My brother got caught like this.
The woman who owned his flat (he was the tenant, almost 10 years) only owned a semi down the road that she lived in and she bought her rental flat when a family member died. She was a good landlord, the rent increased, but not too quickly. She has sold up in terror of all the regulations/taxes/pitfalls. It was very stressful for my brother.
The worst landlords are those who own shit loads of properties. They spend £0 on them, meet the letter of the law as barely as they can get away with and make tenants' lives miserable. Whatever laws come in, these bastards know how to carry on, not falling foul of them.
It is utterly idiotic of the govt. to do anything that kills off good, small (and often accidental) landlords. But in the lead up to the last general election, people were slagging off landlords all the time. People who owned a second property for whatever reason were considered the scum of the earth. There were calls for the landlords to be responsible for council tax, even when there were tenants living there. It's no wonder my DB's landlord sold up. It was only a cheap flat, £160k - it was making good money for her and it was a good home for DB.
Other relative had bought a house but due to job issue, couldn't move in for 6 months. Wanted to rent it out for 4/5 months, decided (on solicitor advice) not to because the tenants would have so many rights and there was no guarantee he would be able to take possession back.
We are fucking ourselves over. My DS is a student and most of the properties that he and friends viewed for rent were beyond atrocious. They had probably been furnished by landlords just getting free furniture off the street when people leave it out, they were visibly mouldy, shoving 4 students into a space which would be suitable for 2 people etc. The massive landlords who own them are in cahoots with the slimy letting agents - lining each other's pockets and fucking students over with shit and broken stuff.