Call for rent controls as smaller landlords quit the PRS

In summary, small family landlords were generally cheaper than the corporate landlords and driving out the little guys has made rents more expensive.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 11:02
This is absolutely right: But in addition to the various regulatory and fiscal threats imposed on the smaller, non-incorporated landlords (including both fears of capital gains tax rises and the Renters Rights Act) the Renters Rights Act has ALSO put the little guys, or their agents, under pressure to raise rents. The government is driving competition out of the private rental sector and that raises rents.

I gave this interview on 15th April, 2019.

https://youtu.be/6cctEG4sv6Q

Since then the situation has gone backwards!

So what JRF found according to their senior analyst was a “broadly flat,….number of rented homes owned by a smaller number of larger landlords.” And if their conclusion to that was ‘rent controls’ then what that tells everyone is that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation does not understand either the private rented sector, competition and supply generally, or what is actually going on in the private rented sector. The Renters Rights Act, together with current fiscal policy, drives out the competition and supply provided by the smaller, non-incorporated landlords. If labour goes ahead with its private rental sector database, or further rent controls on top of the current rent restrictions, then labour are going to make the situation even worse.

But what they miss is if they introduce rent caps the number of properties to rent will definitely reduce increasing homelessness and poverty which they say they trying to reduce.A bit rich they are attacking landlords with their colonial past and they should go back to making wine gums, not funding hard left groups.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18/09/2026 – 14:16
the tenant need to be made aware of all this…they need to know just how well the government is looking after them – with the direct implications of the same.

ALL LL’s need to add in the £65 Dbase cost as part of the rent next hike. This then increases the MR across the board.
I think once a year the tenant should also get a general letter from the LL stating what the government has done in the last 12 months, listing the implications this is having on letting (as a whole). They need to know just how well the current government is ‘helping them’…

Reply to the comment left by David at 18/09/2026 – 15:02
This is true. We have more than one million young people not in employment, education and training. You don’t get more people out of this trap by making it more expensive and risky for employers to employ people, or for the self-employed to work (by punishing them with Making Tax Digital). In the wake of the 2008 financial crash most of the growth in employment came from the Small Business Sector.

You also don’t get growth in housing by punishing investors for investing in housing: In just the same way that the government has punished the Small Business Sector, the government has also punished the Small Portfolio Landlord.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18/09/2026 – 15:07
Coincidentally, just after posting this I got an email from the Federation of Small Businesses highlighting the costs on small businesses and the deteriorating labour market:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/september2026?utm_campaign=2356277_Copy%20of%20Weekly%20Brief%2018.09.2026&utm_medium=email&utm_source=National%20Federation%20of%20Self%20Employed%20%26%20Small%20Businesses%20Limited&dm_i=6TOT,1EI45,415MY1,6MEYB,1,0,0,0

You DON’T have a thriving labour market if you punish small business. And you also DON’T have a thriving private rental sector if you punish small landlords for being landlords. The RRA, increases to CGT and income tax from property held in non-incorporated structures, the private sector database and MTD are all bits of control freakery designed to persecute the small landlord for being a landlord. It’s the pursuit of left-wing ideology at the expense of working people and working families who depend upon the rental market.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18/09/2026 – 15:07
They are proving to be highly destructive. The destruction of capital and value is extraordinary across so many of this goons cabinet. I’m hoping they have also destroyed their own political capital in the process. The things I’m reading today as part of their annual kite flying process (because they are devoid of ideas as well as being economically illiterate-not a good look!) shock me.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18/09/2026 – 12:33
And thus you have stated what was the purpose of the war on private landlords all along, which was instigated and funded by big business through tenant pressure groups, to drive out the small, lower-cost private operators and make corporate lettings into the only option for non-social housing.

It’s really just like if all the car showrooms colluded to discredit and drive out small independent garages like the one I use, and then we have no option but to pay the prices charged by main dealers for service that is often far worse from self-interested institutions and paid staff with no interest in the customer.