End of the Road

Reply to the comment left by Gromit at 14/09/2018 - 12:49
Richard Lambert, CEO of the NLA, was abject in the last two TV appearances I saw him in.

The first was on Channel 4 News last month. The board at the start of the programme said the number of “People registered as homeless after “no-fault evictions” (in England)” was 4,580 in 2009 and 16,320 in 2017.

But we all know that the tenants will have been at fault unless the landlord wanted to increase the rent, sell the property or move in. And that S 24 has forced some landlords to sell.

Richard Lambert should have made these points but all he was shown saying was that removing “the no fault possession process will cause a great deal of disquiet amongst the landlord community because it is an underpinning of the current system”.

Any viewer who is not a landlord would say “disquiet - so what?” and “underpinning - is that something to do with foundations?” It was a wasted opportunity. Useless against the Generation Rent propaganda.

The second time was on the Victoria Derbyshire programme about Shelter’s mendacious allegation of general discrimination against HB tenants by large letting agents, also last month. She asked Lambert why letting agents-slash- landlords were discriminating. He said he was shocked that they were doing it and said three times that he did not know the reason. He said there had been ”a great reduction in the number of landlords who are prepared to work in the benefits market”, but he did not explain why. He did not mention that S24 was forcing rents up beyond the reach of HB tenants, or forcing landlords to sell up and evict them. He did not mention the disaster that is UC.

Lambert said a ban was wrong, unethical and unlawful - even though a discrimination lawyer and Shelter’s Director of Communication had both just indicated that this has not yet been decided by a court. He betrayed his members by criticising them instead of defending them.

He seems afraid to criticise tenants, and afraid to blame government actions like disallowing interest.

Yes Lambert' interview was shocking. The paucity of his argument further proof of how useless the NLA/RLA are.
To Follow up on this article, I will shortly produce a new Article titled the "Great Betrayal". I am currently collating some facts but the bottom line is that Landlords will be shocked to the core at the Collusion of the RLA with a council and their involvement with a scheme riddled with illegality. A Situation far worse than any of us could have imagined.

Hello All

Thank you for the very kind and supportive comments left on this thread.

In terms of numbers, Property118 served 11 million user sessions last year and our forums and News are, and always will be, free to use and funded entirely by donations and sponsorships, well over 50% of which comes from by Neil and I personally.

We are flattered that people think we could build the perfect lobby group to represent landlords, but the reality is that we simply don't have the resource to do that.

Neil is full time just running the Newsletter and monitoring the forums whilst I am hoping to retire from Tax Consulting next year after I have passed on my knowledge to an accountancy business which has retained me for 12 months to do just that.

I also worry about the effectiveness of the NLA and the RLA and some of their policies but the reality is that they are the best placed to represent landlords at the moment. Rather than encouraging people to cancel their memberships with these organisations, my preference is for more to join them and to make it very clear what is expected of them.

If threads like this make them squirm a little and re-think some of their policies then Property118 has achieved its objective, i.e. "to facilitate the sharing of best practice"

Hi Mark.
As you can see from the comments, landlords hold Property 118 in high esteem. I fully understand your reluctance to get further involved and yes it would be a time consuming exercise. I will submit another article shortly which will blow the RLA out of the water it is explosive. For that reason alone I could never support that organisation and clearly Property 118 readers are sick to the teeth of these useless bodies, so Im afraid I disagree with the advise to waste dues on these organisations. For Landlords to support them , there would need to be a monumental change in their approach, and I dont forsee that. They cannot move with the times nor do they understand the frustrations and difficulties faced by our community. Would you assist with contacts if a new Landlord Group was to be set up. What I mean by that is supply Landlord contact details to get such a group up and running. In the Meantime every Landlord in the UK needs to be appraised of the extent of the betrayal I Allude to.

Larry's post is spot on in all respects. As to Property 118 taking over from NLA/RLA to represent all landlords effectively it would be great if it happened but a truly massive undertaking for Mark & Neil. Bear that in mind please. When this forum was set up post the West Brom splendid victory some of us lobbed in a tidy sum to form a fund for fighting similar actions. Mark reminded me recently two such actions have been successfully won hence the funds used were regained via costs awarded. There is therefore some money in the pot but how it is used is really up to Mark. I've no idea how the numbers of members of this forum have grown since its inception. Those who wish to post are invited to donate but it is not mandatory otherwise I believe membership is 100% FOC. I wonder how many Property 118 members who use and benefit from Property 118 have never lobbed in any money at all? Maybe everybody should as a start base for any change in what Property 118 does and achieves like being a representative body for all landlords?

Hi Larry,
landlordreferencing.co.uk / Tenant referencing uk.com has been going for 8 years with its tenant histories and has 100's of 1000's of problem tenants registered that no other referencing company has.
Throughout our 9 year period we have been trying to get the NLA and te RLA to accept our legal site to protect landlords from taking one anothers bad tenants and they will not support us and do you know why?
Because there is no money in good tenants all the products they upsell to their members are related to problems they will have in the future.
Please do not take someone elses bad tenant use tenantreferencinguk.com

Hi Paul,
Perhaps any new organisation could link with your company to offer this service to members. Terms to be discussed but I definately think such a service invaluable and yet further proof of how useless the current organisations are.

Reply to the comment left by Larry Sweeney at 14/09/2018 - 14:06
Hi Larry

If a landlord group was established and we agreed with its aims and objectives then naturally we would support it. However, there are limits. We cannot just give peoples contact details to another organisation for example, that would put us in breach of GDPR. However, we could promote the organisation on Property118, as we already do with all landlord facing organisations that wish to contribute articles or promote their events free of charge in our Events section.

Thanks Mark.. I know you will promote a new organisation if we proceed. I do have some infastructure in place and with Landlord / Tenant referencing in place, perhaps it is not a such a mountain to climb. Without any doubt what so ever There is a massive void and we need to get real representation. A new organisation must without doubt drive the RLA/NLA out of business. That is the reality. We cannot mince words . Its either a new Agressive organisation picking up members weekly or the Status Quo ,Tired outdated Council loving Organisations sucking cash from any source, rather than 100% representing members.

I have written to the RLA & the NLA many times and asked them to start a national shame campaign against our City councils and the Government to highlight some of the immoral policies that they have imposed upon landlords. They constantly acquiesce instead of learning how to fight! By fight my suggestion has been the Ghandi approach of "No cooperation" with the Government or local City councils, instead of meetings and talks with the Government why not start to work against them!!! Start shame campaigns!!!
I never ever get a reply when I send them an email about various landlord issues and recently when I read their web articles I would even say that they have started to seem pro tenant even when the landlord could be in the right.
The letters RLA & the NLA no longer stand for Residential Landlords Association and National Landlords Association they now stand for their new meaning which is the Residential Letting Association and National Letting Association!!!!!!!!! This is because they are more interested in selling courses and teaching you how to be a professional landlord than fighting for the rights of the landlord.
I have been a member of the RLA for about 25 years and the NLA for about 15 years and I will CONTIUE TO BE A MEMBER as I think they are an amazing resource and I know they do lots of hard work hard behind the scenes, but they need to learn how to fight!!!
I have asked each association to ask their members for their members thoughts on a strategy of none cooperation to the City councils and Government and national shame campaigns but as usual I had no response. Yes I have the correct email address.