General Election 8th June – Who on earth do landlords vote for?

Reply to the comment left by "Chris Daniel" at "23/05/2017 - 09:47":

Chris, I really hope you are right.
However I fear another bombshell in S24 style.
Tax revenues slowed down: http://www.cityam.com/265230/government-deficit-rises-faster-than-expected-april-tax?
I am sure they find a way LLs pay for that.

They couldn't introduce anything worse apart from compulsory confiscation of your houses

Reply to the comment left by "NW Landlord" at "23/05/2017 - 13:56":

Sadly - I would not be surprised if they did that.

Reply to the comment left by "Whiteskifreak Surrey" at "23/05/2017 - 13:49":

Pay cut for all MPs and no expenses for travel to the House or subsistence when Parliament is in session (same as contractors can't get expenses for day-to-day travel and subsistence any more as it's their workplace). No benefits/tax credits for people not on basic tax rate (just adjust the tax code if it's cheaper than means testing). Scrap unneeded projects like HS2. Make big companies (and MPs) pay their VAT and tax. Scrap the IR35 rules for public sector as it'll make govt projects more expensive. Leave landlords alone to run their businesses and provide housing.

Shouldl I put vote UKIP after that?

Reply to the comment left by "Kathy Evans" at "23/05/2017 - 14:56":

I'll vote for you, Kathy, if you'll throw in dividend tax 🙂

Can anyone explain this response to my letter sent through the RLA to conservative candidate regarding section 24 it has left me confused to say the least

Dear Steven

Thank you for your email.

We have not built enough homes in this country for generations, and buying or renting a home has become increasingly unaffordable. If we do not put this right, we will be unable to extend the promise of a decent home, let alone home ownership, to the millions who deserve it.

Our manifesto commits to fixing the dysfunctional housing market so that housing is more affordable and people have the security they need to plan for the future. The key to this is to build enough homes to meet demand. That will slow the rise in housing costs so more ordinary, working families can afford to buy a home and bring the cost of renting down – and it will ensure that more private capital is invested in more productive investment, helping the economy to grow faster and more securely in future years.

If elected, we will meet our 2015 commitment to deliver a million homes by the end of 2020 and we will deliver half a million more by the end of 2022. We will deliver the reforms proposed in our Housing White Paper to free up more land for new homes in the right places, speed up build-out by encouraging modern methods of construction and give councils powers to intervene where developers do not act on their planning permissions; and we will diversify who builds homes in this country.

We will build better houses, to match the quality of those we have inherited from previous generations. That means supporting high-quality, high-density housing like mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets. It means maintaining the existing strong protections on designated land like the Green Belt, National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It means not just concentrating development in the south-east but rebalancing housing growth across the country, in line with our modern industrial strategy. It means government building 160,000 houses on its own land. It means supporting specialist housing where it is needed, like multigenerational homes and housing for older people, including by helping housing associations increase their specialist housing stock.

We will never achieve the numbers of new houses we require without the active participation of social and municipal housing providers. We will help councils to build, but only those councils who will build high-quality, sustainable and integrated communities. We will enter into new Council Housing Deals with ambitious, pro-development, local authorities to help them build more social housing. We will work with them to improve their capability and capacity to develop more good homes, as well as providing them with significant low-cost capital funding. In doing so, we will build new fixed-term social houses, which will be sold privately after ten to fifteen years with an automatic Right to Buy for tenants, the proceeds of which will be recycled into further homes.

Thank you again for writing.

Ellis
Correspondence Team
Conservative Party

From: steo40@hotmail.com [mailto:steo40@hotmail.com]
Sent: 22 May 2017 08:39
To: Info
Cc: webcampaigns@rla.org.uk
Subject: FAO: Sam Currie - West Lancashire

Dear Sam Currie

I am writing as a local resident, ahead of the general election, asking for you to support landlords in tackling the housing crisis.

