Why are people so against private landlords?

[StopRainingNow]

I don't get it (and I'm not a landlord), no one shouts at Tesco that it is disgusting that they make money off selling something (food) to people on UC, when people need food TO literallysurvive/ live. But if someone has a business renting houses to people who need them, they are the devil. It makes no sense to me.

To make it worse, Tesco are also making profits by not paying a living wage to employees who then have to claim UC to top up their salaries and so benefit from profit from employees and customers.

Why do private landlords get such a hard time? They are providing a service to people that need it - AIBU?

Rent controls never work.

The only answer is to build more housing. Not social housing, just housing. Supply and demand. It’s a simple concept. No mental gymnastic required around rent controls and other socialist nonsense. It just doesn’t work.

Who expects you to be a landlord for free? No-one is expecting you to rent out your property and not charge anything. You may be an ethical landlord who maintains the property well, does repairs/fixes faults as soon as they arise and charges a fair rent, but lots of buy-to-let landlords are not like you.

I had a contract a few years ago that meant I would be working abroad for 2 years, I didn't need to rent out my property and hadn't planned to until a friend asked what I was doing with it.

literally 4 days before i was heading off we agreed for him to rent the place, fully furnished, he had just broken up with loony ex girlfriend so we agreed a 2 year contract. with a low rent to help him get back on his feet, think half what the going rate should have been!!!! all he had to paty was utitlities, rent and council tax I looked after the insurance.

worst decision I made every month there was a email with something usually very minor like a light bulb or the gardener hadn't been.

when I came home the place was a mess so had to redecorate and new carpets, beds etc. Then about 3 months later came the debt collectors as he had run up loans etc and not paid them 2 years of agro sorting that out.

never will I rent out again

@Marshmallow4545 Denmark and another country. No system is perfect and there are downsides but the system here is shit.

Social housing is a lot cheaper than renting privately.

Thats because rents won’t be based on ‘what the market can bear’, and rents purposefully set at affordable levels.

I have a friend who inherited a council tenancy and her rent would be ~4-5x higher if renting the same flat privately.

@Jennps well I said build more housing but apparently that's impossible to 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Jennps we wouldn't need rent controls if we had a massive house building programme but that is never going to happen. Do you really think any government will build 250k plus houses each year?

Indeed. I wouldn’t describe that as a discount, though, it’s simply a lower (but not loss-making) price.

It is hugely discounted because it totally ignores the cost of capital and ownership. It is usually subsidised at the point of building too either directly by the State of indirectly by developers so they can build a housing estate and charge buyers more.

The biggest proof of this is that SH isn't scalable. Anything this isn't subsidised can usually be scaled to a much larger extent than SH currently is. If the SH rents truly covered the costs of building, owning property then it would be easier to build.

I have moved 3 times in 3 years (and we are about to move for a 4th time making it 4 in 4 years) because every house we moved into the landlord decided they were selling 12 months later. I know it is their property and their right to do with the house as they wish but tenants have literally zero stability. And somehow each time we move we end up in an even smaller house paying even more than before because the rental rates just get more extortionate every year making it impossible for people to save for a deposit.

I have lived in properties that needed major work that you chase for repairs and get no where. I've lived in a house that had weeds growing from outside to the INSIDE of the house through the poor framework, mould, dodgy windows making the house freezing so you have to try tape them in the winter, a broken extractor fan in a bathroom with no window so the place gets mouldy but they always consider mould to be the tenants fault. Generally zero effort put into making the house a nice place to live for those who pay for their mortgages on their nice house. Would they live like that? I highly doubt it.

You are never allowed to do anything in the house you pay to live in to make it a home. It's in the lease that we aren't even allowed hang pictures on the walls, not allowed use the attic, so you pay for the property and arent allowed to even use it all. And god forbid you want to paint your child's bedroom or change the disgusting wallpaper in the living room thats already in the house. I had a landlord tell us we couldn't install curtains because he didn't want screws going in the walls for the rails.

