Lots of Landlords are selling up!!

[PassingStranger]

Where is everyone going to live who can't afford to buy?

Alot of landlords are selling. Can't be bothered with all the hassle now.
People aren't paying rent and also trashing houses when they do and costing the owners lots of money to put things right.
On TikTok people are being told to trash houses. [Society gone downhill]

I know there are good tenants, but there are alot of bad ones. Family member works for estate agent and says there are more bad tenants than landlords.

You can trash a house and walk away. Nobody ever gets done for criminal damage on private rents.
There is no register of bad tenants legally allowed either. It's all left to the landlord to sort out at their expense.

Where is all the housing going to come from?
The government donthave enough.
People who are trashing houses and not paying rent are actually spoiling it for everyone..
Alot of lls are selling up now.

They are doing it for profit, not the common good. Remts will be unaffordable to any normal person.

What am I missing? Any new law coming in?

I was an “accidental” landlord for 6 years but in 2022 I decided to sell. My rental was bought by a portfolio landlord but is already up for sale again, although the rental market round here is very buoyant, with demand far outstripping supply. I imagine this is because of the forthcoming laws regarding the energy rating of rentals; the house dates to c1850 and there are no further ways to make the house more energy efficient: it is already double glazed, fully insulated etc., and there is nowhere to install a heat pump outside. I would think a lot of landlords will be divesting their portfolios of older properties for this reason. To get houses up to a C rating requires up to tens of thousands and so many landlords will either put the rent up to cover it or just sell as there is a risk that they won’t recoup the investment. So higher rents and fewer properties on the rental market, leading to even higher rents… What a mess.

The house isn't going to be empty though. If landlords don't want older houses the prices will drop and they will be bought by owner occupiers. There won't be fewer places for people to live.

I was a landlord for about 15 years. Just one flat owned with an ex that we couldn't sell so we let it out. We lost thousands. Absolutely awful experience. Tenants trashed it and wouldnt leave, finally got them out and it needed a total refit. Finally sold it at a loss. I'd have been better off setting light to my money to use to cook beans on toast, much quicker and tastier way to lose thousands of £s.
Being a landlord is not always profitable and we're not all evil. Slowly landlords rights are being eradicated in favour of tenants who can literally not pay, trash the place, refuse to leave, and engage in other illegal activities, and the landlord can do nothing about it except spend money trying to persuade a court to evict. And even if they're evicted they don't go.....

I've also been a tenant. Apart from not cleaning the oven I think I was a pretty good tenant!

Ok, I get what you are saying, but doesnt that just mean that the places will be empty because no one can afford to live there?

3 blocks near us are for students...mostly wealthy overseas students have occupied them...remains to be seen what happens to the other blocks...all flats are only one or two bedroom so once children arrive and people want to stay in the area, they fight over any houses up for sale so push up prices..!!

Nonsense.

A seller is compelled to disclose the existence of knotweed when selling - failure to do so would leave them liable to a subsequent claim.

We are in the position now of having to sell or rent a house we purchased for my son to live in. It's a 200 year old grade 2 listed cottage in a nice area ,very quirky. He's moving out on Wednesday as he's buying a house with his girlfriend they need something bigger and want to get on the property ladder. We would love to keep it in the family but are afraid we'll get nightmare tenants and old houses tend to be high maintenance. Plus everything has to be done in keeping with the grade 2 listing. We could test the water with renting but we're too nervous.

Re tenants who trash the place before they move out, this is pushback against a system in which normal people cant access secure and affordable places to live.

I am not condoning this behaviour and their beef really is with the govt who have failed to properly manage things. But when people are stressed angry and up against it (as you would be if regularly made to leave your home) they will tend to shoot the messenger!

Yes as a landlady I'm selling up, it is simply not affordable. I rent out my old house that we had hoped to save for our children. Trashed by 4 different tenants in 10 years it's not sustainable. And the agents, absolutely no use whatsoever.