The private rented sector (PRS) has doubled in size and now provides a home for one in five UK households. Buying a home is out of reach for many people, and demand for private renting is set to increase. The Royal Incorporation of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) estimates that 1.8 million new homes to rent are required by 2025. The PRS is an essential part of any solution to the housing crisis.

The majority of PRS accommodation is supplied by ordinary people who own one or two properties, and have invested as an alternative to a pension. They need to be supported by policies that boost the supply of safe secure and legal homes.

However, recent government policy has undermined the confidence of private landlords. Recent tax changes, including restrictions on mortgage interest relief and an additional 3% surcharge on stamp duty have deterred investment by landlords and stalled the whole housing market.

Nor have these changes helped tenants, putting upward pressure on rents, and forcing landlords to reduce maintenance or sell off badly needed-homes to rent.

The restrictions on tax relief on landlords' finance costs, in particular, are wrong. Corporate landlords are exempt, meaning the burden applies only to small independent landlords. These landlords are being taxed on a legitimate business cost. Some will be forced into a higher tax bracket, despite receiving no additional income, while others may face paying tax on losses.

If you are elected on June 8th, will you give a commitment to reversing this damaging tax change?

Further information on this, and other issues affecting private renting, can be found in the Residential Landlords Association manifesto, or by visiting the RLA website.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my concerns and I look forward to receiving your response.

This email and any attachments to it (the 'Email') are intended for a specific recipient(s) and its contents may be confidential, privileged and/or otherwise protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this Email in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or email, and delete it from your records. You must not disclose, distribute, copy or otherwise use this Email. Please note that email is not a secure form of communication and that the Conservative Party ('the Party') is not responsible for loss arising from viruses contained in this Email nor any loss arising from its receipt or use. Any opinion expressed in this Email is not necessarily that of the Party and may be personal to the sender.

Join the Conservatives today and help secure a brighter future for Britain: https://www.conservatives.com/join

Leave a gift in your Will – be proud to protect your Party: http://www.conservativefoundation.co.uk/

Promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party, both at 4 Matthew Parker Street, London, SW1H 9HQ

Reply to the comment left by "NW Landlord" at "24/05/2017 - 15:51":

1. this was not even replied to by Sam Currie. The reply came from someone called Ellis in the "Correspondence Team".

2. the response is actually a verbatim transcript for the Tory Manifesto (starting on page 72). It does not address any of the points that you raised (typical political response of not answering the question that was asked - I am surprised answer wasn't "that the country needs strong & stable Government").

Reply to the comment left by "NW Landlord" at "24/05/2017 - 15:51":

You might get more luck sending the email directly to him "samuel_currie@hotmail.com"

https://www.westlancsconservatives.com/general-election-2017

Reply to the comment left by "Barry Fitzpatrick" at "24/05/2017 - 16:15":

Ellis most probably did not even read the letter, he just does copy-paste from the manifesto. He saw two words "housing Crisis" - so that is the reply he was told to give.
Load of tosh anyway.
I have written to our conservative candidate a number of times, also after the Parliament was dissolved, and got nothing.
Until there is a PRS crisis on an unprecedented scale, they will not even reply.
Honestly, after dementia tax and some other points in that manifesto, I thought we are back to communism, with a Supreme Leader Red Theresa.
VOTE TACTICALLY!

Reply to the comment left by "NW Landlord" at "23/05/2017 - 13:56":

Don't believe it can't happen!

A sentence in an article* about North Korea I was just reading leaped out at me. It was:

"Private property was abolished, initially by punitive taxes."

It has only taken a year for us to start seeing an effect of punitive tax changes on the PRS. And now there are all the 'dementia tax' changes in the offing...

So, while we thought that campaigning about the PRS tax changes was about our interests as landlords, perhaps after all, we are actually fighting the slippery slope that leads to the abolition of private property??

* https://capx.co/inside-the-cruelest-country-in-the-world/