10,000 rental homes in London could be lost to short lets

No situation is so bad that government intervention cannot make it worse
G. R. Steele
16 June 2011

There are 3.5m housing units in London
This is another case of disproportionate, fallacial misconsideration supporting yet more populist nonsense.
I do wish people would stop jumping on every bandwagon they see.

This bit is almost sensible:

"Under the new rules, homeowners will be able to let out their own main or sole home for up to 90 nights in a year without planning permission."

The question is, should it really be as short as 90 days?

Supposing you need to go abroad for work for a short-term contract for 6-9 months. That would mean that you'd have to get planning permission to rent your home out wouldn't it?

How would this affect anti social behaviour, other than helping it stay put?

Reply to the comment left by moneymanager at 18/03/2024 - 12:52
Apparently London's population is at a new record high:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-population-covid-migration-centre-for-cities-space-rural-covid-b1145932.html#:~:text=The%20Centre%20for%20Cities%20said,certain%20to%20be%20the%20case.

What this post says is ".....one council leader is warning that up to 10,000 properties could be moved into the short lets sector – resulting in higher rents for PRS tenants."

Presumably that's being given as a justification for councils introducing policies stopping homeowners from letting out their homes for more than 90 days a year without applying for planning permission? Have I understood this proposal correctly?

I know a number of people who've been in the position that they are (A) separated/divorced but in the marital home and letting a room out for 4-5 days for increased income and/or company and/or security (B) divorced and needing accommodation for 4-5 days per week to be near the children, near work or near both. It's a really common situation.

One of the better tax policy decisions in recent years has been the HMRC rent a room scheme allowing you to rent a room to a lodger for £7,500 PA tax free to encourage shared ownership. This is a good policy that helps people be more flexible to cope with changes in their own lives and helps the workplace; a dynamic, growing economy needs to be able to help people to move and adapt to changing life circumstances. Businesses, and in particular small businesses, need that as well to break out of a sluggish period of little or no growth.

5 days a week times 52 is not 90 days. It's 260 days per annum.

Does the new policy mean that if you wanted to rent out a room in your own home for 5 days a week that you'd need planning permission to do that? If so, a lot of separated people would be dissuaded from doing something socially useful. It would be a bit of left-wing-council-control-freakery; damaging to people in the process of life-changes like separation and divorce, damaging to children and families, damaging to the workplace and the economy.

Only an fool in local government would introduce a policy like that. Of course, I may have misunderstood the details of this new change.

If I haven't misunderstood the details of the proposal to oblige planning permission to rent out rooms in your own home for more than 90 days then the way around this is to do this for cash and not declare anything: It's a policy that would actually incentivise a black market in accommodation. In contrast to the rent-a-room scheme, which is a good and socially useful policy, only a total idiot in a national government would introduce a policy like that.

If this is something to do with an ill-considered knee-jerk reaction to the growth in Airbnb then anybody with more than just a couple of brain cells and even the most limited understanding of the residential property sector needs to understand that the reason for the growth in Airbnb is because our governments (especially the SNP government in Scotland) have made being a landlord less attractive than Airbnb.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18/03/2024 - 15:30
As I understand it, the proposed 90 day rule already applies in London. It is for whole properties and isn’t policed very well.

The rule doesn’t impact the Rent a Room scheme.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 18/03/2024 - 16:22
I see...I don't live in London so it's entirely possible that I've misunderstood this. 🙂

But I've had lots of friends who've been in the position that they've separated and needed accommodation for maybe 4/5 days per week (260 days per annum) because of work or kids. Or they've found themselves in the position that they are unexpectedly single, they have a friend who is also unexpectedly single, so they rent a room to their friend 365 days per annum.

I've had lots of friends in this position, both married friends with kids who've separated and gay friends who've separated and decided to share their accommodation with a paying lodger. There must be millions of people in this position.

So have I understood this correctly that in order to do either of the above in London then you'd need planning permission?

What the post at the start of this thread says is this:

"Under the new rules, homeowners will be able to let out their own main or sole home for up to 90 nights in a year without planning permission."

From that it's impossible to infer anything else other than that if you let out your own main or sole home for more than 90 nights per year then you would need planning permission. That would be crazy.

I would let it out for 90 days and then let friends and relatives use it for visits - unpaid! Meanwhile I would tell the council that I an doing this precisely because I want to lessen the supply of rentals out of sheer cussedness and loathing. And I would go to the press and gloat! And I would urge most landlords to follow suit! Screw the govt!

Right now I am keeping one luxury central Cambridge flat empty. And yet I get applications weekly! I no longer give a damn! BTW my tax bill will reduce too!!!! Up yours chancellor!