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?

I suppose I don't understand why people have a great aversion to "paying off someone else's mortgage using" taxpayer money", but don't have the same thoughts about people using taxpayer money to buy food that a supermarket is profiteering from.

I’m not sure how to explain it correctly but I think it’s because paying off your mortgage means you now own a property and that elevates you somewhat. People strive for that themselves and then see landlords having theirs essentially paid by the social fund.

My mates rent has gone up 3 times in 18 months. By nearly 500 it’s awful and constant

Mainly because there are far too many appalling private landlords imo. I've encountered an awful lot of cases of landlords not carrying out essential repairs, often to the point where the properties were unsafe, sometimes to the point of being unfit for habitation; intrusive landlords who liked to let themselves in and snoop around and, in one case, gossip about tenants to their neighbours. I even had a client who was in massive energy debt, and it transpired that her electric meter was charging for the electricity to the business premises below, who were paying a high business rent because it included free electricity.

Sadly, every step to regulate the private rented sector seems to lead a lot of LLs deciding they can't be arsed, because they're only interested in making an easy profit.

There are, of course many decent LLs, but imo they should all be decent. And I concede that there is a tiny minority of tenants who are so appalling that no-one in their right mind would rent them a kennel, never mind a flat or house.

There needs to be far stricter regulation of landlords imo and there should be a licensing scheme or similar, to prevent the bad landlords from renting.

I am so grateful I can afford to own my own house now.

It was a series of bad landlords that drove me to buy. I suppose I owe them some gratitude really, or I would never have been a mortgage-free home owner.

Not all landlords are bad. We’re registered tenants - something instigated by the previous landlord - which gives us protection as a continuous tenancy. The rent can only rise by set calculations which have not been applied for around 12 years now. And the newer owner of the (country) estate would rather maintain the four households with us responsible people who cause little issue and sort their own minor repairs. There’s nothing ‘feudal’ about it either.
We pay £334 per month for a three bed house in the south of England. Two cottages that became vacant have been let at a higher but still reasonable rate.

The profit is your mortgage being paid off by someone other than yourself, how can you not see that?

Why are people so against private landlords?

For similar reasons to why they hate private schools, nice cars, designer handbags, Swiss watches.

Envy.

The UK has always been full of envious people - I recall the old saying:
in the US, someone sees another person in a Ferrari and thinks, ‘one day I will have one of those too’

In the UK, its more like ‘one day I will have him/her out of that car’.

Extremely ugly.

Disagree, the regulation on LLs is already there, they are supposed to keep the property in good repair and deal with issues promptly & not have punishment evictions for a tenant who complains.

What is missing is almost no enforcement.

Friend of mine asked about having a damp rotten carpet replaced, she was served a sect 21, she left, new tenant in, carpet not replaced, she complained about the eviction, met with indifference.

Our council has just announced that noise complaints from licensed premises before 11pm wont be considered.

How does a licensing scheme prevent a bad LL ? if anything forcing LLs out of the sector, the ones who have a decent well maintained property will be the ones selling simply because they can...leaving the bad ones....

Any licensing scheme wont be enforced either, councils simply don't have the people to do it and the costs of the scheme will just be passed on to the tenant -great!!!

This country is great at rules and regulations but has no effective enforcement for any of hem unless i can be done via a camera.

Also, a lot of 'professional landlords' appear to be exceptionally sneery and benefit bashing 'We worked to get where we are...' yet happily take housing benefits.
Ugh

As a first time buyer, pretty much every property we looked at in our price range was advertised as “ideal first time buy or investment property”. If we’re pitting the two against each other I’m siding with first time buyers who have scrimped together a deposit for a chance at home ownership over someone looking to add yet another BTL house to their portfolio in the hope of making easy money off people who can pay the mortgage off for them.

Unlike the things Tesco sell, houses aren’t being mass produced. Landlords are hoarding houses that could be owned by people who actually want to live there.

@waxymoron yep - my FILs now deceased partner was busy looking at buy to lets when she came into a bit of inheritance . Came out with the ‘I’ve worked hard’
line - she had never worked more than 8 hours a week for 40 years- no disabled family elements etc , just liked being a SAHM and housewife- even with grown up kids. I really had to bite my tongue. I’ve got no problems if people want to invest in an odd flat , but I do have a problem when they have Daily Mail/Reform type views about others that they freely express and play the ‘I’ve worked hard card’ - when they clearly haven’t

DD has been living in a house share with two others. When the time came to move out (landlord coming back to house to live), DD etc got housecleaners in. Housecleaners did a fantastic job including the oven and kitchen which had, tbf been pretty scuzzy. Cleaners were keen to show me pristine oven -I could be there while all tenants at work- so I know the oven was sparkling.

Letting agents/landlord charged them £600 for dirty oven plus a broken window catch they had already reported 4 months prior and a few other bits and bobs.

DD gets to new house. Her friend has done the original visit etc. There's a fridge freezer in the kitchen. Fridge doesn't work, freezer dodgy. When this was mentioned to letting agents, they were told the previous tenant had left the fridge freezer so not the letting agents problem. Absolute, complete rip off.

What an unpleasant view of life you have and in my experience, completely inaccurate.

But if it's a human right then the state should be providing it and putting private landlords out of business, so we should be annoyed at the state not the landlords

Because I have dodgy floorboards upstairs with gaps so big that the carpet sags into the gaps - yet my LL put the rent up and hasnt fixed it. Honestly one of these days ill end up going through the floorboard and I will sue them.

I stand by my views, premised on my life experience, which I suspect is significantly broader.

In the nicest possible way, of course.

As you will. I doubt you are correct though.

Shall we compare?

There shouldn’t be private landlords profiting from those who most likely can’t afford to own their own home. Second homes shouldn’t be allowed either.

Affordable housing is a misnomer, being the cost of producing a property combined with land value and developer profit. It can be far from affordable for many on lower wages as the land value element is highly variable depending on where that land is. There is new legislation (Nov 24) that will ensure a proportion is delivered but they’ll be the price local factors demand.
The provision of homes for people that maintain our quality of life (refuse collectors, postmen, shop workers, garage mechanic and so on) is where the real crisis is. Their lower wage is something many are unable to escape but it makes them no less important. But struggle they do.

My earlier post indicates that as a family, we’re well served and importantly able to maintain a far better quality of life by not buying what we could afford. That quality of life is, to me, almost more important that property ownership.

i meant about the attitudes of people, really.

Rented 12 years from 8 different landlords.

Every single one took our money for sub-par accomodation (low-mid market) and refused to make repairs or replace things when necessary. I'm not talking small stuff - mouse infestation (terraced housing), leaking roofs, broken windows, subsidence (we had a 2cm gap between window frame and wall, bath coming away from wall), extreme mould and cold because there was no heating (one clapped out storage heater in a whole flat FFS - we had ice on the inside of our windows).

That's why.

Wow, that’s bad luck.

Why did you rent for 12 years, please? And are you still renting?

No, postgraduate degree level socialism from a background of poverty, deprivation and shit.

Do you right wingers have anything to contribute other than dismissive control seeking and a will to force slavery? What do you make yourselves?

Seems that anyone with a spare bit of cash these days buys a house and rents it out for profit. It reduces the housing stock for sale and drives prices upwards in an already screwed housing market.

Most people look at houses and think, 'homes'. Landlords look at houses and think 'pension plan'.