Fergus Wilson Panorama documentary – now available on iPlayer

Disappointed with last nights programme. Such an opportunity lost, no mention of tax issues that must be the main reason his kids don't want to inherit. Could have said he was selling those with mortgages first due to section 24. Blaming mortgage provider t&c's for not renting to dss etc. Property was in better condition than I anticipated. Fergus is not the best speaker, the "Landlord is in control" bit made me cringe as will no doubt be picked by anti landlord groups. Not representative of all landlords (but will be deemed to be!) - have decided to not where my cap anymore!

How do you know what Panorama cut out? As far as I could see Fergus was not the producer nor the editor? Pity we cannot be more supportive to a fellow landlord. Do you know his personal life? The media and government/politicians will divide us and rule. However given the flavour of the report it does confirm that extracting oneself from the PRS is the correct decision and asap.

From Fergus Wilson himself:

"Fergus Wilson accuses the BBC of left wing bias!
The BBC is known as the Biased Broadcasting Corporation for very good reason!
Every time Richard Bilton is on a housing programme it is the same old gramophone record of the poor parents with Children with nowhere to go!
It is a subject close to his heart! However, he does the TV audience no good at all by talking up precious time showing tenants forced out and avoiding dealing with the Causation of the Problem!
No time was spent dealing with the prime issue of why are landlords leaving BTL in their hoards due to the punitive tax regimes being introduced for landlords by HMG.
I am slightly different as I am retiring due to old age but for those younger landlords exiting BTL it is because the Government has made it so unattractive.
I ran through the reasons why the Private Sector is no longer investing but it was cut out in favour of Richard Bilton’s same old song!
HMG needs to address just why the PSL is no longer investing.
It is time for Richard Bilton to be thrown on the scrapheap. He is out of time and out of touch!"

Just another thinly-veiled piece of lobbying for the removal of S.21, for which this journalist has history by whipping up the anti-landlord feeling already prevalent in society by biased and unbalanced presentation of selective features of the "not fit for purpose" AST. Didn't count the number of times he said tenants are "booted out" - must have been in double figures. Polly Neate delivering several soundbites repeating the lie that eviction from a PRS tenancy is the biggest cause of homelessness when in fact it's not even the biggest cause of statutory homelessness (a very restricted definition) and more tenants are evicted from the social sector than from the private sector. In contrast, not one representative of landlords featured at any point in the programme. As others have said, there was no mention of the effects of S.21 or other anti-landlord legislation, or of the fact that if a landlord wishes or needs to retire the only options open to him are to evict using S.21 or sell at a lower price to another landlord, who may or may not retain the existing tenant.

Reply to the comment left by Rob Crawford at 19/03/2019 - 08:18
Yes could not agree more Rob, whatever was to be gained or achieved, impressions made and options swayed was certainly up to the BBC, and those gains would not be for us landlords. Never!

So when Fergus says such things as"the landlord is in control", well we certainly are NOT, nor have we been for a fair fews years, in fact our influence is greatly dismissing.
Also comments like "there are only two types of tenants,Ones who do as he says and ex tenants" erhm. Wtf!?!

Non of that will help one iota. So has the landscape been changed? No. Have we gained any support from anyone other than.us landlords? Very much doubted.

Another load of s**t from the Beeb to support its own self funding leftist narrative and indoctrination.

Best wishes to you Fergus in your retirement. The way I see it is that if that was the worst scenario the BBC could show of a Landlord of over a 1000 properties at some time then I think Fergus, you deserve a gold medal or a least a knighthood from the government!!!!. Could they not find any run down properties, accuse you of racialism then show foreigners as tenants albeit leaving. Shame they didn't comment on the 1000's of people you have homed over the years that the government couldn't. What a load of old b*****ks and terrible reporting that was. Great respect to your wife who presented well.

Reply to the comment left by Rob Crawford at 19/03/2019 - 08:18
The worse portrayal for me ( and I don't know how on earth the Beeb got him to pose for it ) was the cover photo of him in ' fistycuffs - boxing stance ' !
ouch.
Otherwise, I'm with FW and against everyone who attacks Landlords except the few Criminal ones ( of which FW is Not )

Reply to the comment left by dismayed landlord at 19/03/2019 - 08:28
We can only comment on what was presented. Unfortunately a negative perception was the result and to many "perception is real", even if we know otherwise. It would be great for Fergus to comment on his view of the program!

Reply to the comment left by Chris Daniel at 19/03/2019 - 09:27
Yeah, not sure why Fergus made that pose, especially given his bit of previous a conviction on that count.
I m hoping it was a p**s take. Fair dos....A big two fingers to the lot of them and that's me done. Adiós.

I cannot believe some of the comments I'm reading here supporting Fergus Wilson and blaming the BBC. FW said on camera "we've got two types of tenants - we've got those that agree with me and ex-tenants." No one forced him to say this. He could have restricted all his comments to statements explaining why changes in government policy were causing landlords to leave the sector but he chose not to.

Also, in my opinion when you're a multi-millionaire running up almost £30,000 of legal fees and seeking to claim that back from a young couple who were awarded £1,200 against you is just plain wrong.

To those you have expressed support for FW, I say you've been in the echo chamber far too long. This isn't just an issue of PR - how you treat your customers matters. If a supermarket sold you rancid food and when you complained they said, we own the shop, go shop somewhere else if you don't like it, there would be an outcry.

Tenants who pay the rent and look after the property should be treated with respect. Yes, sometimes landlords need vacant possession to sell a property but the mindset of I'll do whatever I like because I'm the landlord is out of the 19th century and isn't fit for the century we're living in.

I think I better start selling my properties because if landlords can't see how bad FW looked on Panorama we can expect a much bigger assault on the PRS from government.