Ed pledges to cap rent rises, extend standard tenancies & scrap fees

[thevelvetoverground]

"At Labour's local and European election campaign launch tomorrow, he will pledge to cap rent rises and to extend the standard tenancy period from six months to three years. As well as this, he will commit to banning letting agent fees, promising to save the average new household £350."

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/milibands-pledge-cap-rent-rises-smart-politics

HoopyViper …. Back to Renting and what Mr Miliband and you ‘want’; there is never a bad time to tighten regulations to help tenants against bad landlords/practises, even if good landlords already think that the tenants have more rights than them – but if either of you are NOW trying to ‘socially engineer’ landlords to sell, having had Brown encourage Buy To Let for 13-years, I reiterate for the numty-teenth time, NOW is the wrong time based on REALITY.

NO ONE can argue that there is an acute lack of UK homes and shortage UK properties to rent, especially FOR THOSE WITHOUT THE OPTION to buy, whether homes were 10,20,or 30% cheaper – so any landlords selling at this time, especially due to any non commercial threats by the next Prime Minister,

There is no such La La Land condition as a standard landlord, with standardised costs/interest rate funding, with standard economic peaks and troughs, with standard investment aims and standard views for the need for 3-year Tenancy Agreements – so your ‘ifs’ are immaterial in REALITY, so keep repeating ‘ifs’ as if there was a chance a price fall and/or Miliband could ‘commercially engineer’ it as a base line for his reforms, is a nonsense, no matter how many times you repeat it – any trying will just REDUCE the available amount of rented properties.

The stupid thing is, WHAT YOU WANT re landlord professionalism, stability, durability and standard longer Tenancy Terms can, even was, going to be provided by the Private Sector via investors like pension funds who would also fund the BUILDING of more homes.

But as that link I provided confirms, the prospect of Miliband’s legislation a year from now, even in it’s current form of ‘intent’ (with heaven knows what will follow), is very likely to discourage further investment until after May 2015 and they SEE the final legislation.

Well at least we cleared that one up. Perhaps you can forgive my line of questioning, but I have found elements of your posts to evade, twist and patronise; traits I am sadly too familiar with in those who carry political influence.

There was a thread on here very recently about this issue (of those with political influence seeking to manipulate social media) and it sowed a seed of doubt in my mind. However I apologise if my line of questioning has offended, it was not with malicious intent, nor intent to 'deflect' or discredit unduly. I detected a sense of robustness that might withstand, and I think I am correct in that assumption.

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No-one can argue there are a shortage of rental homes. This is true. I do find it interesting that we more commonly hear of this as a "housing" crisis in general, not just a "renting" crisis.

Perhaps you (or anyone else) could help me understand why it is we couldn't be confident that a good percentage of houses coming onto the market, through a reduction in the number of unstable lets, alongside more housing development, would not affect houses prices enough to enable more people who currently rent to buy? (Especially with help to buy deposit scheme etc). Therefore reducing the number needing to rent?

(No if's there, I checked )

HoopyViper .... re "but I have found elements of your posts to evade, twist and patronise", don't worry, I get that a lot when other posters don't want to hear the truth - especially if they keep repeating questions that I have addressed and conveniently don't want to take it in.

Re this "reduction in the number of unstable lets" you keep going on about, lets say this is both quantifiable and worthy of more State/social/housing controls, WHAT are you suggesting is done?

Who benefits from this bank or State property seizure, , other than property bargain hunters?

Who says that everyone who buys one of these homes is not CHANGING homes e.g. moving up or down the ladder, or currently living at home e.g. not renting - which just results in the reduction of rental properties?

No 'ifs', just iffy. lol

Ok I'm just going to ignore the digs, I can see it is a wasted effort.

I see quite a few (2-3 Bed) houses on the market that our reduced for the over 65s, I don't know how that works but clearly it is possible to restrict and therefore not unreasonable to query if something similar could be possible in a solution.

How about a type of repossession for those unable to offer secure lets, with resale only to buyers from rented (private or social)?

And I am never going to bow away from asking questions or challenging the status quo, or be satisfied with being told "all you need to know".

Ok, having looked a bit further (sorry if I am boring you Isitmebut, but I am going to continue with my musings for the benefit of those who are facing the REALITY of homelessness through profiteering landlords selling on a whim) reduced plans for the over 50s are part of the affordable home ownership scheme (although I do find it odd, that a lot of the ones I have seen are 2-3 bed homes, not sure that fits in terms of encouraging people to downsize, but there we go. I assume they would only be available to those with resident children under 25, possibly).

What I do wonder is whether we can make it attractive for a one off scheme for private landlords who are either shonky, don't give toss but operating entirely legally, or who do give a toss but are facing difficulties in riding the peaks and troughs (I'm not sure about what you mean around there being no standard peaks and troughs, of course there aren't, but you CAN look at how you would cope with varying levels of interest rates, plan for the worst etc instead of thinking oh well, I can always make someone homeless, and put the rent up if I want a new car/holiday of a lifetime etc) to sell to first time buyers from those in private or social housing to reduce the pressure on both. Surely the saving in housing benefit in the long term might make that worthwhile.

Clearly I am no expert and don't have easy access to the figures needed to provide you with a business plan exactly, but since you ask what I am suggesting should be done about it, I will. What needs to be done is put in place effective leadership who can assure, evidence and be open with us that SOCIAL OBJECTIVES ARE THE PRIORITY NOT PROFIT and that all possible ways of making that so are thoroughly, openly and properly assessed, rather than scoffing and ridiculing anything that isn't profit-driven. However, I may well be in la la land with that one.

There are plenty of successful Social Enterprises, these are what we should be encouraging more of.

For anyone interested:
www.cpresussex.org.uk/campaigns/mayfield/item/2429-mayfield-developer-s-claim-perpetuates-myths

16 May 2014

The following letter was published in the Mid Sussex Times in response to claims made by Mayfield Market Towns Ltd:

In last week’s edition you publish a report that a new 10,000 house town near Henfield and Wineham that is being promoted by developers, Mayfield Market Towns Ltd, would destroy the habitat of an important barn owl population.

The would-be developers claim that the real issue is whether their new town there would provide a better solution to delivering much needed new housing for local people. This claim perpetuates two myths - firstly, that there is an accepted local need for a new town on the southern borders of Horsham and Mid Sussex, and secondly that its proposed location is suitable and sustainable.

Neither is true. Both Horsham and Mid Sussex District Councils are in advanced stages of developing long term plans for their Districts: neither of their plans calls for any new market town to meet their Districts’ housing needs. As to location, it is difficult to envisage somewhere less suited to a mega-development than the lovely open countryside around Wineham with no significant local unemployment, with no road, rail or other infrastructure, and on low lying fields prone to flooding from the Adur. Not to mention the barn owls, nightingales and other wonderful wildlife.

We challenge Mayfield to publish the ecological and flood reports that it claims to have commissioned so that we can all judge for ourselves.

Michael Brown
Trustee, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Sussex Branch

I'm reading!

HoopyViper .... re your quotes below;

"How about a type of repossession for those unable to offer secure lets, with resale only to buyers from rented (private or social)?"

"And I am never going to bow away from asking questions or challenging the status quo, or be satisfied with being told "all you need to know"."

FYI I'm the same, hence I like to look at what was, what is being promised, and adding some factual balance to show what is commercially/practically possible and what isn't e.g. without and with State Controls that if results in current landlords to sell (reducing available rental stock) and discourages institutional investors to build and rent to provide the rental conditions YOU want, DO make matters worse.