Rent Smart Wales change to landlord rights

[justasking111]

Having jumped through all rent smart Wales hoops, doing courses, paying fees. The website now won't take calls and won't let us log in. In December the rules are changing again. In favour of the tenant once again. Our tenants have had one rent rise in six years of £25 pcm. We've thrown in the towel now. Husband has had two operations, I've had a few things year our health is slipping away. So we decided to sell up. Getting a section 21 form is nigh on impossible so we've engaged a solicitor today on the advice of a local estate agent who said her office had seen 31 tenants given this notification last week alone.

We're talking about one town not a big town either. The Welsh government have pushed it too far now

If you are going to sell it, have you thought that the tenants might want to buy. It's worth asking before the stress of getting them to move.
What new rules are coming in December? My son and his wife are still renting in Wales.

What is it that you object to about the new rules? I'm not in Wales, but having had only a cursory look through the housing law changes on gov.wales, it seems to be bringing Welsh law into a similar set-up as in Scotland and mandating things like compulsory electricity safety checks and a longer notice period.

I don't see the relevance of your tenant not having had rent increases. Surely you understand that the law is made to provide a level of basic protections? It's not that you're good landlords (assuming you are keeping other landlord responsibilities beyond just not continually trying to raise the rent) and therefore there should not be legal protections for tenants instituted in law, tenants being the vulnerable party in a tenant-landlord set-up.

We do annual boiler checks, double glazed, insulation in roof. They only had to pickup the phone and we'd pop round to sort out or call in a tradesperson. From December it will go to third generation. So if adult offspring live in the house they become the tenant by right. The tenants offspring is 40 years younger than us.

The big boy landlords are to be found in London and overseas. They do what they like because they're companies are untraceable.

@MrsCarson your son should have been contacted by rent smart Wales years ago.

Presumably though becoming a tenant by rights isn’t a major problem providing they pay their rent ? And if they don’t do not have the usual steps to recover ?

And assuming that you and your husband basically die are they suggesting that the property can’t be sold at that point to release the probate ? Forcing your relatives to become landlords whether they like it or not ?

That's under discussion with the Welsh government. Ironically they've emailed everyone again tonight asking for yet another survey to be completed by landlords

Blimey. Well I’ve always said renting properties out is hard bloody work I don’t know why anybody would do it.

It's simpler in most parts of England. Wales also wants to cap rents at 2% per annum

That will make BTL property easy to sell won`t it?

We do annual boiler checks,

Annual gas safety checks are a legal requirement, and have been for many years, and hardly something to boast about.

double glazed, insulation in roof.

Without it, your EPC would probably be at F or below and you would be legally unable to rent it out. Again, this is nothing to boast about.

Indeed, I can think of only one owner occupier I know who still has single glazing. At the start of this year I viewed over 40 houses before buying one; not one of the ones I viewed had single glazing.

Rent Smart Wales are a nightmare. We sold our BTL because we could see the way the wind was blowing with Welsh Government plans. I'd like to think we were good landlords, followed all the rules, did repairs quickly, gave lots of leeway when the last tenant was struggling during Covid.
Friends of ours are selling up too.
It means more properties for owner-occupiers but less available to rent in a nation with a low wage economy of Welsh Government 's own making.

I can’t get from this what it is you’re objecting to? What does ‘in the tenants favour’ mean exactly? Why are rules and laws to conduct your business, something that you regard as against you and in favour of the customer/tenant?

Surely the "relative inherits the contract" is only to try and prevent people from becoming suddenly homeless when the tenant dies and the contract isn't with them so they have no legal right to stay there? You can still put in a notice to leave and wait for several months to regain possession? The potential discomfort to you is lesser than the potential discomfort to the tenants in the absence of such rules.

www.scotsman.com/news/politics/cost-of-living-crisis-one-million-households-will-have-rents-capped-as-emergency-rent-freeze-bill-for-scotland-passed-by-msps-3867288

It's all moot now we're selling up

www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-63131075

Wales following behind Scotland

Excellent news

Not for our tenants the same sized property rental by our council is £275 per month more in a not so nice area. Do you really think council housing is cheap??

Good. Hopefully someone can buy the property to live in and not as an 'investment'

My dad rents out a house. His tenants wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage. He doesn't make any profit on the rent he charges them and looks after them well.
If he sold up it would be bought up by someone out of the area and used as a second home as most of the other properties in the village have become.

Oh yeah I forgot the MN landlord, they all do it out of the goodness of their heart 🙄

On the one hand, we have lots of posts on MN from people looking for rentals and panicking because there are hardly any and those that do go on the market are bartered up by desperate potential tenants

On the other, we have posters on threads like this sneering at landlords who are selling up due to a hostile tax and regulatory environment. Cheering that these houses will no longer be rented out.

Square that circle.

You didn't answer the question about council housing being more expensive. 🤣🤣

I know @LavenderfortheBees but you can't fix stupid.

Oh that was because I don't believe you

Do you really think council housing is cheap??

it’s less expensive wherever I’ve lived and I have rented in several places in England.