Blogger says tenants with Coronavirus should get 3 months rent free!

You couldn't make it up if you tried!!!! Why is it that so many "highly intellectual" people just don't live in the real world and just don't have a clue or any common sense about the realities of life. Many of them are running our country. Unbelievable!!!! As far as Corona goes I'm just getting over a nasty lung infection but was I tested for Corona virus, no, but after 70 years of life have discovered I'm allergic to penicillin .

Where on earth do you begin.
The man is clearly not connected to the real world in anyway shape or form.
His post simply smacks of "wouldn't it be good if?" and then when he is called out on the unworkable mechanics of his idea he resorts to a primary school playground style response.
I remember Trump during the Government shut down he forced saying Landlords should use their "reserve funds" and not charge government workers rent while they weren't being paid.
Its sensible suggestion backed up with ridiculous assumption.
This is a more elaborate version of the sign you used to see in the gents toilets in pubs.
"Please do not throw cigarette butts in the urinals, it makes them soggy and difficult to light!"
Most of us are a business with expenses and a profit and loss sheet like any other. If we make no profit we fold, to assume that we wouldn't is absurd.
Most ongoing businesses do teeter on the brink to a greater or lesser degree. Many run for years employing thousands and making millions, but just one external factor changing can shut them down. Look at the high street retailers we have lost, the holiday companies and the airlines.
This man has little or no grasp of real world economics or the complexities of running a business. He is that most dangerous of animals, an academic and a theorist with a voice and an ego.
Best in my opinion not to give him a voice, I've read his blog and deliberately not posted as any reply won't address my points, but rather simply give him another 2 lines in which to say he is right and I am wrong.
I've run my business for 15 years now and every tenant is treated individually, if someone struggles with rent and they are a good tenant I work with them if not then I follow the correct process.
Whilst I will defer rent at no point would I write it off and say stay for free. That's a dangerous precedent and unworkable.
As for the Covid 19, it is true it's the first disease to fall into the WHO Disease X category and I do believe we are heading for a Pandemic. However don't forget the reported death rate is about 1 in 50 but almost all of those were suffering underlying issues. That also doesn't include unreported cases. There 2 strains of Covid 19 and the less common one is the more aggressive one as it's easier to contain (people show earlier and get sicker). Then there are the influenza figures.
On average each year in the States influenza infects an estimated 32 million people, causes over 300,000 hospitalisations and 18,000 deaths. We simply don't know how Covid 19 will pan out. It's to early to panic, and even if we do panic how will that help. I'm tending to ignore any newspaper with a red top on this one.
Rant over - back to work 🙂

Reply to the comment left by Whiteskifreak Surrey at 06/03/2020 - 11:39
And you re reason to panic is? Facts from non UK sources whom aren't afraid to give the truth.

Anyone with reasonable immune system is fine. Healthy people who take precautions. Those whom are dying in SE Asia where I ve lived 14 years are, Very old, sick (HIV) or very young are.

Some one in 118 doctored my above response.
This isn't what I said, it's been tempered. My comments were more that in a very over-crowded World, there is need for a creation of space, room.

Reply to the comment left by BB at 06/03/2020 - 14:29
I am not panicking, in fact I am planning holidays in France from middle of March. I was just interested in the certainty you have claiming that it is just a bad flu. Because, according to medical sources, it is not. It causes a viral pneumonia more often than not, and the symptoms are very severe. There is no cure and no treatment.

Maybe we should give them free Tenancy for the rest of their lives, pay the utility bills and for good measure give £100 cash each week! Who is this idiot, when will the Government and the public realise that being a Landlord is a business, not a charity.

Reply to the comment left by Whiteskifreak Surrey at 06/03/2020 - 14:42Is there a cure for flu - influenza? No.
Spanish flu killed more than those in World War 1, at around the same time estimates as high as 40 Million.
Then there was AIDS, HIV.
Non of this is really about what Richard Murphys comments were aiming at, or his ludicrous suggestions/scenarios.

Murphy seems to defend his three months rent free period by claiming the asset will still be there even if the landlord goes bust without any consideration of the bankrupt Landlord, and the stress this may cause them, especially if they have worked hard (as I did myself) to improve, and purchase their asset.

He also fails to acknowledge the fact that the Government is working hard to ensure sick pay. And if its compensation for stress, then I'm owned a bucket full of money for the stress I'm going through for all this, and who's going to pay me?

However I do think some consideration by Landlords should be made, possibly the two week period required for self isolation for at least one bread winner per household, if there is some way this can be reasonably assessed, although I confess, a bit of a minefield. These are extraordinary times and may take extraordinary measures to get by. This is the worse experience I have known in all my 75 years.

I'm planning to take a rent hit if I have too, and will be delaying proposed works on my properties this summer. My main concern right now is staying alive, being elderly with health problems!!

Reply to the comment left by BB at 06/03/2020 - 11:34
May be not even that bad as it is only really hitting people with poor immune systems, which is what any flu does, not the young as with the swine flu. Just something to take our minds off trade deals and budget, and to allow China to raise prices by a lot.

Reply to the comment left by Whiteskifreak Surrey at 06/03/2020 - 14:42
Most alleged flu deaths are from pneumonia, so nothing new there. "Medical science" wants it to be something new so they can sell more ineffective vaccines and nasty drugs. China is apparently using vitamin C