Tenants Charter – Mr Pickles, have you gone completely mad?

This is one **MODERATED**, why o why does Cameron spoil the cabinet with this type of incompetent tosspot? In any case, where we are, the lease prohibits AST`s of over 12 months, so what happens then. Having said all that, on a different theme, this **MODERATED** professes **RELIGIOUS REFERENCES REMOVED BY MODERATOR** at every turn, so as an atheist I cheer every time he opens his stupid mouth, it just speeds up the inevitable implosion of **MODERATED** in this country.

"Does Government not recognise the need for a healthy PRS?"

I suggest you ask a few tenants how "healthy" they think the UK PRS is.

It is not reasonable to expect millions of renters to organise their lives around their landlord's mortgage. If longer tenancies are brought in by government, landlords who cannot meet the terms of their mortgages will be forced to sell. Welcome to the real world.

There are now 6 tenants for every landlord in the PRS and the proportion of the population living in the PRS is growing all the time. This trend means that sooner or later democracy is going to start delivering rental laws and regulations that resemble those in countries where renting privately is the norm. The Wild West days of the AST are coming to an end.

Great, I get to write to my MP again. Always fun

Brilliant job.

Reply to the comment left by "Conrad Vink" at "01/10/2013 - 12:05":

Conrad

Do you not realise that Mr Pickles announcement will make this worse, not better?

The only way to solve the problems associated with demand are to raise supply and to do that it is necessary to create inventive for investment, NOT to remove the incentive.

Increasing the supply will also create choice. The best thing tenants could ever wish for is an over supply of property. That way, YOU get to set the prices and cherry pick where YOU want to live. At the moment it's the other way around, i.e. landlords set the prices and cherry pick tenants.

If landlords don't buy, builders will build less. If tenant demand continues to rise and investment falls then you will end up with 10 or more tenants chasing every property. What will that do to prices charged by landlords do you think?

Longer term tenancies will also create greater risk for the landlords who remain in the market. That risk will be offset in premiums charged, is that what you want? REALLY?

It's NOT rocket science, it's pure economics. Mr Pickles plans will backfire, mark my words.
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Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "01/10/2013 - 12:40":

Mark, thanks for your reply.

Eric Pickles' statement is not really about supply. The amount of housing in the UK is limited by the planners, not by how much landlords are willing to invest. The best way to increase the UK housing supply is to reform the planning system, not to incentivise landlords to throw more money at the existing system which has proven itself incapable of delivering a sufficient quantity of good quality housing at a price that people can afford.

Other countries with a high proportion of the population living in private rentals manage to provide their citizens with an adequate supply of good quality rented housing in the context of 3 or 5 year tenancies as standard. If landlords in other countries can manage it, I'm sure UK landlords can too.

Reply to the comment left by "Conrad Vink" at "01/10/2013 - 12:58":

Conrad

That pretty much brings us full circle back to my point about possession doesn't it?

What do you think of the Deed of Assurance?

Also, does it make sense that our Government allows private pensions to invest into off-plan Caribbean hotels which may never be built but will not allow the funds to be invested into providing secure long term residential accommodation in this country? I, like many others with funds in pension schemes would welcome the opportunity to invest into UK based specialist residential accommodation developed and operated by social landlords. Why can't our Government spot this opportunity?
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I think the point about possession in longer fixed term tenancies is valid, and would perhaps best be solved by making the s.8 route more efficient and tuning grounds for possessions.

IMHO, a Deed of Assurance does not address the main issue that Mr Pickles is trying to address, which is to give tenants longer security of tenure.
This is not the same as telling tenants that their expenses will be paid whenever their landlord decides to kick them out, which I think is pretty much what a Deed of Assurance does.

I liked the content of your letter to Eric Pickles after the first sentence - guess you were feeling a bit miffed when you wrote it! I had a very successful business for many years, not the letting business I hasten to add. I found the thing that got me what I wanted was invariably persuasion and flattery, I found it was never a good idea to antagonise people in high places it can cause them to dig their heels in and even to up the anti.
Most MP's will reply especially if asked to do so, perhaps a better ending would be a suggestion of a meeting to put your case to him, I am pretty sure he would listen. I would offer but I would be useless at the facts and it would definitely need someone fully conversant with them such as yourself.

Mark, the Deed of Assurance sounds good, it reminds me of the case in (I think) Germany where notice can be issued before the end of the fixed period but compensation must be paid to the other party. The amount of compensation depends on the level of rent and how much of the fixed period remains and is defined in law.

The problem with the Deed of Assurance being voluntary is that responsible landlords like you who want happy and long-term tenants are few and far between. Too many landlords don't care that their tenants are living on a knife-edge. Insecure tenants are easier to mistreat, mistreated tenants lose respect for landlords and start to behave badly themselves, and standards in the PRS spiral steadily downwards.

I don't see how the culture of conflict and mistrust that has built up around private renting in the UK can change without legislating for better protection for tenants, and a part of that should be longer tenancies, ideally with early release by either party upon payment of compensation.