9:27 AM, 11th October 2024, About a month ago 19
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Hey tenants, while you may be excited about the potential benefits of the Renters’ Rights Bill, it’s important to consider what the potential impact will be on your renting life.
I know it all sounds like sunshine and flowers at the moment, but I don’t think you will like it.
Firstly, Labour’s aim to ‘level the playing field’ does more than that. It tilts the field in your favour.
That’s good, right? No, it’s not and here I’m going to explain why.
The notion that landlords can’t refuse to rent to tenants on benefits is a good place to start.
Tenants on benefits can’t afford to rent most rental homes and very soon, they’ll struggle to find a landlord who will want to rent to them.
But how can that be, I hear your tenant campaign friends at Generation Rent wail.
Well, one easy way is to make the referencing process stricter.
That will see the need for a guarantor. A home-owning guarantor, preferably.
Can’t or won’t pay the rent? No problem, let’s get your guarantor to pay.
Referencing also means that if you’ve had arrears before, then it’s a ‘Nope’ from me.
Poor credit history? Nope.
Want to keep a pet? Landlords won’t be able to ‘unreasonably’ refuse the request.
Leaving aside the number of tenants who don’t ask permission, this is an interesting one.
Most landlords will be OK with pets, especially with the promise of having insurance to cover the potential damage.
But here’s the kicker. Why should a tenant with a glass case of snails be considered the same as someone with a football team of Bully XLs?
Another big issue is the notion we can’t act on rent arrears until we get to three months. Really?
We allow a tenant to live for free in our property while we might have to pay the mortgage. I don’t think so.
Then we’ll get stuck in the legal process of trying to evict for non-payment which means still no rent and the landlord going into debt.
I’m also rather worried about Angela Rayner’s aim to prevent evictions for ‘economic reasons’.
There’s no clarity about what that actually means but I’m guessing that arrears not being a ground for possession will have a devasting consequence.
We will have no choice but to sell. The alternative is a non-paying tenant who we can’t evict – ever!
Which brings me to the ending of Section 21 so-called ‘no-fault’ evictions doesn’t mean you are being evicted without reason.
I’m sick of explaining this ad nauseum because there is always a reason.
It might be arrears, for anti-social behaviour or the landlord wants to sell.
It’s our property and we should be allowed to do what we want with it.
I’ve said that I’m looking forward to having to give reasons for eviction because we will see the true scale of the reasons why evictions are happening. It’s going to be a surprise to learn that possession isn’t done for ‘no reason’.
It also means we won’t see eviction numbers fall, and tenants will still – unfortunately – be made homeless.
So, the upshot is that fed-up landlords will decide to sell, and those rental homes will leave the sector. Fewer homes mean higher rents.
This simple lesson in economics is not the landlord’s fault. It really isn’t.
Here’s a quick rundown of other issues that tenants need to appreciate:
If, as a tenant, you are for the Renters’ Rights Bill, regardless of how it affects landlords then ask yourself this question: If YOU were a landlord, would you support the Bill? If not, why not?
The problem is that landlords are being put at a distinct disadvantage and are more likely to sell.
Be honest, would you put up with restrictions on who can live in your property? Would you live with struggling to gain possession?
Would you be a landlord under these conditions?
Answers on a postcard to Angela Rayner and Matthew Pennycook, please.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
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Old Mrs Landlord
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Sign Up21:30 PM, 11th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by dismayed landlord at 11/10/2024 - 11:03
It strikes me you are making quite the assumption in anticipating your grandsons will want to live in your rentals. My experience is that grandchildren leave university and take employment in the Capital or their university town or maybe the part of the country where the partner they met while studying lives. Hope your preferred plan works out and it doesn't come to you having to leave properties empty - many LAs take action against owners of properties left empty for more than six months unless it's caused by probate or similar unavoidable delays.
Cider Drinker
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Sign Up8:48 AM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Tenants need to know that every provision outlines in the RRB comes at a cost.
It may be a direct cost such as redress scheme membership or database registration or it may be an indirect cost such as increased insurance premiums, increased risk mitigation. It may also be an increased cost due to the increased shortage of rental properties.
By my rough calculations based entirely on estimated costs, I think the Bill itself will add 12% to my rents. Of course, inflation rises under Labour so I imagine rents will rise by 25% over the next three years.
I welcome the move to periodic tenancies. It means I don’t have to refuse to offer my tenants a firm period of three years as many of them request. I can blame Labour.
