Renters’ Rights Bill comes back to Parliament – start the clock!

Like the proverbial bad penny, the unwelcome return of the Renters’ Rights Bill to Parliament next week is not to be celebrated.

The countdown to the doom of the private rented sector will begin in earnest and we’ll see which amendments look like becoming law.

A law that could be in place by the summer.

I should recommend that everyone reads the latest version of the RRB to be debated but I won’t – I read the first version, and it was a borefest.

There won’t be any good news for landlords, and I still hope that the media and politicians – but especially tenants – will see what a significant issue this is.

We still need to get the message across that small landlords are leaving the PRS in droves.

It’s not even a trickle but it promises to become a flood once the Bill finally approaches Royal Assent.

Landlords leaving inevitably drives up prices and makes the homelessness situation worse. And taxpayers must pay for yet more hotels to house them.

I’m sad to say that it looks like decent landlords who are proud of what they provide will be the ones going.

So, while I’ve been saying ‘I told you so’ for some time, perhaps this is an opportunity to look afresh at what the real problem is.

Impressing tenants with a promise

Essentially, we now have another government set on impressing tenants with a promise to improve the PRS and deal with landlords.

Balancing the PRS playing field sounds great but it’s just one side that is being balanced.

This is now the time to look at the negative effects and we need the likes of the NRLA – or anyone – to push this narrative.

Small landlords will be simply overwhelmed with the new rules.

These are good people offering decent homes at a reasonable rent.

They aren’t criminal landlords out to exploit tenants but those who simply want an extra income or boost their pension fund.

That’s not a criminal enterprise, is it?

To the tenant organisations and lefty politicians, it certainly is.

Just about every new rule for the PRS is nonsense on stilts without any consideration of its impact.

Extend the notice period – for many renters, that’s an extension to a rent free period.

Hand your notice in on day one? That’s a costly inconvenience and will make landlords wary about who they take on.

We must take pets – I’m not sure why this is even being discussed.

Bin ASTs to become periodic so there’s no end date. Who does that benefit, exactly?

Create hurdles for the legitimate eviction of non-paying and/or poorly behaving tenants is crazy. I’ve said before the issue with landlord licensing is making us responsible for a tenant’s behaviour – but we can’t evict them easily!

It’s like when Right to Rent came in, it looks good on paper (to politicians, natch), but it means we are doing someone else’s job.

Being a landlord

Being able to reclaim a property is a crucial part of being a landlord.

There’s no appreciation of the risk we take when renting out a property or the effort and money we spend in taking it back.

The Decent Homes Standard is another issue being hung around our necks – decent landlords will offer decent homes.

The uninvestigated and uninterested criminal landlords won’t.

I would hope to see the planned timeline of 14 days to investigate and seven days to fix also extend to social housing landlords.

Mainly because it will cause chaos because most of them can’t run a bath.

And don’t get me started (again!) on having to meet the EPC C rating by 2030 when social landlords don’t have to.

Growing numbers of us have lost confidence in the future.

That’s understandable since Labour strives to secure better deals for tenants, it doesn’t understand or even care about the plight of landlords.

To me, that means the dreaded Renters’ Rights Bill is not only self-defeating because life and costs for tenants are about to get much worse.

But the Bill is being ideologically driven – those behind it are intentionally blind to its ramifications.

Labour won’t deliver homes

There’s still no hope that Labour will even deliver a fraction of the promised 1.5 million homes – and they still won’t say that most of them will go to newcomers.

The government has been warned time and time again, and it still chooses not to listen.

So, let’s see what happens when a blizzard of section 21 ‘no-fault’ eviction notices starts to fly after the Bill passes its final hurdle.

The numbers will swamp the courts and councils will bleat about needing more money to house the homeless.

It will be a final act of defiance to 10 years of uncaring politicians finally getting what they deserve.

That will be our ideological response to being forced to hand over our homes without a voice.

To all our MPs set to vote on this: you will hear our voice when you pass the Bill – but you’ll hear it from the mouths of aggrieved tenants with nowhere to rent.

Until next time,

The Landlord Crusader

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