New renter rights act is a bloody good thing!

[Pineapplewhip]

Naturally landlords have some justifiable concerns/questions but those that are up in arms about the whole thing are completely bloody immoral. The slum landlords have spoilt it for the good ones and the decent landlords should blame them and not the government for protecting people.

If you arent aware of the actual points of the bill - I've listed them below. I cant see how any reasonable person can disagree that it's just enforcing the most basic human decency and regulation.

• End to no fault evictions: landlords can only evict renters if they want to sell, move in themselves, move their family into the property or there are serious rent arrears. They have to prove they are selling too - they cant just say they are!

• Rent can only rise once a year, any rise above market rate can be disputed fairly and 2 months notice is given.

• Landlords can't refuse you for having children or being on benefits (if you prove that benefits/finances make the property affordable). This isnt about being on full benefits either. Many single parents need benefits to top up income.

• Landlord ombudsman - tennants can raise fair disputes and repair issues for free online and landlords cannot just ignore it/grey rock. Repeat offenders will be visable in the database. Landlords legally must act on the complaints.

• Faster action must be taken on damp and mould. Basic human rights! No more shitty emails from a middle man letting agent just blaming the tennant for not opening a window - when actually (for example) a house needs its brickwork repointing.

The only legitimate thing I have empathy for is the concern that it will be more of a process to evict non paying tennants as it will need to go through a court. However - this is why landlord insurance exists!!

Please ask yourself - if your child was renting - wouldn't you want them protected like this?

Karma would be if you found yourself in a situation where you had to rent out your newly acquired flat.

A fan?

You mean an extract?
These are normally connected to the light so they go on automatically, did you not have that?

Bizarre and I live in a victorian house.

No SANE landlord will wake up and say "let me evict this GOOD tenant" NEVER! I've had tenants for up to 10 years and did not increase the rent for once! So abolishing Section 21 is just another way for this clueless government to make tenants think they are doing something positive! Tenants have automatically gone on to rolling contracts anyway!!!

No I wouldn’t do that. I’m buying it as my home, not as an opportunity to scalp tenants. I’ve seen enough of that during my time renting and I’m not using tenants to pay my mortgage thanks.

Absolutely! Referencing has to be "IRON CLAD", not taking any chances! And guess who pays for ALL this???

A job loss, having to look after a sick relative, having to relocate and being unable to sell the flat would do it. Spite legislation and taxing has a habit of back firing on those who push it. Theres nothing about renting out a property that deserves karmatic punishment, this is just childish envy and no way to behave.

@GoldebWeasel ”Spite legislation and taxing has a habit of back firing on those who push it. Theres nothing about renting out a property that deserves karmatic punishment, this is just childish envy and no way to behave.”

It’s not out of spite and envy. It’s updating the law as the number of people who are tenants has grown substantially.
The tax laws, that were introduced at a snails pace, by a Tory government, are absolutely fair.

Really? Ok, but let’s be honest.,,nobody is buying that. The pp even described it as karma. Everyone knows what it’s about, the same as the farmer tax, education tax, employer tax, ending salary sacrifice and stealth income taxes. The consequences are on those who pushed for these things.

There’s absolutely nothing fair about taxing costs.

As you pointed out landlords should've be discriminating those claiming benefit top ups to pay rent.
Issues occur when these top ups are not used to pay rent.
As you also said landlords should have insurance, sadly many insurers will not recover tenants claiming benefits, also some BTL mortgages have terms preventing letting to benefit recipients.

The government need to look at these areas

The point I'm making is that this isn't a new thing...so no reason for rents to increase for this reason as a result of the RRA. Landlords should always have had rent guarantee insurance.

But what about airbnbs? They’ve taken over whole towns.

Landlord insurance is useless - the tenant has to be months in arrears and a section 8 served before any action and there’s usually a 90 day exclusion.
Im a landlord and it doesn’t really affect me if my tenant is good. However my last tenant was tricky. She had constant issues that had nothing to do with me, but she would use them to not pay rent. For example she (admittedly) left a window open and a cat or a fox got in and made a bit of a mess. She claimed I must have insurance to deal with this and she didn’t feel ‘safe’ living there so didn’t pay her rent for a month as she went to stay with family. Then she was burgled - again not my fault as locks were working but again she stopped paying her rent. The agent got her to pay up in the end but this wreaked havoc with my own financial responsibilities. In the end when her lease was up I decided not to renew - but I wouldn’t have the option now and would have to wait three months to serve notice, then they have four weeks, only then can I apply for a court order which should take 8 weeks but in reality can take much much longer, the tenants get double the amount of time now and all evictions must go through the courts. I also had a tenant who paid his first months rent and then stopped - so the 90 exclusion means the insurance was void. I also got constant nuisance reports. As he breached the terms of the lease I could still evict him but it would take at least twice as long.
For a good tenant who pays on time and respects the property then there should be no issues. The majority of landlords want to keep good tenants and are prompt on repairs. But those than aren’t? It’s made it much harder to get them out. This is why so many landlords are selling up.

