof over one’s head isn’t really optional.

I know of one pension/investment fund that bough 500 homes in the North a couple of years back. They can easily afford one or two non-paying tenants, just charge the remaining 498 more. Small landlords don’t have the same buffer so more and more will be selling up. Some tenants might be able to buy their homes from the landlords who are exiting the market but not many. And certainly not the poorest who need housing security the most because they can’t secure another property on the open market due to very high rents.

I can see the sentiment behind this law but I feel it’s the wrong way round: increase social housing first to lower demand in the private rented sector and then tighten the rules. Otherwise the already high demand will only increase.

You can call me a doom monger but read my post in 10 years and we’ll see who was right. Although, obviously, I hope I’m wrong and it will work out great.

@pinkoink A very good point and an obvious danger that the big corporations attempt to effectively rig the market by being the near-monopoly providers of housing in an area.

The obvious solution to this is to prevent housing being a speculative commodity - it could still be an investment instrument with a rate of return - by imposing rent caps and by enforcing standards. That was actually the original idea behind privatising other utilities (i.e. a guaranteed rate of return in exchange for inprovements in service and more investment), but the big investors that took over the water and power companies were far smarter than the politicians and shafted both the government and the consumers.

All great in theory but do you know how long this process takes. My father recently did it for a non paying tenant between waiting for a court date and then the baliffs it took nearly two years. Two years or not being paid. And after they left hes also had to pay a fortune to get the property into livable condition again as they wrecked the place on leaving and that was another 6 months of it not being rentable whilst it was repaired too and do you think hed get a penny out of them from the courts?

I myself rented out the property I had when I met my now husband. I was a good LL, the flat was well maintained cos I had lived in it and loved it. Every issue or breakage was sorted within a day. I treated them fairly. But when we came to buy our first propety together I had to sell my flat as the additional stamp duty would be unaffordable as an upfront payment. My tenants were devastated but I couldn't take such a massive hit for a property that was leaving me pretty much breaking even if you took the capital repayment of my mortgage out of the equation and a loss on it if you didn't.

Sadly many of these rules drive out small, good landlords who treat tenants well but do nothing for the big guys who treat tenants terribly

Corporations and banks are hoovering up rental properties @pinkoink has perfectly written what is happening and will increase. In my life I have rented three properties, two were people that owned one house and one was a guy that owned five. I dealt with all of them directly, it was much better.