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?

[MinesAPintOfTea]

Caitlin there really isn't an English equivalent of these laws. The laws controlling letting were dramatically reduced during the Thatcher era and haven't been replaced. The only real one is the deposit scheme, but even then its reasonably common for LLs to ignore it.

[ReallyTired]

If a landlord cannot put up rent then he/she has no moviation to do more than the bare minimum in maintaince. Rental properties will simply become slums.

I am putting in new double glazing into a property. I know it will increase the value of the property both as a rental and long term. I don't legally have to as having single glazing is not putting the tenant's life at risk.

[Rommell]

ReallyTired I feel sorry that you see criticism of the way things are at the moment as a personal attack on you, because it isn't. And it also isn't about 'making life hell' for landlords to propose changes that would benefit the economy. Not all landlords are evil, not all of them are out to screw everyone. But private sector landlords, as a group, are not beneficial to the UK with the way things are right now. There are around a million substandard private sector rental homes in this country - and that is only the ones we know about. This is despite landlords being able to raise rents as they want. We, as a country, are handing over £9.3 billion in public funds to landlords who cannot even maintain their properties to frankly barely minimum standard. This would suggest to me that the current situation is not working. Whether or not you as an individual would raise rents, and whether or not Caitlin as an individual would let out at all is immaterial - we have to look at trends and common behaviours, and the situation we have, now, is deeply unsatisfactory.

[Rommell]

And btw when I say we only 'know about' the million substandard homes, that is only the cases where tenants have applied to council waiting lists and their homes have been deemed unsatisfactory for habitation. Ie things have to be pretty bloody bad for the homes to be classed as 'substandard'. Landlords have had money chucked at them left right and centre and yet private sector rentals are in a terrible condition. What we are doing now isn't working. There needs to be a big shake-up.

[EBearhug]

Most tenants are happy with assured tenancies.

Most tenants don't get much choice about it.

[specialsubject]

private sector rentals are in a terrible condition.

yes, all of them are dumps. There are no decent habitable rental houses in this country at all. All landlords are rich, entitled crooks.

see how stupid generalisations are?

anyway, Milliband can't/won't keep this promise any more than the one about energy bills.

[specialsubject]

landlords can set as high a rent as they like. They won't get any money of course because most people will not pay over the odds. Same as what happens if you try to sell a house at too high a price - it doesn't sell.

except in London of course, where everybody has to live.

[Rommell]

Do you have anything constructive to add? Because that would be nice.

[ReallyTired]

" But private sector landlords, as a group, are not beneficial to the UK with the way things are right now. There are around a million substandard private sector rental homes in this country - and that is only the ones we know about. This is despite landlords being able to raise rents as they want."

How do you know?

Depends who the landlord is aiming to market their property to. If you want to market your property to someone in professional job then you can't get away with doing no maintaince.

Unfortunately people who are on housing benefit or a low income struggle to find a landlord prepared to rent to them. The few landlords who are prepared to rent to people on housing benefit charge over the odds for a shithole.

I think we need to look at finding ways of reducing the risk of renting to those on housing benefit. At the moment many buy to let mortgages/ insurance products forbid landlords from renting to those on housing benefit. If there was a greater supply of rental properties to those on housing benefit then market forces would make it essential for landlords to look after their properties.

I suggest allowing councils to become letting agents. The council could let a property from a landlord for 3 years and then sublet to a council tenant. The landlord would be paid a set rent for the three years irrespective of whether the tenant paid their rent. Many landlords would prefer guarenteed rent at a lower rent for the three years than the insecurity of void periods or difficult tenants. If councils provided a fully managed service at no cost to the landlord then it would be possible to pass on savings to the tenant. Councils could use their buying power to provide the landlord with insurance against the property being trashed at a local rate than an individual landlord would pay.

[Rommell]

Or we could just build more council houses, which in my view is what is needed.

As for how I know that private sector landlords as a group are not beneficial to society, I am basing the view on the £9.3 billion a year they take in public funds together with the fact that the UK has at least 1 million properties that are substandard to the extent that local authorities are required to rehouse the tenants in them. There is something really quite wrong with that.

[ReallyTired]

"Or we could just build more council houses, which in my view is what is needed."

