Labour's Proposed Tenancy Law Reforms

[Rommell]

www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/30/ed-miliband-labour-rental-market-reforms-property

Miliband announces long-overdue reforms concerning security of tenure, agency fees and a mechanism to determine rent rises, but stops short of rent capping. Dangerously Communist or a sensible measure to protect the millions reliant on a largely unregulated private rental market?

[JessicaMary]

Yes, London is different although anywhere in the UK I would advise our children to buy as soon as they can as early as they can whatever it takes if they can manage it for all kinds of reasons.

If the state wants long term leases to be compulsory it could build (or buy properties) and offer them on that basis. Assured shortholds can be any period as far as I know, certainly up to 10 years and some landlords want that but most of them and most tenants at least in London anyway and all those without families including all those single men after divorce who probably expect to buy again or remarry again but not sure when it will happen do not really want to sign up to long deals.

i think an awful lot of people who own on this thread will also pay half their net income on mortgage - mine was costing me £90k a year interest /costs when interest rates were 6%, by the way, after divorce - not fun when you've no savings and are over drawn. There are a lot of risks with trying to secure your future sometimes. I also remember the day Black Monday when interest rates rose twice first to 8% and then to 12% and we had borrowed 5x joint salaries and selling two buy to lets at about a third of what we'd paid for them. Owning is not some easy bed of roses for the spoilt rich who always do well out of it either although on balance as I say if you can buy ideally before you have children in your 20s it tends to be a good plan.

[Solopower1]

Caitlin, I rent in Scotland. Whatever the laws, there is still no security of tenure for young families (or anyone else).

Renting is really hard in the private sector. Can you imagine being told to leave your home (two weeks before Christmas) after you had lived there for six years, after being a model tenant, after having made friends, got a job nearby, sent your child to a local school? No need for lurid horror stories - just that perfectly legal fact. That wouldn't happen with a council house.

And he was a good landlord. Apart from his habit of letting himself into the flat when I was out, that is. Totally illegal, but how could I prove it? And all that would happen would be that I would lose my hishome. Laws, no matter how good, can't protect all of us all of the time. We need a fairer system.

Renting is horrible for those reasons: lack of security, lack of privacy.

[Solopower1]

JessicaMary, my experience is completely different from yours, but London really is completely different from other parts of the UK.

What people like me need is affordable rent (my rent is half my monthly income) and security of tenure. The only organisation big enough to do this is the Council. Instead of housing associations buying up council housing, the council should be buying back some private properties and making them available again to low-paid people. They would soon see how much they would save in housing benefit and other benefits as people were able to build communities and have a stake in society rather than feeling bitter and alienated.

The housing problem is caused by too many people buying houses in order to make money from them, rather than to live in them. I'm not denying that it makes a lot of financial sense to invest in bricks and mortar - but the direct result is that others get priced out of the market. Is that fair? Well I'm not a free-market libertarian, so I don't think so. Society is not about the survival of the fittest - it's about making sure we all survive. And if that involves the government reining in those who are running away with all the cash, then that's what they should do. I wish they would.

Btw, I'm no longer bothered about owning my own home. It's too late for me and I have finally accepted that it is never going to happen. But I hate seeing young couples not having the security they need for them and their children to thrive.

[Rommell]

whereas your average landlord will pop round the the flat with a plunger a lot quicker.

And yet there are one million substandard private rental properties in the UK. Maybe they need more than a plunger at their disposal.

I have talked about my personal experience of being a landlord

Data is not the plural of anecdota.

and given hard facts about the systems and structures of how the system applies in other parts of the UK.

You have also said that you 'don't believe' the system in Scotland is not replicated in England. But it isn't.

I then moved the debate to the interesting trend abroad of institutional investors investing in longer term leases to families who are tenants in countries where people are happy to rent. I think that's worth debating.

