Section 24 and Student Debt

Section 24 and Student Debt

13:07 PM, 4th October 2017, About 7 years ago 9

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As we all know, student finances and debt are hugely sensitive subjects for all politicians at the moment. One of Corbyn’s key platforms has been student fees and the resultant debt that comes with them. The Conservatives have also had a pop in this space in the last week with a pathetic pitch to “limit” the exposure of students to debt in the future (a drop in the ocean if you ask me).

As a student landlord, Section 24 has forced me to increase my rents to all my student tenants, and I know most of the other local landlords are doing likewise. I am currently about 2/3 of the cost of the Corporate (aka student pod) landlords, so I have plenty of headroom to increase rents in line with the additional costs imposed on me by the Government.

It got me thinking about the additional debt that our students will be incurring as a direct result of Section 24, loss of wear and tear allowance, impending licensing costs etc.

The following is a back of fag packet calculation, and I know will vary from city to city, but I suspect that I’m not a million miles away. There are 2.3 million students currently in full time education. Assume all first year students go into student pods, that means that the remaining Year 2 and Year 3 are housed in the PRS – say 1.5 million to keep it simple. Using my own rental increases as a benchmark, my tenants will be paying an additional £1000-1200 per annum by 2020. Extrapolated across the whole sector, that’s £1.5–1.8 BILLION of ADDITIONAL student debt being incurred EACH YEAR as a direct result of Section 24, loss of wear and tear relief, licensing etc.

I shall be pointing out as much to my MP in my next email to him. Any P118 members out there that do social media (I don’t even use Facebook!), a post in the various rent protest pages may help stimulate debate within the student community.

Doug


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Fen Jen

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14:42 PM, 4th October 2017, About 7 years ago

Yes but the governments don't care. All they want to be able to do is collect extra tax and the more you increase the rents, the more tax they will get.

Yvonne Francis

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15:38 PM, 4th October 2017, About 7 years ago

I think Doug you are a bit over confident in your rent increases. I'm in a city with student HMO's in the most prestigious University in the world but there is an oversupply of private houses and I know this is the case in other areas. Partly because of Universities building their own accommodation which they can force their students to take and because it has been an area of the market with high profits so endless Landlords are moving in. If you are wondering by now why I'm still a Landlord in this market then I'm in a good financial position with no borrowings and can offer good accommodation at desirable rates and because I'm just hanging on so my children have a tax advantage when I die.

Annie Landlord

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17:56 PM, 4th October 2017, About 7 years ago

I'm not in the student market, but just out of interest, how can a university force its students to take its own accommodation?

user_ 7167

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18:40 PM, 4th October 2017, About 7 years ago

Obfuscated Data

Grumpy Doug

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22:32 PM, 4th October 2017, About 7 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Annie Landlord at 04/10/2017 - 17:56Yes, I was intrigued by that - there's no coercion down here. I think that year 1 students tend to default into the standard Uni accomodation, but if they've got their heads screwed on, they quickly realise that it's extortionately expensive and quickly get themselves out into the PRS for years 2 and 3. At least that's the case down here. I rent complete houses, average rent is around £370 pm per tenant, whereas the newest Uni accomodation is £600 or so

Yvonne Francis

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10:59 AM, 5th October 2017, About 7 years ago

Annie in my town our University can do anything. Do you really think that students would be allowed to choose if the Universities has accommodation available? The fact that there may be little 'coercion' at the moment is because they do not have enough supply but this is rapidly being rectified. After all this is one of the ways they make money. Added to which our Council cap the number of students they allow our University to have in private accommodation. And if Corbyn (heaven forbid) got his way, due to his ill though out policies, the number of students accepted to study would also be capped.

Chris you got it in one. I'm trying to avoid the double whammy of CGT and IHT. As you probably know CGT dies with you. If you are thinking this is perhaps a heavy handed way of going about things I have taken loads of advice and in my circumstances I think this the best solution. As I said to an account 'I'm may die of 'em but I'm going to die with 'em.'

user_ 7167

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13:12 PM, 5th October 2017, About 7 years ago

Obfuscated Data

Jay James

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13:36 PM, 7th October 2017, About 7 years ago

"most prestigious University"...
Cambridge?, surely you don't mean Oxford - how dare you suggest such a thing lol.

Yvonne Francis

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14:50 PM, 7th October 2017, About 7 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Jay James at 07/10/2017 - 13:36
Yes I mean Oxford of course. Look at world review of Universities for the last few years. It's not always been so but have been recently. So lol all your like but look at good international reviews.

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