Nick Bano’s Misguided Call to Abolish Private Landlords: Why His Proposal Would Devastate the UK Housing Market

Best to ignore this crank?

I'd like him to put me out of business.
He or the Councils or Govt can buy the lot of my houses tomorrow.
I'll give him £10,000 discount each one if he can agree to keep the same tenants in their same homes at the same 30% below market rent for the next 10 years.
Give him my details please.

I agree with this. On your specific comments:

"Regulations like Section 24 and the SDLT surcharge don’t hurt corporate landlords; they hurt the smaller landlords who provide the majority of rental homes across the UK."

This is absolutely right. Government policy is having the effect of making it difficult for small landlords to operate (other than by dramatically increasing rents to offset the impact of for example now being unable to offset their finance costs) and encouraging the growth of larger incorporated landlords.

Government policy is driving choice for tenants out of the market and driving rents up. Probably the government should get the Competition and Markets Authority to take a look at government policies and explain the situation to them. The CMA has plenty of evidence to look at and in particular the effect of the recent SNP rent controls in Scotland.

It would probably also be a good idea for the CMA to take a look at the proposal to ban tenants from renting properties at EPC band D or below rather than reforming the EPC system to make it meaningful. The CMA could offer a view on what this is likely to do to rents, even if the government isn't capable of working this out for itself, or is turning a blind eye to it in pursuit of the latest trendy dogma.

And on the comment, "Is Bano suggesting that we create a bureaucratic nightmare and force private landlords to surrender their investments?..."

The government can't do this. All that would happen is that many smaller landlords would stop renting their properties and either sell them (to owner-occupiers or larger incorporated landlords) or put family members into them. It would hurt tenants, families, single-parent households, divorced couples, economic migrants, asylum-seekers, charities and also councils and other social-housing providers by removing options from the market.

In much the same way that the latest bright idea of imposing extra national insurance costs on employers damages both the NHS and other healthcare providers and could drive some of them out of business, this anti-landlord, anti-choice rhetoric would increase the welfare bill imposed on the taxpayer if anybody was fool enough to implement it.

Bottom line in the provision of rental accommodation: If you in government don't know what you are doing then let the Competition and Markets Authority take a look and make sure that when you brief them the scope of the review compares the effect of provision across the PRS, charitable sector, and social housing provision including both council housing and housing association accommodation. It's pointless using landlords as a scapegoat for a situation created by government because in the end those badly conceived and implemented policies would come back and bite both local government and the exchequer on the a***e.

Nick has obviously been to university - this is the type of rubbish that university's spout to the students - when they grow up they see the world in a different light - I was amazed at the clap trap which came out of Sussex University when my daughter was there - free housing for all, everyone should be given a state house - the state will own you and you will be happy - as said typical university clap trap. Bring on communism it will be too late when the population wakes up.

It's in The Guardian! 🤣

"Mass-scale housebuilding isn’t necessary – there is already enough housing stock. But we need to learn the wisdom of the last century when it comes to landlordism" Is this a windup from yet another misguided university student?. Very basic question Nick from someone who didn't go to uni, I'm obviously a bit thick. Get rid of all landlords, fine if that's what you want, but where do all the tenants go and how does this solve the housing crisis? Please answer my question if you read this. No need to write a book just a simple answer to help me understand what it is I'm missing here.

Reply to the comment left by Dennis Leverett at 07/11/2024 - 13:37
"Learning the lesson of the last century?...."

Learning the lesson of the last ten years in Scotland would be a start.

You can't abolish landlords, the question is are your landlords private or state owned.

But this is stage 1. After abolishing landlords, they will abolish home ownership.