Actually, it was me who brought that up. Yes, you're welcome. I do think it is worth debating - I would much rather see proper professional landlords than lawyers who want their tenants to 'love' them. Although the key thing is security of tenure - all of the regulation in the world, all of the moves to go away from this desperately parochial notion that anyone can set themselves up in the business of providing housing which has proved itself to be lacking, all of that doesn't count for anything if tenants can be evicted at any time for no reason. That is why Labour's proposed reforms stand a chance of changing things for the millions of households who are at the mercy of shysters.

[JessicaMary]

I suspect anyone reading the thread will see it was the other way round - it was suggested landlords have loads of properties. I said about 80% rent out only one. I proved that with statistics. I was right.

I then moved the debate to the interesting trend abroad of institutional investors investing in longer term leases to families who are tenants in countries where people are happy to rent. I think that's worth debating. I said the UK system with landlords having one tenant might be flexible. It is quite hard to get an answer from an institutional landlord or the council whereas your average landlord will pop round the the flat with a plunger a lot quicker. We might find the UK is better off for its private landlords than having the state or pension funds as landlords but I am certainly happy in a free market for all 3 examples of landlords to be free to market whatever the tenants want and the tenants can choose.

I don't think Labour's plans will change things too much so I don't particularly object to them. The landlord can have the flat back if they want to move into it even if the 3 years is not up, secondly the rent can go up once a year which is the only period I have ever seen in most leases now anyway and increases with RPI is absolutely fine - indeed many landlords keep rents the same as the year before if they have good tenants to ensure they don't loose a month's rent and £2k agent fee.

[Caitlin17]

Your statements about lawyers are not facts. They are wild,sweeping generalisations. Do you think they add anything to the strength of your case and the presentation of a rational, reasoned argument which might persuade any one?

I have talked about my personal experience of being a landlord and given hard facts about the systems and structures of how the system applies in other parts of the UK.

[Rommell]

as flexible as the typical UK landlord who has one property

I guess you have evidence of how 'flexible' 'the typical UK landlord' is. And no, a paragraph about how wonderful your daughter is and how much she is revered by her tenants who keep shrines to her in their rooms won't cut it, sorry.

Christ, mumsnet really fucks me off sometimes. You try to introduce facts into a debate and they are met with a chorus of 'I am a landlord and I am wonderful so you are being offensive' and 'I don't believe that such things happens because I never heard about them prior to this thread because I am a fucking moron who never thinks to look outside my own personal situation and therefore nothing else matters' and 'You are wrong because I personally have three legs and two properties and they are all really nice'. Ffs.

[Rommell]

It has given us more rented property and to a better standard than every in this nation's history actually.

All property is of a higher standard now re heating etc. That has nothing to do with ASTs. And there are a million substandard properties in the private sector. A million. That is not a negligible amount.

wild, sweeping and defamatory statements lacks credibility.

I don't see where I have said anything 'wild'. As for 'sweeping', yes, unlike you I haven't talked about myself endlessly on this thread but have talked about general trends, none of which are inaccurate. And who in the name of actual fuck have I defamed? You want to look over your old law school notes, mate.

Iseenyou agree with you. The amount of properties has increased slightly, but nowhere near enough to keep up with demand. The amount of rental properties has increased, but at the expense of owner-occupied properties. Not exactly a great advert for the UK, especially given how few rights tenants have.

[JessicaMary]

In the old days you only retned if you were mad as the tenats were there for life on fixed rents - some still have those old rent act tenancies. I know a man who rents a flat for something silly like £10 a month and been in there for decades on a fixed rent by Bond St tube station and another man who has a large country house, has horses etc and lives in a 4 story Kensington rented house he's has a rent act tenancy from decades ago. He is over 70 but he still may be in there for 20 more years.

I just remember looking to rent in London in 1983. There was very little to find. I ended up with one room - a bed sit with a hob. There was a shower for every other floor and loo outside the bit I rented. I would have thought assured shortholds came in just before or just after that and they freed up the letting market. Suddenly you could let and get your tenants out and if inflation and costs went up 20% in a year as they did in the 70s you could put rents up to reflect costs (wages were going up like that too in synch - difficult days). In those days more people had to live with parents forever. Council house waiting lists were then and now as long as your arm. I don't think it was a better system.

