BBC’s Panorama – The return of ‘slum landlords’

One day, they might just do a programme, where tenant is happy with house, Landlord charging cheap rent & then gets Selective Licensing charge & Section 24 & wired smoke alarms & solid doors in normal house & Landlord says I can't afford to keep doing your rent at this price with these new outgoings. And tenant says I don't want all this New Build stuff, u making it unaffordable for me.
But that wun't be great programme would it.

Reply to the comment left by LordOf TheManor at 27/03/2023 - 13:57
"The government clearly had no foresight to start with and thus created the situation that Maggie Thatcher dealt with so badly."

No government has any foresight about its policies.

Just as Maggie Thatcher's right to buy is coming home to roost as councils did not build new housing when they sold off the old council flats, so too will the removal of S21 cause massive problems in the future.

Politicians can only have a short term view as they are likely to be job hunting every 5 years and anything long term does not benefit them.

From my memory the right to buy was more about preventing strikes than being a home owner .

If you rented council house did not pay not much was done .

I'd you own your home and don't pay you loss it.

i was brought up on numerous council estates in east london from the 1960s to 1980s .had to move many times as the houses we rented were considered unfit for human habitation ie no heating /toilets /bathrooms and eventually moved to a modern council house in stratford 1970s built / like the estate shown on the panorama article/

and i lived in a few with 3 families sharing ie 15 adults and kids in 1 house/

rtb was a good thing / albeit the massive profits is a myth / you paid the market guide price minus 33 % to live in a council estate /which from my travels are nearly the same the country over/

70s council houses were poorly/cheaply built just bolt on jobs on either end with pvc partions up and down / epc wise they are never going to pass the c grade that is coming for landlords/

you can hear your neighbours plug going into the wall as if you were in the same room .

HMO`s are strict and obviously even the few secs we saw inside the mans room it is clear that there is no way that the landlord is legal
and is why landlords always get slagged off as we are all the same as the man who drove off when its 80% plus off us smaller landlords 1 to 5 propertys who treat our tennants way better than councils/housing associations or big landlords

politicly timed as ever. Renters reform bill rearing its ugly head again...just in case you needed to know who the bad guys are ....ALL landlords of course!

The entire purpose of the Right to Buy was unashamedly Social Engineering. You really have to have lived through the 60s and 70s to appreciate what life was like under the “loony left”. Almost all workers were in closed shops (union membership is compulsory). Union members likely live in Council or tied housing and there are no personal consequences to you if you don’t pay your rent because you are on strike. They cannot possibly evict thousands of people all at once – the unions will make sure of that.

Mrs Thatcher had to break the stranglehold of the Unions but that could never be achieved all the while there were no personal consequences to strike action. She had to find a way to make strikes unfavourable to many union members and making them responsible for housing themselves was the chosen method. Incidentally, it was Horace Cutler of the GLC that first thought of selling off Council housing, Mrs Thatcher just took the idea nationwide.

The trick to it all was to make it very attractive to buy your Council house/flat – it will not cost you more than renting and you will have something to pass on to your children. The people went along with it in droves and that was the end of the closed shop and union power. Now if you go on strike and don’t pay your mortgage you can be repossessed. The “collective model” is broken and it is now about being an individual and personal responsibility. You can’t afford to “rock the boat” because the union will not look after you now. It is every man for himself. The Social Engineering has worked and there is no turning back.

Reply to the comment left by Susan Bradley at 27/03/2023 - 18:34
Watched it. Lewisham council should get their house in order before pushing for selective Licencing cash. The Landlord identified in the episode looked like he had a HMO property with a notice board and fire regs stuff so was clearly on the councils radar however they probably did not do the inspection.

I can understand the issue of mould especially when you have a bed mattress directly touching an outside wall so clearly a tenant issue as well.

I thought it was a lot of hot air and less dramatic than I thought it would be however expect GOVE to hammer LLs anyway and selective licences cash going into council coffers.

Government anti-Landlord propaganda to garner public support in preparation for the publication of the Renter's Reform Bill.

The more propaganda the more extreme (aka anti-Landlord) the RR Bill will be.

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 27/03/2023 - 22:20
They don't need any propaganda. They can do whatever they want, and we can't stop them. But, it will come back and bite them in the arse when even more landlords leave the PRS.

Reply to the comment left by Luke P at 27/03/2023 - 13:08
Oh gosh - surely no MPs gained personally from Thatcher's policies.... 😱😱