Dispite frequent visits they have now smashed windows, they've flooded it, ripped the carpets
Enough is enough. 🤬🤬

And then make the situation worse for themselves as they won’t be able to get a LL reference for their next move.

If they have a professional report stating no JK nothing to report except a malicious tenant who no one would take the word of without evidence over a professional.

Havent you read the thread, private landlords are devils

So, the seller knowingly fails to disclose the existence of JK under form TA6, or the seller obtains a fraudulent survey stating there is no JK, against a specific question from the buyer - is that what you are saying?

I like the idea of more flats for people @bumblebee1000
They take up less land

I disagree
Some may be like this ( although I think it’s just an excuse ) but most
just want to trash a property before they leave it to make a LLs life difficult.
Its pure spite.

No I'm saying the LL gets an expert in to assess the existence of not of JK. If it's found they would get it treated and probably hold off on a sale until it had been clear for however long expert states it needs. If a tenant has made a malicious allegation making up the existence of JK just so they think they can hold up a sale I'd evict anyway before section 21 goes.

You only have to report something that exists so a malicious claim by tenant but disproved by an expert would not work. Any sensible LL we ould get JK treated as it would devalue their asset.

Plus it’s a requirement by local environments health

It might be because they realise they aren’t going to get their deposits back. I was a renter for about ten years before buying, always left the houses clean but the landlords never gave my deposit back. I’m going back 26 years though, before smartphones. I absolutely do not condone trashing houses. I wouldn’t rent my house out. I’d rather sell it and pay for storage.

Deposits aren’t held directly by landlords anymore

They need good reason to withhold any money..defaulting on the rent or damage for example.
If tenants haven’t done anything wrong the Landlord cannot, legally, withhold the deposit.
Good tenants have nothing to worry about.

Honestly you don't get it. The people who are buying are probably living with their parents whilst they save up, or in a house share.

The people who want or have to rent are fighting for a shrinking rental pool and the prices are escalating as a result. As a previous poster said, even a 10% drop in house prices (which is massive) doesn't mean everyone can suddenly afford a deposit to buy.

Shelter etc. have contributed to this problem by campaigning to the government non stop which has resulted in this mass exodus of landlords. Incidentally Shelter house absolutely nobody.

OK.

The tenant seemed adamant that the property has JK - one could reasonably argue that they have a duty of care to the LL, and should have reported it, for insurance purposes, if nothing else.

Anyway, we are going round in circles.

There are many people who are never going to be in a position to buy - my eldest DS is one of them, currently in an HMO and unlikely to afford anything better. He was sleeping in the back of the van he had then for seven months before that so he was lucky to get a place. He's always in and out of work, and half the time I have to help him out with the rent as his room costs £1000 a month, though that obviously includes all the bills and wi-fi and there's a washing machine so saves on launderette bills.

He's in the UK but I live in the US where I think the laws are slightly less tenant-friendly. However, my city now has rent control, and this has meant that instead of letting tenants stay at the same rent for several years and increasing rent to market rates when they move out, we actually have to raise the rent by the small percentage (2.5% last year) allowed or we are hopelessly behind when they do move out, given that insurance costs and property tax costs go up every year. One big difference here is that here the landlord is responsible for the property tax (council tax equivalent).

We use an agency to vet incoming tenants and mostly they have been pretty good. However, one time a tenant brought in a second-hand mattress he'd picked up off the sidewalk, and infested the entire three-apartment building with bedbugs, which cost me a fortune to have eradicated. And another tenant who we had actually been friends with and who had stayed in our house with us rent-free for two years stopped paying rent two months after moving into one of our apartments. It took me almost a year and a court appearance to get him out, and on his way out he flushed raw carrots down the toilet and blocked the sewage line. Altogether it cost me $23,000 in lost rent, legal fees and repairs.

Anybody who thinks it's an easy way to make money doesn't know what they're talking about.