Ben Beadle supports abolition of Section 21 but calls for urgent court reforms

Took me 15 months to evict my latest tenant.
Of that about 3-4 months to get a court date and 4 months alone waiting for an expedited bailiff.

There were extra delays as the agent took 1p too much deposit.

Reply to the comment left by Downsize Government at 22/10/2024 - 11:09
Your 1p reference is interesting as I noticed a 1p discrepancy on a deposit recently and thought nothing more of it. I will do now. Thank you.

All fair comments in the article but will government listen? Probably not because Shelter et al shout much louder. As for landlords being responsible for signposting tenants to help mitigate arrears, or taking responsibility for tenants lifestyle choices in creating mould issues in a property - perhaps government/NRLA would also like me to stick a broom up my ass and sweep the floor too? Sick of being held responsible for other people's poor choices whether budget management or lifestyle choices, treated as a charity housing provider without the tax breaks offered to a charitable organisation and demonised by tenants and lobbyists (who incidentally house nobody but seem to think they have more rights over your bricks and mortar!!!) despite providing below market rents in well maintained good quality housing. Selling off properties now as it is all just getting ridiculous.......

Reply to the comment left by Downsize Government at 22/10/2024 - 11:09
If you're unfortunate enough to have your property in Brent, you can double that. Leftie judges out of control.

Why is anyone still a member of this government by proxy?

Reply to the comment left by Paul at 22/10/2024 - 11:15
The discrepancy can be less than 1 penny. If the full 5 weeks' deposit is taken but the calculator or Excel spreadsheet rounds up. (Always ensure your spreadsheet shows numbers to at least 2 decimal places)

For example, take a tenancy with a rent of £1000 a month. £1000 x 12 divided by 52 and multiplied by 5 gives £1153.84. If you take a deposit of £1154 you cannot serve a s21 notice and are liable for a fine.

Theresa Wallace is right. The Bill will lead to more homelessness not less. The Labour Party, NRLA and much of the Tory Party (including the previously intelligent Michael Gove) were seduced by Shelter's claim that section 21 causes homelessness. This is a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Yes, many people who are homeless received a s21 notice but they are homeless because there are not sufficient homes in areas they want to live at rents they can afford. The s21 notice is not the cause of their becoming homeless.
To take an analogy, are notices of dismissal or redundancy notices the cause of unemployment? No, of course not. No sensible person would argue that the way to reduce unemployment is to ban employers from dismissing workers or making them redundant.
Unfortunately, our foolish politicians have fallen for this line. Homelessness will be made worse if fewer properties are available to rent. Not building enough new houses and frightening landlords into withdrawing their properties will result in fewer houses available to rent than there might otherwise be.

Mick Whelan of ASLEF along with a few other union leaders and Gen Rent etc set out their demands for how much further reforms should go over and above what is already proposed in the Renters’ Rights Bill.

Got me thinking - We have Ben Beadle basically saying he agrees with the changes but it would be quite nice if this that or the other happened as well. But we know the courts won’t be fit for purpose before S21 is abolished as Labour have waffled about reform but refused to tie that in to the changes coming into force. Surely the only logical position is not supporting the changes unless court reform actually happens. It’s called a negotiating position.

Contrast that to Whelan and his stance for his own members. Incredibly Reeves settled the pay demands giving some train drivers a £9k increase to £69k basic for a four day week - without ANY concessions, which means absurdities are still on the books like getting paid time off normal duties for an annual medical check up if they have a microwave oven in a canteen.

The whole basis of Osborne’s 2015 attack on smaller landlords was they were generally unprofessional and we would be better off without them and changes such as Section 24 were designed to that end. Since then virtually every aspect of the PRS has been altered to make it a highly regulated, and costly, business to be in.

Rather late in the day now but just imagine if we had someone like Whelan in our camp actually getting the odd carrot for smaller landlords along the way.

I just wish the NRLA would clearly say that the majority of landlords are against loosing Section 21 and clearly spelling out the reasons why.

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 22/10/2024 - 12:32If only we could appoint Nigel Farage as our union leader just to even the playing field!