Where? Even if there is the budget for more council/ housing association houses to be built there is a lack of sites/ land in many major cities.

We have no space left to build council houses in the most desirable parts of the country. Yet in these really densely populated areas we have rental properties sitting empty waiting for the perfect tenant to pay the over inflated price.

" I am basing the view on the £9.3 billion a year they take in public funds together with the fact that the UK has at least 1 million properties that are substandard to the extent that local authorities are required to rehouse the tenants in them."

I don't understand your data. What are your sources? My tenants don't qualify for housing benefit and would never get a council property even if they applied as their income is too high. The majority of private landlords refuse to take people on housing benefit. Most people in the private rental sector pay their own rent and aren't dependent on public funds.

[Rommell]

Like I said, I can't find the govt statistics about the amount of LHA that goes to private landlords - I looked it up for work one time, used it a couple of times and then forgot to save it, but that was the figure from the govt itself (it had all groovy graphs and figures and all that jazz). It is quoted in lots of articles and opinion pieces, a couple of which I have linked to on this thread, so it's not just me and the organisation I work for saying it. There are millions of households in the private sector who are reliant on housing benefit to a greater or lesser degree because the cost of renting far outstrips wages for a lot of people. The 1 million figure for substandard properties is widely accepted after a study done earlier this year.

There is plenty of space to build new council houses - isn't it the case that only 8% of the country is actually built on?

And council houses are not allocated on the basis of income but, because they are so scarce now, on the basis of housing need ie overcrowding, problems with current property etc.

[Rommell]

And in fact council houses were never allocated on the basis of income. I was born into and lived in a council house and on the estate I lived on there were lots of people with varying incomes. It has never been a deciding factor in allocating housing.

[ReallyTired]

"There is plenty of space to build new council houses - isn't it the case that only 8% of the country is actually built on? "

However most people want to live in places near to where they work. This why there is a such a variation in house prices both for buying and renting.

There I have found a 3 bed terraced house in Gwent for 35K

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40574243.html

Or if you want to stay in England you can move to Hull for 35K.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-29760657.html

However nice it might be to live in south wales or Hull, it is harder to find employment. Most people who apply for council houses want them in places where everyone else wants to live.

[Rommell]

I think that, given that such a small proportion of the country is built on at all, there are many more options for council house building other than Gwent or Hull.

[ReallyTired]

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2013/oct/25/green-belt-london-boris-johnson

This article advocates building on the london green belt. However I feel that London needs access to countryside for relaxation and to allow wildlife to thrive. We need farm land to produce our food. Why does everyone have to live in London?

I feel we need to be more imaginative and get people to settle in cities other than London. We need better links to other parts of the country and to create employment in areas like south wales or Hull. Personally I feel that there are some beautiful parts of South Wales. I wouldn't particularly fancy Hull, but I am sure that with substantial investment Hull could be improved.

At the moment London and the rest of the UK are like seperate nations. This is not good long term for the UK. Even without considering housing issues we need to encourage wealth creation in the entire UK.

[Rommell]

Absolutely agree about building up the regions, although there is quite a lot that has been done already - Manchester is transformed, for example, and Birmingham also. Even Leeds has a pretty smart centre these days, and there are lots of big firms there. Newcastle ditto. I worry about London. There seems to be a massive gulf in terms of housing, largely because of overseas investors parking their millions in properties and not even renting them out - they just wait for the price to go up and sell up. That isn't investment, in any sense of the word, and it makes life very much more difficult for ordinary workers due to property ownership becoming a distant dream while all the time politicians talk about how great the market is and how 'buoyant' things are - but these owners are not contributing to the economy at all (they don't even pay council tax ffs) - they are just taking from it.

[ReallyTired]

"I worry about London. There seems to be a massive gulf in terms of housing, largely because of overseas investors parking their millions in properties and not even renting them out - they just wait for the price to go up and sell up."

That is a massive issue. There is nothing worse than a property being left empty when there is homeless people on the street. I suppose that these overseas investors don't want the hassle and risk of renting out their propertires.

Prehaps we need to think of ways of actively discouraging people from having properties with long void periods. Maybe should get rid of the council tax discount for having an empty property or even charge extra council tax. Prehaps after two years, a property should be taken over by the local council on a 3 year lease.

