Renters rights bill

[MoneyNeverSleeps]

A question for LL’s please - what changes will you make in preparation for Labours Renters rights bill please? And what do you see as the wider consequences?

For those who simply wish to hate on LL’s, please don’t bother posting.

Not faux outrage. Just feel sorry for your tenants.

Re:Christmas. My bad. The winter holiday period.

No, no.

Other posters evidently insist you must act charitably and suck it up - the tax, the non payment of rent, the dilapidations, the court time, the stress,
the losses.

Because you are a rentier, and the lowest of the low.

It’s good I gave them an extended date then - which you tried to winkle out of me yesterday (and failed)

Surely not all landlords will sell up ? This post is making me very anxious as a tenant.

Winkle? 😅 I just asked a question. 'Tis allowed. And you are allowed not to answer.

Not all will, no.

It depends on your LL’s personal situation. Are they leveraged, do they have a portfolio, are they nearing retirement etc

MN - and this thread is a case in point - is very strange and polarised about landlords. They're either secular saints who are single-handedly and altruistically saving the housing market or evil capitalist 'leeches' (!). There doesn't seem to be much in between. This seems to me (observing from outside the UK) to have a lot to do with the emotions around renting in the UK and also its status as something slightly declassé that someone might reluctantly have to do. Renting is a lot more normal, often a positive choice, and decently legislated for where I live (I'm a tenant largely by choice), and ire against landlords is reserved for the genuinely rotten (mostly big private) ones. I do think that's where the UK needs to go too, but property ownership is such a holy grail (and has been misunderstood by so many - and I absolutely don't just mean BTL LLs - as a fail-safe money-making machine) that it's going to take a long time for the right infrastructural and attitudinal conditions to be in place, I think. In the meantime, a more nuanced view (in both directions) of LLs would probably help.

Every landlord on Mumsnet is a cross between Father Christmas and Mother Theresa!

Yeah but you were prepping your angle.
Didn’t exactly work out.

@MoneyNeverSleeps as far as I know he owns at least 2 flats mine and the one downstairs and possibly others. He's mid 40's I'd say.

Some good points.

For many, BTL is akin to private schooling or luxury cars - it provokes the old green eyed monster.

Impossible to say.

Prepping my angle? My angle is that I feel sorry for your tenants, regardless of the notice you have given them. I feel sorry for anyone who is being evicted through no fault of their own.

Agreed.

I squarely blame Labour.

You?

Oh come off it. That’s not why it never went ahead. It’s because half them were/are LLs themselves and made sure it got kicked into the long grass.

Successive governments from Thatcher onwards who have either screwed up or totally failed to address housing policy. Particularly Thatcher, but they are all to blame.

Wrong.

• Shelter withdrew support for the bill as it entered its final stages in the House of Commons
• The Renters Reform Coalition, which we are a member of, publicly declared that this bill would be a failure if passed in its current form. The bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons in an unacceptable state and was sent to the House of Lords.

And now we have reached the point of no return,
hence some, like me, are heading for the exit.

Ange has promised to build 4 mn new affordable homes though, so I’m not worried.

Do you look to the policy at all for this?

Labour could work out what would happen and avoid increased problems for renters instead

Watchful waiting is how I’d describe my position, I have 2 rental properties. The current Bill doesn’t send me running for cover, I do think a lot of it is fair and common sense. I think a lot of landlords are now an older demographic, who got into it in the 90s and are now in there 60s and above and might want to get out anyway. Possible exception is student rentals as students will be able to end their contracts before a year is up and move out inApril/ May which will impact landlords, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of landlords move out of student lets ( I already have).
I agree with thelittleoldwomanwhoshrinks that there is a stigma to renting in England especially compared to other European countries. If changes to rental law bring us more in line with rest of Europe eg France, one effect might be that properties are harder to secure as some landlords become hyper risk averse especially with people with poor or little employees history. Possibly resulting in young adults going to university while living at home, and leaving home a lot later in life ( granted this is already a trend).

Lowest number of housing starts in a decade in the first 6months of 2024.

After 14 years, built hardly any council houses.

Only the most loyal of Tory supporters would only blame a party that has been in opposition for 14 years.

The sell off by LLs began several years ago after interest rate rises, made even worse by Truss and rumoured EPC changes.

Why them, and not all tenants. Let’s face it. The road is about to become nigh on impossible to traverse. So many are facing eviction before rhe bill comes in, and any landlords who stay in, will be charging massive rents, as demand will outstrip supply. And due to the costs that will now be invovled. They need to recoup it, all the additional costs for anyone who remains in, will need to be passed to the tenants. Private landlords aren’t charities, they aren’t housing associations and trying to treat them as such is always going to fail.

huge costs are now coming in for landlords. From registration on. And if anyone thinks for one moment it’s not tenants who will pay it they are sadly mistaken.

Yeah that’s why they scrapped it. 🙄

No wonder we get to such bad decisions as the one which will hike rents, make rentals scarcer and make more people homeless.

No not all. The companies who own multiple sites will stay in, overseas investment companies will stay in, and some private, those who realise that supply is about to become limited so rents will go through the roof, will stay in, they are the ones with deep enough pockets Who can afford to take over a year to get a bad tenant out. Who can afford to pay any costs if it comes to it and take the chance.

but already the available rental market has declined by about 15+%. Rents are increasing, in many areas people struggle to get a private rent , demand is that high, if they get evicted they habe no chance.

You reduce by another 10/20/30 percent and millions of people can’t house themselves. With no social housing to go to. And landlords will be able to pick their tenants , and be very picky indeed.

you simply cannot try to turn private landlords into social housing and tax the fuck out of them, because many will chose to exit, and for those who stay in, the tenants will pay for the additional costs.