Labour's new indefinite tenancy proposal

[littlemonkeyface]

How do you feel about the proposal?

Does anybody know what would happen to existing tenancies if labour came into power?

Would a 6/12 month tenancy automatically be turned into an indefinite one or only after renewal under the new law?

I'm not a landlord now, but if the tenant had the right to stay for three years I'd want to see much stronger legislation that could be enacted much quicker to remove them if they don't pay the rent! Because landlords are in a really weak position there voice of experience

I'm sure everyone who uses the courts would like their case to be resolved faster!

It would be like going back 50 years to when landlords had few rights.and would 'persuade' tenants to leave by nasty methods. Bad idea.

can I repeat what I said earlier - the council houses (social housing too ???) are now having shorter leases & not lifetime as before - so will they rescind this?

My mum & dad private rented for about 12 years when they first got married. There was no tenancy length, they just paid the rent every week, they could do what they wanted to the house, my dad rewired the house & they had new windows & doors put in. The landlady owned hundreds of houses in the area, her family owned the land & the brickworks where the bricks that the houses were built with were made. When the landlady died all the tenants got chance to buy their homes as sitting tenants, my parents paid £2000 for their house in 1974, the house is now worth £250k. Private landlords now treat renting as a licence to print money, they put so many conditions on tenancies that tenants never really feel like the place is home & they can be given notice at any time if the landlord wants to sell. I'm in council housing & would never rent privately it's too insecure.

Landlord and Labour party here - I'd happily rent for long term but need to understand what the safeguards are- what if mortgage rates go up? what if I need the house back?
I also think half of this is caused by fear of the Section 21 notice- eg no fault eviction. I had to evict someone using this- but only because I was advised to do so as to evict for arrears was so difficult- I was advised that any payment she made (be it a penny) would reset the clock on the eviction process, The eviction process as it was took 6 months plus and wasn't easy

I think all the changes to private rentals are petty details when fundamentally we need a decent social housing stock and policy

I also think making something compulsory for landlords is not going to get support- should be carrot and stick policy - eg landlords offering longer term leases get perk such as different tax benefit etc then you minimise people leaving the rental market

Another reason not to vote Labour, crazy policies.
I can see longer tenancies working- 3 years?- but with the ability to give the tenant notice if you want or need to.
We had a bad tenant once who didn’t pay - she kept paying the months rent in drive and drabs and was behind but not madly behind. We let her get away with it for ages because we felt sorry for her as a single mum. In the end we gave her notice. You’d have to still be able to get rid of bad tenants, otherwise it’s not fair.

Yeah you still could. It's fine! Breach of contract (that includes persistent late payment), need to sell, need to occupy - all covered.

And CrumpetyTea, you were wrongly advised. You could have evicted under s8 for breach by persistent late payment, even if she paid eventually.

I do think half the problem with tenancies in the UK is that so many landlords don't know their/their tenants' rights. Better regulated systems also tend to have institutional investors owning rental properties which I think means things rub along better.

handay if your a single ll its a good idea (& tax deductible) to belong to one of the land lord associations - which give you information & advice - institutional investors & social landlords are not always such good landlords - try getting things fixed - it took someone close to me months to get something fixed & several attempts (or miss - attempts!) because these organisations have outside companies doing their servicing are at distance & multi layered - & than the quality isn't all that you should expect.

Handay - just been reading article about investment company!
www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/16/is-harlow-being-used-to-socially-cleanse-london

Yes but I think there is more discretion involved in getting possession for persistent late payment rather than arrears itself - so there was a risk that the court may have made a different judgement. Given all of this I was advised that a section 21 plus separate claim for arrears was better.
In any case my point was more that using a section 21 is not necessarily an indicator of the tenant not being a problem tenant.
the other factor that comes in to play is that my tenant wanted to be evicted -she wanted to qualify for a council house and needed to be evicted in order to qualify so I had to go through the court process

I would imagine that the details would include termination of contract by LL seeking to sell.

If not, I would sell immediately, turfing out tenants who haven't had their rents raised in four years.