Coronavirus – Covid 19 – Open Letter To All Landlords And Tenants

Excellent article Anon, I will share on Facebook and other Social Media and encourage others to do the same.

Please can you up date this article when you know more about point 5? Because already have one tenant say she won't pay for 2 months because she has been laid off by easyjet but I still have to pay the mortgage and legally I can't evict her for 3 months (I believe!?). Not that I want to but I have no money to pay for her living.

Brilliantly written. Many thanks

It might be worth adding, for those landlords with 1 or only a couple of rental properties, as a couple of creative Facebook groups I am a member of have said landlords should apply for Universal Credit if they need the rental income to live on, that Universal Credit applies a 10% value to any property not the landlords main home as a "savings asset" which will in all likelihood take the landlord over the UC maximum £16k savings threshold.

many thanks - that is brilliant, very helpful and I have saved it and shared it on Facebook and Twitter

Reply to the comment left by Judith Wordsworth at 23/03/2020 - 09:56
It's all common sense really but the problem is all the idiots/unscrupulous people who don't take it seriously. Apparently yesterday roads were blocked by people queuing to get into Tesco etc. stores and crowds of people queuing outside the stores to get in while inside was packed. Groups of people wandering around yesterday in parks etc. why don't they realise they can pick up the virus with no effect to themselves but pass it on to someone else. People are apparently stealing toilet rolls from public toilets!! I appreciate this virus is an unknown but 1000's of people die every year from flu/flu related infections, something like 83,000 in USA last year but they don't get all this help from governments, perhaps I'm missing something?? Employees only get 80% if the employer keeps them on the Pay roll.

Very balanced article, which is more than can be said for the Governments response, which simply put is ;
'Lets just tell Tenants not to bother paying rent for 3 months because we're going to close the courts down and Prevent ALL evictions.
There are reports of Bailiff's not working in the foreseeable future. !
Well that has probably satisfied the protestations of the Labour party and a piece of proposed legislation that Giles Peaker and Justin Bates wrote for the Labour party ( enough said ! ) also, Shelter and all the Tenant protest groups ( of which I've lost count. )
There has been the usually weak response on behalf of Landlords from their 'representative' [sic] bodies.
In the turmoil of Covid-19, the Govt have lost sight of the many existing Possession claims, and future Possession claims that are NOT related to Covid-19.
Also, there are huge delays in the court process at present, If Justice is abandoned for 3 months, the existing system will simply not be able to cope when the restriction is lifted.

Reply to the comment left by Dennis Leverett at 23/03/2020 - 12:01
The issue is not with the amount of deaths caused by the virus directly. For every person that has died, there are another 5 or so who are now on life support and another 25 who are taking up ICU spaces.

So its people with other serious health conditions that are dying of those as the doctors and nurses are spread thin trying to deal with all the issues ongoing.

Flu may have killed 81,000 or so last year, but the regular flu is also about 20 times less fatal. If left to spread unchecked without restrictions, you could be looking at a death count of 1,600,000. That's what all this is trying to prevent.

Reply to the comment left by The Forever Tenant at 23/03/2020 - 12:44
Flu related deaths in the UK last year was at its worst ever and its us oldies with flu related problems that are also overloading the NHS despite the flu jab being available. I had to spend some time in hospital 18 months ago and was on a "geriatric" ward and was shocked and found it quite upsetting, genuine flu is very unpleasant for people of all ages and often means more than just a few days off work, but low paid, self employed, zero hours contracts etc. don't get any help. I just get the feeling there's more to this than we the public know about.

Thank you for this.
My tenants have approached me regarding their rental payment although they are still working, so I will use some of this information for my response.