9:49 AM, 2nd July 2024, About 5 months ago 38
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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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northern landlord
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Sign Up17:04 PM, 2nd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Rod at 02/07/2024 - 10:52
A tip on capital gains tax, don’t do it online, download and use the paper form (filing on line is not compulsory there must always be a paper option for people who have no internet don’t understand computers or just don’t want to) . We sold one of our rental properties in February filled in the form, and posted it off (got proof of posting) just received a bill on 1st July to be paid by the end of the month. So we got to keep the 6 months interest gained on the tax money while waiting for HMRC to respond. If they owe you money go online as it might be quicker but if you owe them money send a form in.
JeggNegg
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Sign Up18:39 PM, 2nd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Katy Ann at 02/07/2024 - 09:56But if there were enough houses/homes for everyone
and supply and demand forces came into play,
might the capital growth slow or even turn negative?
who knows because in my lifetime we have never had a surplus of houses. whereas at the moment , based on the thousands of new cars i noticed parked to the west of the M5 motorway near the Gordano Services, last sunday, i suggest the value of newish cars falls mainly to supply and demand. although i believe there was a problem with parts during the covid months and i recall car prices actually increased. another example of this is my late grandfather's car (1st on the road in the late 1940's) is on the market for sale at offers around £10,000. i am not sure if there would be any taxes to pay on the sale of said car.
JeggNegg
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Sign Up20:39 PM, 2nd July 2024, About 5 months ago
why does the very important subject of housing have to be at the mercy of political parties? its been agreed there is a massive shortage of homes/houses/or beds for years.
is it time the uk had housing and water and transportation etc. run by non political bodies and they just got the job done.?
Kay Landlord
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Sign Up20:59 PM, 2nd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by David Smith at 02/07/2024 - 10:21
I hope you vote sensibly
I think many on here will do the right thing on Thursday
London drivers and Landlords are always bashed
David Smith
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Sign Up21:13 PM, 2nd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Kay Landlord at 02/07/2024 - 20:59
I live in one of the safest Conservative constituencies.
I think all the parties are out to get us!!
JaSam
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Sign Up7:55 AM, 3rd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Good analogy and works if you’re a single tax driver, but let’s face it most of us own more than 1 taxi and in my opinion this is where your argument falls over. Owning more than one taxi means you’re a business rather than a “bit of extra” on the side.
Think about loaning money instead of a taxi. You loan one person money at a time and charge interest, that can probably work great. But now let’s say you lead 20 people money, you’re a business and need to be regulated otherwise your a “loan shark”.
I sympathise the current situation with landlords it’s hostile but it’s time to face facts, the government wants to stop the “P” in PRS.
Just need to sell up and switch investments elsewhere that’s what I’m doing.
Peter Merrick
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Sign Up8:21 AM, 3rd July 2024, About 5 months ago
The problem with the analogy with taxi drivers is that housing is a human right, and therefore an entitlement enshrined in law. Whilst it is emphatically NOT the responsibility of private individuals to provide for people's human rights, unfortunately the hatred that has been aimed against landlords for supposedly exploiting and profiting from tenants' need for housing is also supercharged by the unwritten assumption that we are also responsible for maintaining their human right to housing. Thus, terminating the provision for any reason is increasingly being portrayed as a violation of the tenant's human rights rather than an exercise of the landlord's human right to own and control their own property. Likewise, making a profit out of the tenant's need is seen as being "greedy", rather than an essential prerequisite of running a business, or such activity being investible
I prefer the analogy of the supermarket being forced to allow customers to take their weekly food shop away with them without paying once they have become a customer, allowing them to trash the shelves whilst they are there, be rude and abusive to the staff if they try to challenge them, having to wait two months to do anything about it and then go though the courts for up to a year before they can stop the customer entering their shop and walking off with free food,. All the while being branded as greedy and exploitative for charging for the food in the first place, and lambasted in the media for callously withdrawing the customer's access to the food that they desperately need.
JaSam
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Sign Up8:44 AM, 3rd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Peter Merrick at 03/07/2024 - 08:21
And that happens to date, "shoplifters" can steal without any consequences. If less than £100 the police won't even turn up. This country is going down the toilet. Landlords are just part of the flushing. Bring on the results Friday it's only going to get worse. NLA need to grow a pair.
Frank Jennings
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Sign Up12:35 PM, 3rd July 2024, About 5 months ago
Nailed it!
Puts the whole rotten system into stark relief. Shows the govenment how much they hate us Landlords, and shows how unfair they have become towards the PRS.
Unfortunately it seems the *ONLY* way THEY will get the message is if we ALL sell up and invest elsewhere.
It's coming to that point very soon. Once labor get in power, then it's all change!
I'm trying to hang on for the sake of my very good tennants, and in the vain hope that I'll be able to survive the onslaught that's continuing to kill off the PRS.
I know, I have high Hope's, but heres a thing. If labor destroy the PRS, will they really want to be the party that achieved that, with the mess it is already causing, and will cause, such as more homelessness and poverty among their own voters? Hmmm?
Mark Hunter
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Sign Up10:21 AM, 4th July 2024, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Peter Merrick at 03/07/2024 - 08:21
Water is a human right, but plumbers don't get the blame when the whole water system is underfunded and prices are going up, even though the quality of the service received is going down.
The state of the housing market is not a private landlord's fault. He is actually helping to provide a solution.