I would not be against what some UK institutional investors, pension funds etc are looking at in Latvia and places like that where they buy huge blocks of flats all let out for longish periods with guaranteed rises in rents. We could build a lot of those. I am not sure those institutional landlords are necessarily going to be better and as flexible as the typical UK landlord who has one property but it would be an additional option.

I would like a rule change so that if the local council will not release empty property to purchase you could apply for it. I applied to a London council to buy a toilet which has been unused for 10 years to convert into a property and they didn't agree. There must be loads of site like that all over London people could build in and create more homes for themselves or others if we could free up the law to let it happen.

[Caitlin17]

Rommell I actually meant credibility with anyone, not just me. Any one trying to debate a point using wild, sweeping and defamatory statements lacks credibility.

[JessicaMary]

It has given us more rented property and to a better standard than every in this nation's history actually. The private letting sector is a tremendous triumph over how housing used to be.

There are few sectors more littered with regulation. To suggest it is unregulated is just untrue. There have been very strict laws about getting tenants out - you have to go to court at huge expenses even if they are not paying a penny. It costs you thousands and takes at least 3 months. You have to have the gas and other certificates. It's so regulated, very very much so. You have to have the right form of contract to form an assured shorthold.

[Rommell]

These are not wicked people seeking to exploit hapless tenants.

Nobody has said that. All that I have said is that leaving the provision of housing to a largely unregulated private sector has given us a whole raft of social and economic problems to deal with, so it clearly isn't working.

[Rommell]

Caitlin17, I hardly think that the view that lawyers are good at fucking people over is a minority one, and I'm not after credibility from you - for me to want that, I'd have to respect you first.

And you have no idea what I do either in my paid or voluntary work so I don't take kindly to the likes of you telling me what I should or shouldn't be doing about any issue.

[JessicaMary]

I can understand the socialist principle that others having more than other people is objectionable. I don't have a problem with people holding those views. They are utterly wrong but they can hold them.

i say hats off to these young professionals in London who put their all into buying a first property whether they can live into it or not whilst their peers might be shooting cocaine, spending all their money on going out and the like.

I remember the days of the Rents Acts. I remember there being no property to rent in the UK (and yes every 40 years ago it was virtually impossible to get a council house too). The assured shorthold whilst couple with the rules which say even the non paying tenant cannot be removed without a court order has meant there are properties to rent. I don't think Labour's plans will have much of an impact as the landlord can get the property back if he or she wants to live in it.


As a free market libertarian I am never going to agree with the views of the left that the state does things better than the private sector. Plenty of mumsnetters are landlords and do a great job.

Most landlords have one property to rent. i would imagine most own their own house n a mortgage and have a mortgage for a buy to let too (and some just have the one property). All the surveys show that. These are not wicked people seeking to exploit hapless tenants. I would say my lawyer daughter and her doctors tenants are on a par. I was a good landlord in my day too. If you are bright by the way you tend to be good at things and organisation of things. As we are all feminist in this family we have extremely good DIY skills and have contacts with relevant professionals when more substantial works are needed. My daughter had a £2000 new boiler put in the flat last year for example.

Anyway Labour has made proposals which will make very little difference and I have nothing too much against those proposals.

[Caitlin17]

Rommell I'm a lawyer so you'll say I can't be objective but you do your case no good whatsoever by making more sweeping generalisations like "lawyers are pretty adept at screwing people as a rule". Whatever points might have been valid lose credibility.

I personally take my responsibility as a landlord seriously not just because it is the right thing to do as a landlord but as a lawyer I bloody well have to abide by the law and not abiding by it will have serious consequences far beyond a couple of months' rent.

