Sadiq and Gen Rent demand putting the boot into private landlords

Reply to the comment left by Phil Harris at 20/04/2023 - 10:35Correct.
I paid £600 for selective licensing on a 2 bed flat and was paid a visit by the council.
They prepared a list of trivial items for my attention which I was not legally required to do but carried them out anyway as I would not have been approved for the licence.
I guess they need to justify the fee!

In the past I have leased properties to the local housing association and on each occasion had to have an inspection by the local authority's environmental health officer who confirmed that there were no issues to address. However, when letting to housing benefit tenants no such check has been carried out. Recently local market rents have become so detached from the lha rate that they are out of reach to housing benefit/universal benefit applicants. I do think that that these applicants are in rentals at the lowest end of the market and are vulnerable to exploitation by those landlords that tarnish the majority. The answer could be to adjust the lha rate back to the current 30th percentile and/or to target local authority inspection resources to properties occupied by those in receipt of these benefits.

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 20/04/2023 - 09:32Anything to deflect attention from the real issue: that Khan and his fellow idiots are failing to house people. If they want lots of decent housing then just build the damn things! Then the PRS would have competition and the rogue landlords would get less business. But that would be positive and creative: always easier to negate and condemn while you sit in ivory towers!
I gave up PRS once I suffered a rogue tenant and his army of supporters: the housing people who sided with him 200% and yet would never rent to him had they a rental property.
Basically the people in charge of housing are all ar$eholes which is why there is a problem. I so look forward to seeing the chickens come home to roost- on their home steps I hope!!

If Sadiq Khan is looking for a landlord to persecute, he need look no further than Charlie Chuckles, the clown who's laughing all the way to the bank, who has that big council house in the middle of London. It's a scandal that people are freezing on the streets while two pensioners have a 200-bedroom house all to themselves. Can't they open it up to the homeless, Ukrainian refugees, and boat people to celebrate getting the jewelled hats?

Generation Rent the militant wing of Shelter. Let’s face it they won’t be happy until landlords gift their properties to tenants, just so long as the landlord remains responsible for all insurance and repairs and upgrades the EPC to A/B. A small majority of PRS landlords do provide sub-standard housing but generally there is enough evidence around that it is social housing that is lagging behind the PRS in terms of standards. As an example, social housing is exempt from EICR inspections as the majority would fail on safety grounds and the cost to rectify the problems would run into billions. Social housing has also not been so hot on the issue of fire doors either with Local Authorities letting themselves off, as once again it would cost billions to rectify. As for PRS landlords hoovering up benefits, why doesn’t Citizen Khan remove all the downtrodden benefit tenants from PRS housing on his patch and use the benefit payments to provide them with top notch accommodation on controlled rents? The PRS landlords could then sell up their vacant properties and enjoy the proceeds and peace of mind. Let’s face it many are doing so already. The Governments attitude to the PRS reminds me of the joke posters you used to put up at work years ago saying “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Biggest thing Shelter and Sadiq could do to put the boot in to private landlords would be to build thousands of properties and undercut us. Shelter has the money, Sadiq has the authority (but not the money for some reason).

Hot air merchants should take some positive action instead of blaming others. Seems a bit like the fat bloke at the pub, who can't run round the block, shouting a the telly that he could have done better than Southgate.

This would anti competitive for any business and illegal. Along with the some other comments above, if there is a rent freeze to benefit receiving tenants, then landlords must have the option not to rent to benefit receivers. Can't have it both ways.

I believe this could be easily challenged in court as restricting business, especially if the landlord is incorporated

Vilifying Landlords is politically and financially attractive to politicians in the short term whilst completely disregarding future outcomes for tenants and the housing sector.

Reply to the comment left by Ofer Moses at 20/04/2023 - 10:44
if not legally obliged to do them, then on what basis can they refuse a licence? If they only came as you had paid the fee then the licence has already been issued surely?

Someone mentioned this on FB recently. Maybe there is enough housing in London?!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-11973211/Londons-homes-65-properties-plush-city-centre-unoccupied.html

London's EMPTY mansions: How up to 53% of homes in multi-million pound neighbourhoods of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea are deserted

(not a DM reader and not sure of the accuracy!)