If landlords were taxi drivers?

Imagine this, some time ago, you decided to try to improve your life and to make things better for you and your family.

You’re a hard-working person and your chosen profession was to become a private hire taxi driver.

To start off you need to buy a car. You couldn’t afford a shiny new one, so you bought a car that needed some work. No-one else would touch it and it was unlikely to be any use in it’s current state. You approached a loan company and borrowed enough to buy the car and do it up. You spent hours making sure it was clean, smart and attractive and you also paid the experts at your local garage to ensure it was safe and legal. They were grateful for the work as they are hard working individuals as well.

You want it to be comfortable and attractive to your passengers, so you go further than is required and make the inside really plush, all at your own cost in time and money. You pay for the required licenses and also begin paying a book-keeper and accountant.

You have been running your taxi business for a while, and then the government steps in because they feel your passengers are being badly treated and things need levelling up. (They also realise there are more passenger voters than taxi drivers). All taxi drivers are blamed for the state of the roads, congestion and the lack of cars available for use by the general public.

This works well for politicians because they can raise taxes in any way they see fit from the taxi industry and the voting public will be very happy to see it as they have been told all taxi drivers are evil.

You are told that you can’t choose which passengers you pick up, even if you suspect they will have trouble paying. The local council might pay the fare eventually (in a few weeks) directly to the passenger but it’s up to you to get it from them. In the past, you have lost a lot of money this way, but all taxi drivers must be rich so you should just ‘suck it up’. It’s all part of being a taxi driver.

You have had some bad experiences of passenger’s pets damaging your car and leaving it smelly and needing a full professional clean. You decide not to take pets anymore, but you are told you have to. Apparently, it’s not up to you!

If one of your passengers decides not to pay or to get out of your taxi you have to go to court to get it back. No one makes them pay in the meantime, and the system is so backlogged it takes 6 months for the court to finally let you enter your taxi again. It has been trashed and needs more work doing than when you first bought it. There’s no chance of getting any of these costs back from the passenger, but that’s all just part of being a taxi driver!

The Chancellor then steps in. He’s decided it’s not fair that you can count the interest paid on your car loan against your profits because someone with a personal loan for their family car doesn’t get any allowance against their tax bill. He puts a stop to that nonsense straight away and consequentially takes in a lot more tax in the process. He also thinks that because you have another car that you use for your personal use, you should pay extra tax when you buy your work vehicle and takes in a lot more tax again.

There are virtually no taxis owned by your local council and the few they have are in a very poor state of repair. You know yours is much nicer and better looked after than theirs, but you have to pay an outrageously priced fee every five years to the council who have employed some new people to check that yours is perfect. Once you have paid this fee, no-one turns up to inspect it anyway.

You have a passenger one night who is drunk and generally being obnoxious to members of the public. You try to throw them out of your taxi but you are told you can’t do this. You have to spend six months through the courts getting them out. You can’t make any money from your taxi during this time. The local police and council threatened you because of your passenger’s anti-social behaviour. It’s your fault another grown adult does not know how to act properly.

Then the Labour party win a general election. They have a great idea. They say when the time comes to give your car to your child, or you want to use it as your main family car, a judge will decide who would be most disadvantaged by you doing this, you or the passengers. If he decides the passengers would be worse off, you are told you can’t have your car back.

Although this all sounds ridiculous, it’s perfectly acceptable to treat landlords in this way. When will someone in power take the housing problem in our country seriously and build enough housing for everyone?

Stop blaming landlords for the failings of successive governments over many, many years and appreciate what we do to provide safe, decent accommodation to around 20% of the population.

We need support not more threatening legislation.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

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