Elizabeth Hill
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Sign Up9:35 AM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by JamesB at 11/10/2024 - 18:11
Then I wonder at what point landlords will have a case for financial coercive control against the government who are effectively forcing landlords to remain in a toxic and abusive relationship that they cannot afford to leave? There must be some human rights breached by this that a good legal eagle could explore......it is no different to the principle of spousal financial control on the surface so I am sure it could be widened to apply to landlords under the circumstances.
Peter Merrick
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Sign Up9:42 AM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Markella Mikkelsen at 11/10/2024 - 09:53
I suspect that eroding the right to property ownership is the primary purpose of the bill. In case anyone hadn't noticed, recent governments have become seriously hostile to the idea of people owning more than one home. This is merely the next stage of the all-out effort to punish and de facto criminalise people for such insidious behaviour, at the same time that people are more reliant than ever on the PRS for a roof over their heads. You might sum it up as: Housing is too important to leave in the hands of the PRS.
What everybody needs to really grasp is that these people really are not stupid as such. They spend a great deal of time and effort modelling the expected consequences of their policies, and they know perfectly well that nobody will want to invest in a business where the conditions of trading are so hostile to the investor.
The biggest surprise really is that so many landlords are still in the game, when the modelling will have predicted a much bigger exodus. This is likely because landlords have adapted to or decided to live with the new normal for reasons that only they can tell.
In the meanwhile, given the stigma around the very mediaeval term "landlord", I'm wondering if we should legitimise ourselves by rebranding our role to "Housing provider". Sounds a lot better, does it not?
Judith Wordsworth
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Sign Up10:54 AM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by dismayed landlord at 11/10/2024 - 11:03
House prices have seemed to be on an 11 year ish cycle since 1989, when they had dropped and I started monitoring.
It all depends whether you’re unencumbered or minimal loan to value to avoid and financial problems with negative equity.
I’m out all bar one which my daughter lives in. Rental income has been coming in from renting out the second bedroom on an AST. Covers the service charges and maintenance even if below market rent. Tenant is now vacating and will be doing short term actors digs instead. Even if restricted to 90 days per annum will cover the costs and laundry.
Judith Wordsworth
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Sign Up11:04 AM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Alison King at 11/10/2024 - 12:11
Sitting tenants?
A sitting tenant refers to a tenant who resides in a property where they have legal protection against eviction and rights to fair rent, under certain tenancy agreements.
If they have an ongoing agreement or contract with you their landlord (the seller), the sitting tenant will retain the right to continue living in the property once the sale has been made.
Or do you mean they have lived there from before 1989?
Judith Wordsworth
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Sign Up11:30 AM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Elizabeth Hill at 12/10/2024 - 09:35
More importantly the requirement for landlords to have their home address on a public register even if having a Letting/Managing Agent could be argued as a breach of Article 8 HRA 1998. ie - the right to respect for family and private life, home and correspondence. IF a court ruled that a landlord should have an absolute right and not a qualified right is the right to live your life with privacy and without interference by the state.
It was bad enough having my address given to some tenants, s47-48 HA who became verbally abusive and threatening but to never be able to be removed from the register even when no longer a landlord is unjustifiable.
Many in society believe, rightly or wrongly, that ALL landlords are rich and some could use the proposed database to target for burglary; ethnic discrimination; some grudge against landlords etc etc.
The final straw on this woman’s back.
Cider Drinker
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Sign Up20:13 PM, 12th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Judith Wordsworth at 12/10/2024 - 11:04
Yeah, it annoys me when people confuse sitting tenants with tenants in situ. Even respected law firms refer to tenants in situ as sitting tenant.
TJP
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Sign Up13:24 PM, 13th October 2024, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Elizabeth Hill at 12/10/2024 - 09:35Unfortunately, the class action you suggest would be heard by our left-leaning and totally corrupt judicial system. My Section 21 at Willesden County Court took 8 months to get to court. The judge threw out my case because I had not protected the deposit. There was NO deposit to protect - more fool I - and both I and my tenant signed the rental agreement stating there was no deposit. When I complained, my case was relisted a for 5 months later. Three days before the case was be be reheard, it was deferred by a further 1 year and 2 weeks. I had to abandon completely and took a section 8 action instead. My Section 8 was successful. My tenant still refused to leave or pay a penny of the £7000+ court order. Another 8 months pass before a bailiff eventually evicts him. In total, two and a half years. And it's only going to get worse.