The scandal of the state of private renting in the UK

[cruikshank]

Housing benefit going to private landlords costs the country £9.3 bn a year, yet 1 in 3 private rentals are substandard. Is this a natural consequence of turning over responsibility for the provision of shelter to a largely unregulated private market?

Article here: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/back-to-rising-damp-one-million-rented-homes-in-private-sector-are-substandard-9039201.html

[Isitmebut]

wafflyversatile .... we now have a situation where the Private rental sector is larger than council/social.

With that in mind and the points you just made, re the talk of large UK pension and other funds planning/waiting to build and rent properties professionally, maybe for more secure, more rights, and longer term tenancies, that could be part of the supply/demand answer?

[GratefulHead]

A friend of mine who was long term unemployed (due to serious mental health issues) is now back in work apparently. He has a zero hours contract...they are yet to offer him any work but the Jobcentre couldn't wait to sign him off and add to their statistics of successful employment.

He currently had no work and no income either, nice one Iain Duncan Smith.
He had a letter today telli him his housing benefit and council tax benefit claim was now suspended as he is in work.

If the government are trying to send him right back to square one mental health wise then they are going the right way about it. He is panicking like anything and now needs to get back into them all as he is currently penniless.

Naturally no bugger in our housing benefit office answers the phone so he has to find or borrow the cash to get down there.

But yeah...reducing benefits is a GREAT idea .

Who cares that people like my friend could potentially go under .

[cruikshank]

GratefulHead that's awful. I hope your friend manages to get sorted soon. Zero hours contracts are an abomination but actually there is even worse out there - I guess you've all heard about the 'rise' in self-employment and how we're turning into a nation of entrepreneurs? Well, a quick scan of the DWP's jobsearch website (which JSA claimants are mandated to register with on pain of losing their benefits) will reveal the truth about that. Pretty much every one to the man jack of them are for companies like Bettaware, Utility Warehouse, b2b selling where you have to buy the stock yourself etc. Those aren't jobs - they are pyramid schemes. No-one ever made money out of them. In other European countries they don't exist. But in the UK not only do they exist but the govt tells jobseekers to approach these companies and take these so-called 'jobs' otherwise their benefits will be cut. And the thing is, people take this 'work' on, even though they will have no income from doing so, because they are desperate to work, which I think makes a nonsense of all this 'skivers' vs 'strivers' horseshite we are sold.

[Isitmebut]

cruikshank .... re jobs, I doubt if all the 1.8 million jobs since 2010 are Zero hours and as you mentioned 'other European countries', we could be worse off - like Italy now in their '3rd dip' recession.

“Eurozone growth at ZERO as gemany slumps, France stagnates.”
www.dw.de/eurozone-growth-at-zero-as-germany-slumps-france-stagnates/a-17854222

“IMF forecasts UK to be fastest-growing advanced economy in 2014”
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5f5ba3ca-132e-11e4-8244-00144feabdc0.html

“UK firms bullish as plans to hire hit 16-year high”
www.cnbc.com/id/101909710

“U.K. companies are set to boost their headcounts in the next three months, with firms in both the manufacturing and services sectors planning to hire new members of staff at the fastest rate in 16 years, a new survey shows.”

We have just had the worst recession in 100-years, and it ALWAYS takes pay rates to rise after any recession and all those high street shops (amongst the thousands of small the medium sized businesses that form the back bone of our economy) did not close as no one was still spending and they could afford higher salaries.

It could be worse, and maybe will again, if politicians have to spend years away from building a sustainable economy splitting the UK's assets/liabilities, with Scotland.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

I think we should meerrge this thread with the other one! Just wanted to point out I am in no way an exceptional tenant, merely a grown up trying to make a nice home. There are millions like me. Beast, you sound like you understand that being a landlord is renting a home, not just investing your cash I whatever gives the highest return of your investment. I bet you get good tenants too. Hmm, interesting correlation there maybe. .

[Isitmebut]

IfNotNowThen ..... the problem with relying on Private landlords supplying over 50% of rented properties, is that for many, their BTL is their pension - and the 'social objective' of flat/lower home price rises and no/little returns on rents received over their BTL mortgage costs AND guaranteed long tenancies - is not compatible with that personal savings objective.