They have you by the throat with the tenancy contracts, they are always 12 months minimum so if you want to buy its tricky. We recently received a small inheritance and are waiting on another one so when that comes through we have almost enough for a small house deposit and wanted to start keeping an eye out at properties for sale but until that money comes in we aren't ready to buy just yet. We asked our landlord when it was time for the renewal if they would consider a 6 month break clause on our 12 month contract so we had a bit more freedom for when the inheritance came in in case we saw a house we like and they said no, the next day they served us an eviction notice with no explanation. We thought " great another landlord selling up making us move" and then we saw the property online to let again with an even higher rate than we agreed to. Meanwhile we have to let strangers in the house to view it and are expected to make it look like a show home for them despite being pushed out against your will.

They truly don't care about their tenants and care only about lining their pockets

Rich people profit from their 2+ homes by charging people who don’t get the chance to buy.
Demand and supply - few people owning many house means higher prices and less choice. Locals can’t afford to buy where they’ve grown up.
So many reasons. I’m not going to bother writing any more as it’s too depressing

Following your logic.

Food, water and warmth are also basic human needs.

Where do you stand on supermarkets, water and energy companies?

Social housing might appear discounted because the market rate for property has spiralled out of control since renting became privatised

there were strict rules against profiteering from council properties and there were lots of them - this kept rents low- that in turn meant private landlords couldn’t charge excessive rents and house prices were held back ( who would pay a million for a home if there was a council house to rent for a fraction of of that cost?£

nowadays my house (200k) could cost over a million on some parts of the Uk - that’s not a difference on raw costs but a difference in “value”

you can’t say private rental market is OK and T the same time complain that all your money is going on rent/mortgage/childcare and that life is unaffordable as a result

rent / mortgage is the biggest bill for most childcare providers way exceeding what they spend on nursery staff

edit add I can abhor the private housing market and tescos at the same time. Although if the housing market wasn’t so broken then tescos wages might be sufficient to live off

Remind us.

How many properties does Starmer, Reeves and Blair own?

It's meant to be that if you work hard, then you reap the rewards.

But landlordism means that if you invest wisely, then you get a pay out.

This has created a problem, because we have a bunch of people working hard and not getting much out of it and a bunch of people profiting while not doing very much.

Example, my house was worth £60,000 in 1995. 30 years later it's worth £600,000. That's a £540,000 profit. The house has basically made £18,000 a year. In the early years, that's more than I was earning by working full-time.

As it goes, I only own 25% of my house - which I bought outright. It was bought under a scheme called DO IT YOURSELF SHARED OWNERSHIP where I got to choose a house on the open market and a housing association paid the other 75%. I've rented this 75% for the last 30 years and this has comfortably paid off the initial outlay by the housing association of £45k. Everything they're now 'earning' in rent off me is profit and allows them to provide more housing for more people. My rent is less than £400 pcm. If I was to rent my house on the open market it would be £3,500 pcm.

What I've just described is a situation where everybody wins. I'm opposed to landlordism because it creates a situation where only a few win. This is anti-democratic. All people should be rewarded for working hard.

Agreed, and throw in the cost of borrowing.

I should also mention I have something called 'a full repairing lease', which means I'm responsible for all repairs and can essentially do anything to the house that I want as long as it meets building regs, etc. In other words, it doesn't cost my landlord anything more than the admin charges which are easily covered by the rent.

I should also mention that my initial 'deposit' of 25% (that I saved hard for and wasn't that much when house prices were so low) means that I have a 100 year transferable lease, so can pass on this house to my kids.

I don't think people are against private landlords in general.

I think people object to:

• dodgy landlords who don't maintain their properties, charge high rent and evict any tenants who complain about lack of maintenance

• landlords who own several buy to let properties when we have a housing crisis and who are driving up house prices and putting starter properties out of reach of first time buyers

• huge rent increases.

I don't think people have anything about decent, small landlords as there will always be people who need to rent.

