Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

IMPORTANT: I strongly recommend that everybody copy and paste the letters they have sent to their MP and to George Osborne into an e-mail to their local Conservative Association and all of the members shown on its website.

You may get some very “off-message” feedback from these people.

Reply to the comment left by “Chris Cooper” at “12/03/2016 – 15:21“:

Want a Campaign mug? I’d say most landlords are already campaign mugs …

I saw in the Press Preview last night that there is an anti-landlord front page of the Express today; something about landlord ‘tycoons’ and the presenter was baiting the ‘previewers’ – ‘do you think these landlords are milking the system?’ etc. The comments suggested it was wrong to ‘carve up’ large houses to house people on benefits as then the landlord received loads more for the house than they would have otherwise. No mention of how this is an economical, environmentally-friendly etc. way of housing loads more people in a housing shortage. And no mention of eg. institutions building homes with the same amounts of space (which councils regulate anyway) per person and charging loads more. There is that stupid idea that landlords are stealing tax-payers money by taking housing benefit – but councils and HAs aren’t. And it’s a bit of a coincidence that they should do this days before the Budget. It reminds me of Mark Carney’s ‘warning’ a week before the Summer Budget and how that set the scene.
The way they’re going they’ll have no PRS left and the ‘lower end’ of the market is really going to be in the sh*ts.
Personally, I wouldn’t do HMOs for people on benefits and/or single parents, those with drug and alcohol problems, ex-cons etc as it sounds like bloody hard work – a bet a load of the £9 billion in arrears and damages in the PRS last year – came from that category.

Haven’t read it, but HMOs have always had bad press despite the fact that most are really well run. But as always its only the rare exceptions that make news.
Personally I don’t have the stomack for HMOs they are very hard work.

Ironically the bandwagon fed by headlines such as this stands to attack predominantly working and middle class landlords that are not even close to being millionaires. The “millionaire” landlords pocketing the fortunes to which articles like this allude are almost entirely exempted and advantaged by the Government’s post-election tax changes.

Trying to find the piece Ros mentions above I have come across this link below.

Ros do you have a link to what you saw / heard?

http://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/651529/Property-market-WARNING-House-prices-in-London-to-crumble-amid-tax-changes

Reply to the comment left by “Markb ” at “14/03/2016 – 18:47“:

Oh my goodness read the comments below the article!

I am amazed at what seems to be the general lack of ability to be moderate and to think before you speak or type!

Slow down and stabilise is one thing and may be desirable – `i get that but “crash and burn you greedy bastards” is a little shortsighted and yet the commenters cant see that.

George may have this right that the majority of people are so NIMBY and so stupid and so bigoted and mean that they will be happy for the their children and family and employees to pay higher rent as long as the landlord feels the heat for a moment before he puts the rents up…..

Tonight at 8pm, the Dispatches program on Ch4 yet again covers Landlords providing accommodation to Housing Benefit Tenants.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/

https://twitter.com/hashtag/HousingBenefitMillionaires?src=hash

…..mmmmm

Reply to the comment left by “Markb ” at “14/03/2016 – 18:47“:

Hi Mark.
Here is the Express front page followed by a similar Sun report:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/652311/hundreds-millionaires-using-housing-benefits-fleece-taxpayer-dispatches

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6998262/Raking-in-our-cash-9bn-to-private-landlords-and-agents-from-housing-benefit.html

Can anyone based in London help me? I would like to have ball-park figures on the following:

If I were to buy a three-bed, three reception or four-bed, two reception house in London – if you can also tell me which area you are referring to, eg Balham, Fulham etc. –
1. What might the house cost to purchase?
2. What would it let for to a family of eg. 2 parents and 3 or 4 kids?
3. What might it let for to a group of 6 individuals if it were a HMO?
4. Then, if it were rented to tenants on housing benefit, how much would each of the 6 receive in LHA and how much would they be likely to have to top it up by?
5. Lastly, what would they get if they did this thing the articles are going on about – i.e. if they were turned into 6 little units with kitchenette etc (although God knows how these could be fitted into all rooms in a normal-size house – in the bays maybe, but elsewhere)?

I might want to put this information into an article, so the more accurate the figures the better. Obviously, we all know the yields in London are really low so how landlords can be expected to rent large houses to families is beyond me…

Reply to the comment left by “Ray Davison” at “14/03/2016 – 19:01“:

This is knocking ALL PRS, but names the big landlords that are ripping tenants off, and getting £millions of HB.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/housing-crisis-deepens-channel-4s-7553944

And what does GO do? His best to help these bast***ds and screw us.