Personal Pension Savings were made less attractive after 1997, and seeing the the derisory annual rises in the State pension indicated they could not trust a government on their future financial security, all helped to fuel the growth of private landlords looking for the best return they can get.

“Labour's 'rent cap' row: how renting has grown, in charts”

“The charts and tables here show how property ownership is changing, who is renting – and for how much.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/buy-to-let/10800343/Labours-rent-cap-row-how-renting-has-grown-in-charts.html

“The subjects of renting and buy-to-let spark anger like few others and Labour's latest suggestion – that rent increases could be capped and minimum lengths of tenancies introduced – has added fuel to the controversy.”

“What are the facts behind Britain's growing army of renters? This graph, from the February 2014 English Housing Survey, shows that since 2005 ownership has been in decline relative to renting, which started to climb in 2000.”

“For the first time, according to this year's data, people renting from private landlords outnumbered social renters.”


Clearly the growth in the Private rental market, whether by design or not, was a government initiative, hardly likely to be addressed when they were averaging around 25,000 social homes a year and the immigration figures were climbing.

*Still we are where we are, and as I mentioned earlier within this page. for the majority of tenants CURRENT problems, from the availability, regulation, fair rents up to log term tenancy contracts - is this PART of the answer, that small private landlords are unable, or unwilling, to offer?

“Pru plans foray into UK rented housing”

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a35a999e-9893-11e2-a853-00144feabdc0.html#axzz330iRnEwP

“The Prudential is to become the first UK institutional investor to enter the UK rented housing market in recent times, paving the way for the growth of a corporate-backed letting market at a time of acute housing shortage.”


“The UK’s insurers and pension funds were once among the largest owners of residential property in the UK, but sold off their estates in the years after the second world war due to the intensive management required.”

“Both Legal & General and Aviva are looking at entering the private rented sector; both are understood to have eyed various potential developments and tie-ups with housebuilders.”

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Quite frankly, I couldn't give a shit that I am supposed to be funding someone else's pension plans. Maybe they should invest in something else.

[wafflyversatile]

Secure housing for all is more important than pension pots for some.

re your previous post isitmebut, I agree that whatever private renting there is should be secure similar to on the continent. But I still think it should be made a less attractive investment, and more council housing built.

[Isitmebut]

IfNotThen When .... while you may not "give a shit", the State unprepared for 2.5 million new citizens in the 2000's and not even attempting to build 200,000 homes a year as recommended by the 2004 Barker Report HAS TO - as in allowing/encouraging over 50% of our rental housing provision to be in Private hands - they have worry how many may sell up over the next few years and new landlords replace them.

As to investing in something else, in 1997 Mr Brown took away the dividend tax relief for shares in pension funds, which also killed many company final salary pension schemes. Many saw the writing on the wall, as what has raised around £118 billion in extra revenue, has been estimated to have cost those saving for their own pensions around £240 billion on a 17-year compounded basis.

Maybe if we had seen more 'joined up policy thinking' in pensions, home building and immigration, we wouldn't be having this conversation and you'd have the security of a social/council home.

[Greengrow]

There are certainly countries now and the past like Cuba, Soviet Russia, North Korea where the state provides all housing.
Even there though corruption seems to creep in and some people end up with better houses than others.

There is a nationwide shortage of bricklayers today's news say as so much building is currently going on - so perhaps we are starting build more of the homes needed.

[Isitmebut]

Errr ...the bad news is the shortage of construction workers, in the high tens of thousands, is that in the post crash financial slump, they left the business. The even worse news is that those still in are approaching retirement and around 4 x our current shortage will leave the workforce.

Hopefully no government will replace them with more imported East Europeans to build for England, as that is a zero sum game and kinda defeats the home shortage object.

Apparently home building starts are back at pre crash levels plus and councils are building more; I had some stats a month or so ago which looked promising, if you want them.

[ReallyTired]

We need to get people to move up north to areas like Newcastle to take the pressure of London. I believe that the north east is in a vicious circle that there are fewer jobs because there are fewer people needing services.

We need to prevent landlords renting out substandard housing in the first place. I said on another thread that each property should have a certificate of fitness for habitation. I would get rid of the energy performance certificate to keep the landlords' costs down. A certificate of fitness for habitation could also replace an inventory for an unfurnished let.