Generation Rent claims renting harms a tenant’s mental health

Reply to the comment left by TheMaluka at 15/10/2024 - 11:34
It’s all true! As a LL I suffer from - hjjk - fdsd - ddhg - hdr - sggf - jhrt - ddfs and rot! It’s terrible, I don’t know which way to turn, I’m in bits. My mental health is shattered!! I’ll be bankrupt and all the shop doorways are full! What’s coming next?

Generation Rent have a point. We all need a home that we feel secure in.

Tories introduced Section 24. Some landlords chose to evict their tenants and sell up or switched to holiday lets. This ‘unintended consequence’ of the Tories’ legislation dumped a whole load of stress on private renters and private landlords. It also increased stress levels for those seeking social housing as more people joined the extremely long queues to be housed.

Then, the Tories promised to end Section 21. They failed, of course, but the mere threat was enough to cause landlords to sell up or switch to holiday lets. A repeat of the unintended consequences outlines above.

Now, Labour plan to go further. Guess what? Private landlords and tenants will be severely impacted once again.

I wonder what it is that I have done so wrong that I deserve to be attacked in this way. More importantly, what have my tenants done. They will suffer more than I do.

But I will not lay down to be kicked forever.

Reply to the comment left by RGJ25 at 15/10/2024 - 11:29
Did anyone see the item on the news last night about a company using the detritus left after Leeds Festival (and others such as Glastonbury) to create sustainable fashion (well done!).

These festival-goers are predominantly young people, many of whom will be graduates with huge debts, paying rent, and if the stats are anything to go by, most likely have self-diagnosed mental health problems... but only when it comes to things they don't like doing i.e. going in to work, paying rent... Yet, they can afford the extortionate costs of these events, and to leave their tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, etc... behind when they leave.

What about landlords mental health?

I haven't applied significant rent increases in recent years. As a small portfolio landlord I prefer long-term tenants although how long term that will be I don't know as the recent announcement re upgrades to Band C or above will affect that.

My tenants send their children to private school. Last year in September my tenants contacted me to say that they would not be able to pay their rent. It was the second time they'd done this in September. I went back with, "..you need to pay your rent on time and in full if you want your family to continue to be able to live at the property." The neighbours advised me that the tenants had just returned back from a family holiday in America.

This year, a few weeks ago, my agent contacted me to say that they were chasing the rent that the tenant had not paid (as an explanation for the absence of the rent that I had not received, with no explanation other than that the tenants had just returned from a family holiday in America). The tenant came back and said that the two outstanding rent payments would be paid in a month with one lot on a credit card. Then the tenants came back in a month and said that they could not pay the rent. I went back and said that all outstanding rents must be paid by the end of the first week in October and I will be at the property to do maintenance work in the second week in October. The rent got paid last week, which I assume means that they found another source of credit other than me.

I've no doubt that my actions in insisting that the rent is paid on time and in full could affect my tenants' mental health if they find that they are unable to afford their family holidays and their private school fees. Especially as labour have now applied VAT to private school fees. But that does not mean that I should not insist that the rent is paid on time and in full.

I am not my tenants' bank or their lender of last resort. If tenants can't afford their rent they need to take a look at their lifestyle.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 15/10/2024 - 10:53
If a tenant has problems a landlord is unlikely to be the cause.
In fact a landlord is providing a solution for tenants, reducing their problems.

Reply to the comment left by JB at 15/10/2024 - 13:05
I have had a 40 year career in highly stressful, complex, global technology sales leadership, and never had a situation where I felt my 'mental health' was suffering, and the one time I felt I needed to do things differently for the sake of my health, I acted immediately to change things.

In Nov 2019 I accepted a tenant who had (apparently) passed his referencing and credit checks. Self-employed painter & decorator, good earner, always in work, child & ex- living in the same block... One month on and he didn't pay his rent. My agent helped him out and he caught up in 2 months. Then covid happened and he simply stopped paying his rent. His reason? Landlords can get a mortgage holiday, so he didn't have to pay it.

I explained my situation; costs to be covered, mortgage still needed paying, and proposed a payment plan. He ceased all engagement.

I then caught covid in a major way, out of things for 3 weeks, lost 2 stone (I'm not a big lad!), and had to give up work. At the same time, I was due to start a £200k house refurbishment, with all the attendant issues and delays covid brought up.

He then started having drink and drug fueled parties & generally committing ASB to his neighbours who were scared. All during lockdown, and the police did nothing. He claimed he wasn't earning anything, but his neighbours confirmed he was working every day. He also claimed every government SEISS grant; £thousands... and I eventually found he was also claiming UC. By that time, I was earning nothing. I then heard he'd been arrested for downloading child porn over a disabled neighbour's Wi-Fi which he was given the password while painting her flat. It then became known that he was on the sex offenders register after being convicted for the same offence previously.

Not receiving the rent was not causing me financial difficulty, but the cumulative effects of what he was doing and had done, the effect of covid on my ability to do everyday things, damage he was causing to neighbour relations, the mounting debt, and my impending building project, and my inability to do anything about the situation, all came together, and I felt myself drowning in the hopelessness of the situation. At one point, I seriously contemplated accepting an offer from one of his neighbours to let him and his mates 'resolve' the situation without my involvement, until my partner persuaded me otherwise.

Eventually, though he tried to play games with timing the odd rent payment, he hit 6 months arrears and I served the S8. I included the ASB for good measure but knew it would be almost impossible to prove. My eviction specialist lawyer then sadly died of covid, and his firm couldnt access his files, so I had to find a new lawyer.

It took 15 months and £20k+ to evict this feckless tenant, and for the first time in my life, my mental health really was damaged. It killed my enjoyment of the PRS, and destroyed my faith in renters.

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 15/10/2024 - 13:51
I know other people who have had similar experiences as landlords and who have had to take more than a year removing problem tenants when as landlords they had done nothing wrong at all. And yes, even though my friends won in the end in the sense that they regained control of their properties (although never received financial compensation for their losses) it had a very significant impact on their mental health.

The government needs to recognise that the present system leaves landlords vulnerable to problem tenants.

Wile I agree with most, if not all, of comments I still think the problems the sector are suffering are substantially arising because there is no clear difference between what I will describe as professional landlords and others. Professional landlords, look after properties, seek long term good tenants and comply with all the rules and requirements. Others, often accidental landlords or those who think that being a landlord is an easy way of making fast money either don't know or don't want to know or comply with the requirements and as soon as their interest changes or things get too difficult want to evict tenants and sell up.
This doesn't take anything away from the comments of contributors above, but helps explain why landlords get a bad press and have to suffer continuous criticisman and punitive legislation. It also enables and encourages the 'world owes me a living' types to act as they do.

Reply to the comment left by REB at 15/10/2024 - 13:59
Sorry, but your comments are out of order, and are just what activists want to hear landlords saying about other landlords.

The vast majority of landlords may not be large portfolio landlords, but they are 'professional' in how they go about managing their rental properties.