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?

And landlords can rent to whomever they want. They don’t have to give a reason.
Benefits claimants can still be discriminated against.

Thank goodness

If you think that through more carefully - there would be a rush to offload properties, followed by decreased rental inventory and higher rental prices.
More pressure on social housing, more people putting up with substandard properties as it was all they could get, more people living with parents until they buy as they can’t afford to rent.

That sounds absolutely awful. I am a renter and can't imagine the gall it would take to behave this way in someone else's property. But didn't you vet the people renting? Did you meet them, get references, etc? Obviously that is not foolproof and you can never really tell how people will be.

You do realise your anecdotal experience isn't evidence of situation at large?

Just to say you can do this but it’s a nightmare. It has taken me 18 months to evict a tenant who stopped paying rent Nov 24 and we subsequently found that he had sublet against the tenancy agreement and without my knowledge. They were still paying him rent which wasn’t then being paid to me.

During routine inspections he was asking them to leave the house and being there so there were no suspicions. They have subsequently denied access so I have no idea wheat state the property is in and it hasn’t had essential checks. The bailiffs will finally attend next week. I will likely never see the £10,000 or thereabouts that I’m owed.

Meanwhile, if it had been another few weeks until bailiffs, I would have had to ensure I had proof that the tenant (who is uncontactable, not in the house and not paying rent) had access to the new information booklet or I would have a huge fine. I’ve also had to deal with the council as the people subletting told the council that I was liable for the council tax and their arrears while they were still in the property despite my possession order.

I’ve rented and agree there should be tenant protections but it feels that there are not equivalent landlord protections.

She is right though.

It has led to.lots of properties coming off the rental market so it's not a good thing, we need more not less. I have been a landlord was a very good one with a few long term tenants ... the last one being a nightmare.

I was surprised at how much of the rental market is provided by landlords with only one property - it's nearly half - and these are the people most likely to give up and sell up.

Obviously this will make more property available to buy, which will be good for some, but many people who can't get a mortgage and need to rent may well find things a lot harder and more expensive.

Time will tell.

About she hasn't issued a section 21? or evicted good tenants? Yeah I'll believe her. But Landlords (and tenants) aren't a monolith.

I just don't agree with this. If you're renting, it isn't your home. It's somewhere you're borrowing to live for a while. I think it's wild that landlords have to jump through hoops to get back their own property.

the accidental LL thing flumoxes me as well. Yeah, okay, you inherited a property or moved in with someone or whatever rather than deliberately buying a BTL - but you didn't advertise it, sign contracts and provide keys 'by mistake.'

There was always the option to sell the property or keep it empty rather than renting it out. The moment you decided to do the later you are a deliberate landlord. Even if you tried selling with no luck, you could have reduced the price until it did.

Even people who, in the rare circumstance of inheriting a property with sitting tenants still make the decision to keep them on rather than giving them notice and then selling up.

I get the instinct behind that, but it doesn’t really hold up once you look at how renting actually works in practice.

If someone is paying to live somewhere, often for years, it is their home in any meaningful sense. It is where they sleep, keep their belongings, build routines, and sometimes raise families. The law reflects that reality. Housing is not treated like lending someone a tool. It is about stability and basic living conditions.

Repeat offenders will be visible in the database

Maybe there should also be a database of cheating, lying, stealing tenants, those who have no intention of paying, know their 'rights' and will stay in the property for months/years knowing that the eviction process is totally on their side.
If those who don't pay their rent for two months then automatic eviction should be possible, maybe then landlords can make improvements etc without have to subsidise the dregs.
I'm not a landlord!

There still seems to be quite a bit of wriggle room there though.

So landlords can still boot people out who have made the house their home, to move 'family' in? THAT shouldn't be allowed. Someone had a thread on here last week who was kicking out a family who had been in the house for 7 years so the niece could move in for 2 years while she was at University. That was immoral IMO.

Also, how can they prove they are definitely going to sell the house, and are not 'just pretending?' Anyone can put the house on the market, and then kick out the tenants, and then just take it off the market again!

Of course it should be allowed, don't be silly.

Re. your point 2, a lot of the demand for housing comes from divorce, not immigration.
If a couple divorce, they now need two homes instead of one.
Plus older people living longer, so the grandparents' great-grandparents' home is out of the market for an extra decade or two. Previously the young adults would have bought homes vacated due to families moving up the ladder, but the top of the ladder (the older generation's homes) is stuck.

Please don't falsely link housing to immigration.

It does looks like some smaller landlords have got out if renting before it comes in - which will reduce stock and push prices up. Some will be sold , others left empty and other may if in tourist location opt for airbnb rentals.

I spent a decade renting - rented from a woman who had moved in with boyfriend and was keeping property just in case - worked with someone with nightmare tennat who done similar - and a house rented out to cover care home fees. Also rented from people living abroad for a bit. I personally found proefessional landlords with several properties better to deal with - and rented from several from that backgound as well.

However how much rental stock gone down is unclear.

I've read they want big companies to come into rental sector - maybe pension funds. The student rental sectors changed many students instead of being in substandard private renatals are now in private student halls - maybe they're hoping for a similar change.

Upshot is we need more housing.

When I was a landlord (by choice), I lived opposite the house that was rented and made sure I was super responsive to any issues. I had some lovely tenants, just a couple of bad eggs, but it all worked out and some stayed for a long time. I sold up when I moved abroad, offering first dibs to the then current tenants but they were from abroad and were also moving so it sold to others without issue.

My BTL mortgage actually stated I couldn't rent to those on benefits when I checked when someone applied who was on benefits, so I had to say no. Will be interesting to see how the mortgage market responds as it (then) appeared to be uncommon to allow this. No idea why as I would have thought any renter could default at any time whether on benefits or not.

Won’t “accidental” landlords just use eg Airbnb instead which gives less rights to tenants and gives commission over the a US based tech company/shareholders instead?

I think some landlords may be more likely to enter into those long term contracts with a council to house benefit tenants and I reckon the primary reason for this legislation is that. Successive Governments sold off too much of the social housing stock which was meant for difficult tenants (which is not appropriate from a risk perspective to impose on the private rental market or private banks).

If the Government cannot get housebuilders to build enough and economically so, then it follows that it is too expensive to purchase to let out too? And there is a fundamental structural problem here.

And in the real world, if we all just have to live together more again and with less space and in less nuclear families, then we just have to do it.

And this attitude is exactly why the RRA was needed.

The likes of BlackRock are heavily investing in residential development (co-living etc). I think the days of small landlords renting single family homes or a flat are over. This could be good in terms of institutional investors having to keep up standards but bad in terms of long term affordability.

Yes, I know a few people who used to have just one property. All of them have sold up. It just wasnt worth it. One trick is that a potential tenant will offer 6 months or even 1 year up front and then become a tenant who never replies to anything. They then stop paying rent..

We were caught with a chap who lived overseas and wanted a place for 1 year as he had a fixed term job. None of this was true. He paid 6 months in advance and left 18 months later with the flat being completely wrecked. One letting agen told me a guarnator for the rent isnt worth the paper its written on and they dont do them anymore.

You're not borrowing it. You're paying rent. Borrowing suggests it's being done as a favour

Whether you rent or own, where you live is your home.

Or do what Green Party wants and have the 'state' running the rentals. After all - what could possibly go wrong??