Angela Rayner urges Keir Starmer to pick fights with landlords

So much gap to reality:

“Those people that sold the freehold, that are ripping off people for no money … You may as well lob the money in the street, they’re not doing anything for it.”

Totally ignoring the Freeholder responsibility for the building fabric, and the costs, both planned and unplanned. Building Insurance may help but as anyone who has dealt with insurance claims will tell you, often too slowly, too little, so back on the Freeholder in practice.
Rayner has no idea about owning risk and managing it. It’s never doing nothing..

“Labour is haemorrhaging support across the country over its pro-landlord, pro-developer stance on the housing crisis.

If the government wants to win any of that support back, it must take on landlords and put our right to a good home first.”

Showing total ignorance of the repeated anti landlord actions of several governments. Balanced rights are fair governance so property owners have rights too, not that RRB reflects that.

As previously discussed, loss of Section 21 will work against Tenant interests because Section 8 makes them intentionally homeless so no longer the councils duty to house.

“That means introducing rent controls that bring down housing costs and investing in the council homes we need to end the housing crisis for good.”

The evidence is that Rent Control will reduce housing supply as fewer properties will be financially viable. Not on day one, but soon.

Investing in social housing sounds good but neither Labour or Conservative government has matched Right To Buy with Duty To Build, so preserving or increasing that stock. He should have a word with Rayner to test her appetite for change!

Why would any serious person pay attention to such ignorant unqualified opinions…

Reply to the comment left by Tim Peters at 25/03/2026 – 10:06
I would argue that these historic escalating ground rents were not only devious but also not fully understood at the time by solicitors acting for the buyer and I know that for a fact and some solicitors sidelined the impact . A fixed peppercorn rent would be understood and not end up years later at over £1000 pa and what benefit does the buyer receive for this.Just another racket devised between housebuilders and lawyers to rip off house buyers.
If a housebuilder had said pay me £50k now and I won’t charge you ground rent don’t you think most buyers would have walked away. For years now it has been very difficult to sell on with these ground rents as mortgage companies won’t touch them and solicitors are now fully aware, although the freeholder denies any problem. If a leaseholder want to remove the ground rent he then has to pay a large sum to the freeholder, after he may have already paid thousands in ground rent.

Reply to the comment left by David at 25/03/2026 – 09:41
Who are these freeholders acting so unfairly? Corporations who will own all the prs in due course?!

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 25/03/2026 – 10:09
Taking your post at face value, Buyer Beware applies to all transactions, especially property which is why Surveyors and Conveyancers are established. Of course the buyer must read all the sale documents including the Lease to know what rights or obligations they are agreeing to.
I’d expect their Estate Agents to help the buyer negotiate terms and ensure that they are fully understood. It’s business not an impulse buy..

They are deliberately muddling up the freeholders with no obligations and landlords lords with excessive obligations in order to whip up support for rent caps and massive capital gains taxes

Reply to the comment left by PAUL BARTLETT at 25/03/2026 – 10:31
I would imagine that the estate agent would not be highlighting those costs, for fear of losing the sale and therefore their commission

Reply to the comment left by David at 25/03/2026 – 10:19
Agreed. My solicitor did not inform me that the ground rent in the lease I had already signed had been changed by the developer from £150 to £250 in the lease they countersigned on Completion. If they had told me, and warned of the implications, I would have walked away. Others who used those solicitors complained of the same problem, but it was not until the ground rent review date (5 years later) that we realised what had happened. Caveat emptor? No, this was downright fraud, and the solicitor had disappeared.

As for the freeholders who have been lobbying the government, it’s hypocritical of Nationwide to complain about the ground rent cap when they are one of the largest providers of mortgages to leasehold properties, and they now won’t remortage those properties because the ground rents they own exceed 0.1% of the valuation, which has been driven down because lenders refuse to lend because they deem them ‘onerous’. This feels like a scam, because the leaseholders won’t be able to remortgage and won’t be able to sell unless at a knock-down price, and if they can’t, Nationwide will repossess, sell at a low price for a huge profit, and go after the leaseholder for the oitstanding mortgage balance. All because they ‘invested’ a small amount in the ground rents. Nationwide is a Mutual. So much for their ESG strategy!

Reply to the comment left by PAUL BARTLETT at 25/03/2026 – 10:31
There are major problems with escalating ground rents as I explained here.

Labour is now dealing with that point so there is no need to pick a fight.

As for London Renters Union spokesperson Jae Vail, what planet is she living on? Nobody with more than two brain cells thinks Labour is pro-landlord or pro-developer. This is the most anti-landlord Government in 60 years.

The Government says it wants new development but investors need to have confidence. That is at a low ebb and all the anti-landlord talk does is put people off. Investors can invest elsewhere and many do so. Unless and until the Government (and any future government – the Tories were not friends of the PRS) does an about face and helps landlords instead of subjecting them to huge risks and massive fines, the cost of renting will stay high. If you believe that the playing field needs levelling in favour of tenants, you are deluded. The opposite is the truth.

Class war harpy who wants disunity in the nation, communism is full sight. This administration has done more damage to the economy, social cohesion, energy security, health outcomes..etc than any other in fifty years.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 25/03/2026 – 12:06
‘PM caps ground rents at £250 a year in game-changing shake up of leasehold system and to support families with the cost of living.’

Ian, I’m glad you are confident Labour is ‘dealing’ with the ground rent problem. The reality is, they have capitulated to the freeholders by ignoring the recommendations following all the consultations over the past years to set all ground rents to a peppercorn. Not only that, but they are likely to hand freeholders a further £10,000 per leaseholder over the subsequent 40 years, and haven’t dealt with the 0.1% problem impacting mortgages. This is not supporting families with the cost of living. Far from it!