National Audit Office – PRS regulation report critical of government’s lack of planning

The aim of this report seems to be completely unbalanced focusing entirely on regulatory control and how "unfair" the market is to renters. If this focus is maintained the market will be squeezed to death. Where will people live then, on the street? How can such an approach be fair to anyone.
Thier approach is fundermentally bonkers.

Sounds like ‘reverse-calculating’ to me…

The statement that during the period under review 29,000 households were at risk of being or actually were made homeless through no fault on their part appears to have been calculated solely on the number of Section 21 evictions, which tenant advocates such as Generation Rent like to refer to as "No Fault" evictions. As Government bodies well know, Section 21 is used where there is fault on the part of the tenant as well as when, for instance the landlord needs to sell the property - an eventuality for which there is no provision under Section 8.. They also know that landlords use S.21 because it is speedier and costs less as there is no need for court attendance, and makes it easier for the tenant to find alternative accommodation by removing the risk of CCJs.
Well, at least the authors recognise that the sector is highly complex and affected by regulations outside the remit of the Ministry for Levelling Up or whatever the Housing Ministry is called nowadays and does critise "lack of holistic planning". However, the whole report seems to examine the problem from the point of view of the tenants without giving due consideration to the landlord side of provision or the wider societal matters which impinge so heavily on housing provision.

The report seems to be based on the assumption that the PRS is a social service which should be brought under ever tightening governmental control rather than a collection of private enterprises operating in a free economy.
Some landlords might be happy with the situation but those who are not have had plenty of warning of things to come and anyone who thinks that s21 will not be abolished is living in a fool's paradise.

How do they know it is non fault eviction? I've issued approximately 9 Sections 21's that have gone to eviction over 24 years & not once have I been asked why.
Why would a Landlord who has spent 35k deposit on a house, 25k refurb, he NEEDS that rent money coming in. Why would He/She evict a good paying tenant? The last thing he needs is no rent coming in or hassle.
Please come & ask us people.

If they bring more regs & charges in cause of this, then it will become even more expensive & unfair for renters.

The previous comments are all fair comments on the blurb set before us. I see a lot of 'fair to renters' (do they mean 'tenants'?) but nothing regarding the essential purpose behind landlords who own and let out property, whether residential or commercial. Landlords are not a branch of the DSS, they ask for a reasonable ROI, sometimes to supplement a meagre fixed pension income.
As such it seems to me a piece of advocacy rather than any sort of balanced report and should be described as such?

I think it is time that we LL shout it from the roof tops that we pay tax on any profit. I have decided to tell my tenants how much the government and the local council have profited from then the tenant for renting my property. Organisation’s like Shelter need to be asked at every opportunity how much tax the government gets from the PRS as apposed to housing associations etc..

Someone called HCR wrote the following on the Landlord Zone forum today about this news item. I hope he or she will forgive me for reproducing it here, because I think they sum up the situation very well....

What an absolute joke ..landlords have to jump through fired hoops to get a tenants out of a property…..that’s after complying with ll the regulations. Landlords buy houses spend time and money getting them up to standard then have to negate to ring a good tenant who they hope will look after their investment. If at the end of the tenancy you get your property back in a ‘kind of’ liveable state your lucky that’s if you don’t have to go through the courts to get them out. So let’s get this right the government want private landlords to fill in the housing shortage, they put caps on housing benefit payments so it’s not financially viable for the landlord to rent to tenants on benefits, keep bringing in new legislation to cost the landlord even more money, give tenants (bad or good) free advice on evictions and support them through it which causes delays on evictions and costs the landlords even more money, landlords getting fined for not doing immigration checks ‘right to rent and affordability checks, reduce the amount of money earned by not allowing the mortgage interest payment to be deducted from tax, cannot charge fees for referencing, landlords having to pay higher premiums on insurance depending what type of tenant you have plus a load more of high jumps ……….then they and others who support tenants have the cheek to say that tenants are not protected!……..pity us landlords don’t have the same support given when we are dealing with horrible tenants who obviously know their rights and abuse the system. Hang your heads in shame to the people who make up these rules ..