Government’s destructive path

Reply to the comment left by SteveG at 10/05/2020 - 13:45
" so I could create some kind of pension for my myself and family", that makes you a target because the sector is one of the last refugees of yield which will be squeezed remorselessly until small players have given up through regulatory and other pressures, look at personal finance, there used to be 250,000 life assurance salesman seeing customers in their own homes every night, now people do it, or more likely don't so much, on their own.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Shears at 07/05/2020 - 21:21
Large corporate Landlords (aka large Tory party donors), want less competition so as to jack up rents, and corner the market.

Hi,
Two of my properties became empty in jan/feb this year and not being able instigate viewing its costing me £1500 per month. Both need refurbing to the cost of £3000, of which l have already spent £1000 owing to the house being trashed and being unfit for renting.
The government arent interested in helping us "millionaires".
It wont shock you to know l am selling up.
Where do l turn, who's going to help ?
Should l be reimbursed because the government are stopping me letting the house ?
No real answers to give me ?

John

Just another comment from me, l like Paul Shears idea of withdrawing all properties from market and fight back. It would cost us all our livelihoods ,.but aren't we heading their anyway.
I think its time something was done, l am fed up moaning now but what else is their left.
I promise no more complaints today,

John

Reply to the comment left by Bristol Landlord at 09/05/2020 - 16:03
Now you understand the purpose of Government.
It is not there to protect you and your property. In fact it does the opposite.
Where does the government get the power to destroy your property rights???

As said in the comments, landlords are terrible at coming together. Doing so is the only way to stop the appalling way landlords are being treated.

I am all for you coming together but in order for you to succeed in your endeavours, it has to be done in the right way.

You have to consider your starting position in this. To the general public, Landlords are mostly thought of leeches on society, trying to squeeze every penny they can out of the poor hard working tenant. A lot of people consider landlords to be a "necessary evil". They know that there would not be enough housing without landlords, but would still prefer that they were not there.

Next you are going up against the government and there are a couple of factors in play here.

Firstly, that the government are seen by the public as trying to make the PRS more equal and are looking out for the tenants in all of this. Any action you take against the government would be seen in a negative light by tenants who would be under the assumption that you are only doing this so that you can screw them over in the future. The average tenant doesn't know about all of the legal issues and behind the scenes things that landlords do, nor would they be receptive to hearing about it. So you would need to have an amazing media plan going forward to get the right message across. This brings us onto the second point.

The media basically report whatever the government tell them to.

You would have an exceptionally hard time getting your opinions and thoughts into the press. Again, due to the bad feelings from tenants above, most would not even listen to what you have to say.

Finally, a couple of people have mentioned in this thread about withholding properties until the government gives into you your demands. You would be hurting tenants to try and get back at the government. Whatever good will there is would evaporate very quickly. I suspect that public opinion would soon then be that the government must do all they can to make those properties available. Right now the government cannot seize your property, but laws can be changed. we've seen the kneejerk reaction that was the TFA.

It's a tough situation for you all. I don't know what the answer is. Direct action may be completely the wrong action and accelerate things further. Maybe it will. Just consider the optics, how society will view it and hopefully everything can be better for all of us.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Shears at 07/05/2020 - 21:21
Bottom line they want small time individual landlords like us, who let maybe 5, 10 or 20 properties each, OUT of the market to make way for the big FO corporate build to renters who will let 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 on an industrial scale. I think there’s also a degree of the legislators’ missed the boat envy. They know full well they are slapping us in the face because they envy the fact we’ve had the guts to try to stand on our own two feet and they don’t like it.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Shears at 07/05/2020 - 21:21I can only think the reason for running landlord under the bus are firstly; it is a misguided attempt to force casual landlords to sell, thus increasing houses for purchase. Sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Of course this will create a problem eventually for renters. The other reason is landlords are statistically not important when it comes to votes. Where as renters make up something like 27% of the voting public. So pandering to renters at the expense of landlords is politically advantageous. Whatever political party is in power.

Reply to the comment left by john mcghee at 11/05/2020 - 11:56
You are right John,
I'm not sure about it costing all of us our livelihoods.
I would suggest something akin to a ' work-to-rule '
Maybe a coordinated 6 month refusal to accept Tenants on benefits.
The problem with something like that, is that it affects different landlords, well differently. Some might only have one or two properties that they financially rely upon and are in an area where pretty much the majority of enquiring tenants are on benefits.
But imagine if there were a huge proportion of landlords that Govt saw were coordinated, it would frighten them - and I feel we'd be treated differently. ?

Reply to the comment left by The Forever Tenant at 11/05/2020 - 12:51
Alternatively, could we be viewed any worse, and how much more abuse should landlords have to take.
Its not a private sector landlords ' obligation, or responsibility ' to accept any tenant, a higher proportion of those on benefit are a risk, certainly a financial risk, if not in other aspects. Do Councils or Shelter, or anyone else want to step in as their Guarantor - NO, but it might have to come to that, especially if there was coordinated action by landlords. That would end up benefiting tenants.

At the moment, local - central Govt are relying on the PRS to fill a MASSIVE housing need, whilst at the same time, not only Not supporting them, but actively attacking landlords.
Tenants need to see support groups like Shelter and Local Authorities that help a small minority of Tenants with complaints against landlords, as actually causing regulation and policies that are Hurting the vast majority of tenants. ( who are landlords customers )

Like all shops, who need customers and have a great relationship with them, no business wants someone masquerading as a customer, when actually, their a thief. ( You can read shoplifter or Freeloading rent-defaulter, as appropriate )