Why don't you direct some of your strength of passion towards campaigning for the type of regulation the Scottish system has to be put in place in England? Agents' fees and credit check fees for example- both illegal. End of tenancy check out fees? Also illegal.Enforcement of repairs- the PRHP enforce. And a house cannot be re-let with an outstanding PRHP Order.
Not placing a deposit in a deposit scheme? Courts can and do order full repayment and payment of 3 times the initial deposit to the tenant in compensation (although that latter one probably is not ECHR compliant)

[Caitlin17]

Rommell I'm a lawyer so you'll say I can't be objective but you do your case no good whatsoever by making more sweeping generalisations like "lawyers are pretty adept at screwing people as a rule". Whatever points might have been valid lose credibility.

I personally take my responsibility as a landlord seriously not just because it is the right thing to do as a landlord but as a lawyer I bloody well have to abide by the law and not abiding by it will have serious consequences far beyond a couple of months' rent.

Why don't you direct some of your strength of passion towards campaigning for the type of regulation the Scottish system has to be put in place in England? Agents' fees and credit check fees for example- both illegal. End of tenancy check out fees? Also illegal.Enforcement of repairs- the PRHP enforce. And a house cannot be re-let with an outstanding PRHP Order.
Not placing a deposit in a deposit scheme? Courts can and do order full repayment and payment of 3 times the initial deposit to the tenant in compensation (although that latter one probably is not ECHR compliant)

[Rommell]

Caitlin17 yes I would like to see more houses owned by Councils. We have tried going down the route of the private market and that has been found wanting - as I said, £9.3 billion a year going to them and rising, 1 million substandard properties, homelessness and semi-homelessness (families housed in B&Bs) on a massive scale - it just isn't working.

There will always be space for the private sector to provide some of the housing, but I would much rather that we went the way of eg Germany and much of the rest of the Continent where big institutional investors are landlords - perhaps that way we won't be in the situation where small-time amateurs take it as a personal affront when a tenant goes into arrears/spills a coffee on the carpet or where big-time amateurs conduct campaigns against their tenants for daring to ask to live in habitable conditions.

As for the lawyer upthread, I just don't get why the poster referenced that her daughter was one. It has nothing to do with her fitness as a landlord, other than that lawyers are pretty adept at screwing people as a rule. Just another example of small-time big-talk, along with the statement that her tenants 'love' her. I mean, really?

[Caitlin17]

Sorry , phone playing up. I'm not trying to get at you with multiple posts.

[Caitlin17]

sorry about the multiple post phone is playing up.

[Caitlin17]

Rommel what is your point about a lawyer being unable to fix a bolier? Why on earth should she be able to? You say she she will has to get other people to do that for her-and so what? Or is employing a plumber also unethical?

[Caitlin17]

Well Rommell you object to those landlords who own multiple properties and you object to those who own a few. What is your solution? Compulsory acquisitions by Councils?

Your comment about a lawyer not being able to fix a boiler is ridiculous. Of course she wouldn't fix these herself. There are wonderful people called tradesmen who do that. Except of course you don't believe landlords do repairs. Although reading your post you seem to be crticising her for the fact she will have to employ someone else. Is hiring a plumber also unethical?

[Viviennemary]

I'm not sure I agree with these proposals. After all if there is a shortage of housing this won't help the shortage. And landlords might be more reluctant to rent out property. But I agree with no fees for tenants. But Milliband is always full of ideas. He won't get in so can't see why anybody is even listening to what he says. I wish they'd get somebody else.

[Rommell]

And I don't see what being a lawyer has to do with anything. Did she learn how to fit a bathroom at law school? Or mend a roof? Or fix a boiler? She clearly didn't learn how to pay her own mortgage off - she has to get other people to work and do it for her.

[Rommell]

So we really do just have, nationally, a bunch of hobbyists providing a basic human need with little or no regulation? No wonder things are so fucked up.

JessicaMary, there is already a landlord's charter now. Landlords can give notice for no reason at all which has a lot to do with what scant rights tenants do have being so difficult to enforce - see for eg the post from a pp upthread about retaliatory evictions - at least under Labour's proposals this will be limited.