They’re called extractor fans, you’re both right!

I'm not angry at all, but there are kinder spirited things you could have done with the house other than make money from it.

This is getting really boring. Stop pretending to not understand. The extract fan was independent to the light switch. They never used it. Their words. Why can’t you just accept a lot of tenants are compelled to damage property and blame anyone but themselves.

Not at all. Many many hobby landlords, mine included, deliberately bought their BTLs as an investment for the tenants to pay off their mortgages.

Those accidental landlords that you mention are in a minority, but even if you are in that lucky position why not just sell the superfluous property to make it available to others in times of acute shortages, rather than renting it out for your own profit? (And claims of providing a social benefit do not wash btw - landlords are in it for their own profit. Just look at all the evictions ahead of improved tenant’s rights)

I agree it’s going to take longer to get a tenant out in some cases now but that’s mainly down to court backlogs rather than the legal mechanism itself. For breaches like rent arrears or tenancy issues, Section 8 has always been the correct route. Section 21 was often used instead of that, which is why the Renters Reform changes are removing it, but the enforcement route for genuine breaches is still there.

I’m not sure what a better middle ground would have been, other than improving court capacity and enforcement timelines alongside the changes.

I don't rent my old house out anymore thankfully, but at every inspection we saw they had caused more and more damage to the property. But they paid their rent, so I would never have been able to evict them unless I actually sold up? That is ridiculous. When they eventually moved we had over 20k of repairs to do.

In my area I am already seeing so many landlords selling up there is nowhere to rent. There is literally one 3-bed property to rent on Rightmove in my entire city. What are people supposed to do who can't buy? There's certainly no housing association places available.

We rented out a house.

The tenants were terrible. The reason we let was because we were in between deciding where to live permanently. We were completely honest that it would be a one year contact at a time.

The house was immaculate, fully refurbished and spotlessly clean, garden landscaped. We let through an agent thinking that this would be better all round.

We specified no pets/no smoking/no redecorating other than touching up paint which we provided.

All fine for a while until the tenants started making complaints. They said that their child had a dust allergy and that we needed to change the carpets for wooden floors. We refused as the carpets were brand new and only in lounge and bedrooms.

They stared complaining of damp and mould. We’d lived in the house for years and never had any damp or mould. We went to check and it was quite clearly mould from drying washing, no windows open, no heating on. So we bought them a dehumidifier.

Then we found out they had a dog and cat. Even though it was no pets.

They’d put wallpaper up and painted walls different colours. They weren’t supposed to completely redecorate it was in the contract. The house was absolutely filthy but it was never picked up by the estate agent.

The estate agent always took their side even though they broke their contract.

In the end we gave them notice. When they left the house was absolutely disgusting. They hadn’t vacuumed in the two years they’d been there. Every door, wall and surface was thick with grime. They’d obviously had pets and been smoking (all out of the contract), the carpets which had been brand new were completely trashed with huge stains all over it looked like they’d been having food and red wine fights. Their children had drawn all over the walls.

The bathroom like like it had never so much as had a wipe over.

Tye estate agent didn’t want to know and said we had zero chance of keeping the deposit as it was all wear and tear.

Luckily it went to an independent to decide and we showed evidence before and after and an inspector went in. The tenants didn’t get a penny of their deposit back we got it all for cleaning and redecorating.

That was my experience. There should be enough social housing for those that need it.

Private renting isn’t a suitable option for families that need a long term home.

Happy Renters Rights Act Day.

Sent notice on my damp flat a leaking roof with an awful landlord/letting agent.

Two months and I'm out.

Of course you could evict them, damaging your property would be a breach of tenancy and could evict under section 8. Why did you continue to rent to them if they were damaging the property?

Having pets and redecorating were both breaches of your contract and you could have served a S8. You don't need the letting agents permission for that.

Unfortunately for lots of people renting privately is the only option - I don't know anyone that would choose it if there was an alternative.

I’m only sharing my experience.

We could have started eviction proceedings however the estate agents were supposed to do regular inspections. They did but they never reported any of these things.

It was only when dh went round that we knew what was going on.

I’m purely sharing my experience.

If it was up to me there’d be enough social
housing for those who need it.

I agree with most of the new rules OP but I don't think anyone "needs" a pet, and landlords couldn't refuse guide dogs anyway.

I don't have a problem with landlords anyway - we need rental properties.

What I do have a problem with is holiday homes that could be used for residential, and second homes that should be used all the time and not just for three weekends a year.

No I get that it's only your experience but when you said "the estate agent always took their side even though they broke their contract" - it makes it sound like you were aware those breaches were occurring.