As someone who rents the rates are too much and my land lord doesn't fix things that have worn out over time. I.e flooring that is original from when the property was first made back in 1998! A kitchen that is falling a part. Massive cracks that have appeared from house moving as we reside by a river.
Don't get me startes on curtains. Why am I going to fork out hundreds and hundreds.on nets and cuetains for a property not mine and wont fit my next rental property??????? Landlords should 100% be responsible for putting in curtains and nets, utilities aaaaaand wardrobes! After living in rentals for the last 15 years I am sick and tires of the rent being so high but no investment back into the property. It is their home not mine. They benefit feom reinvesting I do not.

They shouls ask tenants for inspections and ask for whats wrong and what needs fixing and do that. My DH has resided at our rental for the last 12years and other then a lick of paint before he moved in everything is original and the same. Single taps hot and cold in 2025!!!! Flooring damaged and falling apart etc etc etc. Crooks

We are private landlords, 3 flats, retired nurse.
I worked 7 days a week to renovate these flats to a high standard.
We rent to 2 lovely families and a single man at well below the local rent rates. If anything needs fixed in the flats it’s done within 24 hours. We have a really good relationship with them. We are decent people and respect our tenants.
We had a meeting with one of our tenants when we thought we were going to sell one to see if she wished to buy. She got upset as she couldn’t afford to buy so we didn’t sell and promised her that her tenancy was safe.
Landlords are being targeted all the time and some are bad but not all of us.

Of course it's a discount because it ignores economic reality.

If I own a cow, a field and milk the cow myself and give you the milk for the cost of my time is that a discounted price? I haven't factored in any of the real costs of supplying that milk because somewhere along the line I have bought the cow and field. I could sell the cow and field and make a lot of money, use the field for something more profitable but instead I keep it to supply you milk. It is clearly a discounted price because other milk suppliers can't match it without also supplying the cow and field for free. If they need to borrow money for the cow and field then they will have even more costs to cover as they will have interest payments too.

Because they produce nothing. They have earned nothing. They are leveraging their pre-existing wealth to prevent their tenants from enjoying the fruits of their own Labour. It automatically and immediately creates have and have nots no matter how hard people work - it is one step along the road to creating a serf population. Maybe they then compound the problem by passing that wealth down maybe by inheritance to recreate a class system and system of inherited wealth that has been rejected by north European societies again and again and again.

It’s really not difficult op. The hated is not going to go away either. They are not more worthy of wealth than those who are actually working for it: quite the reverse. The return of private buy to let is what has destroyed our economy just as much as private landlords in commerce, and both will shortly lead us to total economic collapse and the end of this age of civilization.

I’m a landlord. I’d fully support regular inspections (and financial penalty) to make sure my properties were held to a certain standard. My own rule is I wouldn’t rent out anything I wouldn’t be happy for my own children to live in. But there’s no recourse if a tenant wrecks your property and/or stops paying rent. Even if you have rent protection insurance they have to be non paying for six months for it to kick in. Usually you are so happy to get rid of them you just suck up the loss. One bad tenant can ruin you.

Well - Tesco's generally sell me nice, fresh safe food at a reasonable price. They alsp run thoer buske ss is a professional manner. If something goes wrong I can complain and they generally are pretty prompt at dealing with it. I also can also expect Tescos to obey the law when it comes to selling me safe, fresh food.

In the years I rented in London I had a landlord who refused basic repairs - even when there was water coming through the ceiling, a landlord who yelled at me for 30 mins for havingthe temerity to call an emergency locksmith to replace a front door when we came back at 1am to find it smashed open (apparently we should have waited for her borther to come out later in the week), a landlord who tried to charge me £150 for a single crack in a fridge salad drawer, a landlord who let himself in to conduct viewigs when we handed in our notice, a landlord who didn't pay his mortgage so we were sent repossession notices from the bank, a landlord who insisted we pay rent for a full month after we moved in to our purchased flat but also insisted we move all our possessions out early so he could start redecorating.

And many many more stores like that.

People wouldn't hate private landords so muvh of many of them weren't so greedy and shit at their jobs.

There are many people on this thread who think it's ethically wrong to make a profit renting housing, that is what I am referring to.