Shelter and Generation Rent: It’s time to own what you’ve done

I agree with everything in this article. However, millions of new tenants have arrived in the U.K. over the last 10 years and THIS ALONE is why we have a housing crisis.

Reply to the comment left by Stuart Parker at 13/12/2024 - 10:03
Labour are a million miles away from being a Socialist government….they are as bad if not worse for landlords than the Tories….more of the same incoming..
A continuation of what Osborne started

It speaks volumes that Shelter and GenRent etc constantly malign independent landlords but say almost nothing about the other landlords; local authorities and corporate landlords.
I do not believe the government is influenced by such groups but rather it’s the other way around, these groups are directed by the government. Landlords, and the UK population in general, have been subjected to a full scale psychological operation to reshape the PRS from independent to corporate ownership.
I’ve said this before (and P118 have deleted my comments) but the fall of independent landlords with the simultaneous rise of corporate landlords (Lloyds Living now own 5000 rental units) is no coincidence.
This is 100% due to corruption of the UK government. It is not socialism or Marxism but corruption.

https://www.transparency.org.uk/concerns-corruption-all-time-high-uk-falls-its-lowest-ever-score-global-corruption-perceptions-index

The above link is from data collected throughout 2023 and the report published January 2024.
By now I imagine the situation is even worse with the execrable Sir Kier Starmer who actually had the gall to say “Not all landlords are evil”.

Daniel Bruce, Chief Executive, Transparency International UK said:
“The continued fall in the UK’s score shows a country heading in the wrong direction. It’s clear that business leaders and other experts are more concerned than ever about political corruption and the abuse of public office in the UK.“

Dear P118 readers, the government knows exactly what it is doing, there are no mistakes or confusion here, it’s all deliberate. Furthermore, that the same policies are carried out by both Conservative and Labour governments tells us much about the entrenched corruption at high levels in the UK. I’ll leave you dear readers to come to your own conclusions about that.

V good piece, v succinct.
The only homeless charity that actually tried to help people and talks a small modicum of sense is Crisis.

Shelter and Generation Rent are simply idiots.
I was once (about eight years ago) along with Carolyn Uphill, formerly of the NRLA on BBC Five Live discussing PRS out of their Manchester studios.
When I pointed out to Gen Rent (who were on the line in a live debate) that a lot of lenders (at the time) would not let landlords let to people on benefits, they did not want to know.
Later I found out they were getting funding from The Nationwide Foundation, linked to Nationwide, owners of The Mortgage Works brand.
You could not make it up!

Reply to the comment left by Bristol Landlord at 14/12/2024 - 17:05
Spot on, it is all about getting rid of the "kulaks", the Mom and Pop landlords: It is all part of the great reset - and the handing of control to global corporations who will do the bidding of the corpora-technocracy.

Same happening in farming.

Gen Rent and other clowns are all in on this too.

At rent review time, we have now started spelling out to tenants why their rents have to go up so much.

This is what we say:

“We recognise that this is a bigger increase than has been applied in the past. As you will know, our rents have always been competitive and, even with this rise, your new rent remains below most local market rents, but regrettably we have been forced into a higher increase than in past years.

This higher increase is mainly a consequence of the governments of recent years substantially increasing the way landlords in the private rented sector are taxed as well as significantly increasing the regulatory burden that responsible landlords like us face.

In addition, central government has imposed costly requirements on us to upgrade to improve energy efficiency to meet our government’s self-imposed, so called “net zero targets”. (All privately let properties must meet an energy performance certificate level of grade C by 2030).

At local government level too, there are new local taxation schemes, (so called “selective licensing schemes”), which have been introduced by your local authority. These also come with a cost.

In addition, we also face significantly higher financing, maintenance and insurance costs”.

Reply to the comment left by David Lawrenson at 16/12/2024 - 12:41
I like that and may do something similar.

I might point out that my net income from property was less than the tax that I paid.

Selective Licensing doesn’t affect me but it remains a risk. Another risk is the cost of council tax between tenants.

However, the main reason that my rents will be rising in 2025 is so that my tenants might be tempted to move.

When they move, I’ll sell to a first time buyer with a long history of living in the area.

I'll be doing the same, and also adding that many tenant pressure groups are seeking the imposition of rent controls, (as in Scotland), so as well as all the additional costs being incurred, LLs cannot take the risk of holding rents below market value (especially as Labour's views towards LLs thus far are unfriendly, to put it mildly).

It's all very well us telling each other what we already know is wrong with the state of the PRS but it won't do any good or make any difference.
We need to be telling MPs, Rayner, Pennycook and others. We need to be lobbying these people and challenging Shelter and Generation Rent when they spin their poison. The NRLA should be doing this but they are too meek and compliant.
We will just continue to get trodden on like this. We don't have any effective leadership which is the problem..

These groups have a natural tendency of being living in the fantasy of socialism or communism. The policies they advocate are punishing renters and the Tory government or Labour government have been so weak or stupid to see clearly what it actually is.