Rommell I think we are mostly in agreement. However the rental sector varies across the country. In the regions its much easier to get social housing. I also believe that there are fewer bad landlords in areas with lower property prices as economics mean that bad/ greedy landlord get void periods.

[Rommell]

Yes, I think it is obscene that there are people living on the streets, that there are families living in B&B accommodation (which costs the tax-payer £££ not to mention the social costs of children growing up in an environment where their parents have to have a padlocked bag to keep food in), that there are people spending their entire lives on council waiting lists while millionaires and indeed billionaires just blithely buy up entire gated enclaves, never live in them, never contribute to the economy and then sell up for a profit having paid a nugatory amount of tax.

I would definitely agree that something could be done through council tax, especially on vacant properties. Also, just having a few bloody higher bands would be a start - why on earth do they stop so low? I also wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have some kind of real estate tax - even the US, supposed bastion of the free market, has this. Mind, they also have rent controls.

[HeeHiles]

Where? Even if there is the budget for more council/ housing association houses to be built there is a lack of sites/ land in many major cities

You'd be surprised - there's an area of London called Oak Old Common - it's an area of railway land between Harlesden, Acton and Park Royal. It's going to be redeveloped but it will mainly be luxury developments with a few 'Affordable' and SH thrown in around the back!

Earls court - demolishing the beautiful exhibition centre, evicting the tenants on the local estate and building more luxury apartments for investment. Add to that the Olympic village which again, SH was promised but not delivered.

Another idea that has been 'put out there' by Wayne Hemmingway I think is to build over our railway lines - there are huge areas behind mailine stations that are nothing but railways - so build on top of them? Interesting.

There are huge areas of London where our Governments had failed to build housing that low income families can live in, and they are continuing to do this while standing back and watching people go through the nightmare that is trying to put a roof over our families heads.

It's an absolute disgrace that this situation has been allowed to happen. But then what did they think was going to happen by selling off council homes and not building new ones?

[Caitlin17]

Rommel I find your attacks on landlords offensive. I refuse to believe there are no laws in England equivalent to the right 1987 Scottish Act which set the tolerable standard for houses or or subsequent legislation which brought in the requirement for compulsory standards in relation to fire and gas safety. If there is substandard accommodation there is a failure on the part of regulatory authorities to enforce compliance.

The problem was caused by right to buy. My hands are clean. I've never lived in a council house and no member of my family has bought one.

Are you aware that in large parts of rural Scotland the main provider of rented housing are now the big estates who have to meet compulsory standards which far exceed the standards in the public sector.

I'm really fed up of posters like you and Agapanthers (who surprisingly isn't on here) making sweeping generalisations about how evil private landlords are.

[BillyBanter]

I think housing is too important a resource to be left to private landlords and 'market forces'.

I welcome these proposals as a step in the right direction.

Renters have very little control over their housing. They can be moved on at any time for any reason. Letting agents charge them ridiculous fees that should not be their cost (illegal in Scotland so don't be claiming it has to be this way). Having to come up with maybe £1k costs to move only to be given notice and have to move a year later, for instance. It's just not possible for many.

Without rent caps their rent can be increased at any time for any amount, leaving them unable to afford their rent but unable to afford to move because of those costs.

We need more council housing (although that seems to be being replaced by housing associations, not a good move in my view) and fewer private landlords. Again we didn't used to have this many private landlords so let's not pretend it has to be this way.

On the continent tenure tends to be far more secure and regulated so again it can be done. It doesn't have to be as it is here.

[BillyBanter]

I agree the foreign investors buying properties in the posh areas of London is a problem. It has knock on effects for the rest.

Fabulously rich but can't buy anything in Chelsea? Try Putney. Were living in Putney but can't get anywhere there any longer, how about Battersea, from Battersea/Clapham Junction to other parts of Clapham, Can't afford Clapham like your friends who bought 3 years ago? How about Balham? By getting in on that house in Balham someone else has had to try Brixton, then Peckham and Streatham. Someone living in Streatham then looks further afield to Deptford, penge?

[BillyBanter]

I think in London we will have to build higher. The population is not going to go down any time soon. Not necessarily 20 storeys but more 5 storeys or 10 storey buildings.