James Cleverley blames Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act after receiving Section 21 notice

When will people realise, it’s not Section 21 that is the problem. The vast majority of Section 21 Notices have been issued for a reason or reasons that will be covered by Section 8.

The problem is that the government takes too much money from the Private Rented Sector.

The Tories started it. Labour have amplified it.

Tenants are just collateral damage and Labour do not care. They need the CGT receipts.

Section 8 Grounds 1 and 1A will be the all new Section 21.

Cleverley says:
“They ( Labour) just refuse to listen to the points we’re making because it was we who were making those points.“
Pot calling the kettle black me thinks .
No council or government has ever listened to me in 25 years simply because it was me, a Landlord, daring to have a view and making a point . I have always been treated as the enemy and shut down whenever I try to suggest to them how we could together try and make it work better for all . It falls on deaf ears though . I have a list of dozens and dozens of incidents where they have failed me and my tenants. The tenants are alas a by product to them. Councils and Governments and the likes of Shelter constantly and persistently attempt to create a wedge and a toxic divide between the largely good rapport and relationship I have with my tenants.

He`s an opportunist bandwagon jumper..the worst kind of politician, no ethics or sense of duty.

So, George Osborne (conservative) introduced the policy that stopped small portfolio landlords from being able to offset their finance costs against rents. This policy did not really start to bite until interest rates climbed dramatically, and then it bit with a vengeance. Most policies any UK government have introduced over the last decade have created upward pressure on rents and reduced competition. All the UK governments have produced problems for BOTH landlords and tenants; they have made the situation worse.
It is true that the conservatives, and the House of Lords, did try to moderate the Renters Rights Act; but by then we had a majority left-wing government and some really whacky stuff crept into it. It is true that the labour government were not listening. Although George Osborne played his part in this, James Cleverly is right when he says the key bit of this is the arrogance with which Labour approached this process. They just refuse to listen to the points we are making because it was we who were making those points….
Whenever governments interfere in a market they can make things worse. The only positive thing that you can say about the labour government is that the SNP and the Greens are worse….the most whacky, radical, left-wing nutcase party out there at the moment is the Green Party. And that is a massive lost opportunity for the country.
Careful what you vote for…careful what you vote for in BOTH national and regional elections.

It should be remembered of course that some of the s21 Notices that have been served recently, are just precautionary, i.e. they have been served before the RRA kicks in and prevents them being served in the future, as this means that they can be used within the next 12 months, IF NEEDED. It does not necessarily mean that the landlords will instigate possession proceedings (unless the tenant gives them cause to do so).

The rush to serve s21 Notices was inevitable and easily foreseeable, as is the increasing number of landlords who are selling their properties (with a resultant drop in house prices). This will presumably start to level out in 2027, but I believe that it won’t settle completely until well into 2028.

This will have a knock on effect of reducing supply of rental properties overall, which (together with increased costs of bureaucratic compliance and taxation) will push up the rents AND also result in tenants having to meet stricter affordability criteria and provide rent and damage guarantors.

Tenants in receipt of benefits, on low incomes, having a poor credit rating, or without guarantors, are likely to find it much more difficult to obtain a tenancy, and will have to approach councils for social housing (already in very short supply).

Epic hypocrisy and political opportunism.

Gullible Gove started this having no experience or insights in Property to reject the disfunction of the Activists who house nobody.

Of course our reaction to market interference and risk baring is I’m Out!

Its all bull**** just dont like fact of people investing and building nothing to do with renters rights they know system is joke It’s not just about renters rights taking the mickey giving all rights to tenants why think landlords selling up

Reply to the comment left by Robert M at 24/04/2026 – 12:45
Yes, this was foreseen and could obviously be foreseen. It was foreseen that stopping tenants from offering and landlords from accepting more than the advertised rent would increase advertised rents. It was foreseen that limiting rent INCREASES would result in landlords increasing rents at first letting, and raising rents regularly, just in can they couldn’t do it later. It was foreseen that penalising non-incorporated landlords would reduce competition from this sector of the market. It can also be foreseen that trying to stop landlords from renting out properties with an EPC below Band C will result in evictions of tenants as well.

And whatever anybody thinks of James Cleverly, the point that he was trying to make which is a valid point is that labour weren’t listening, even though the concerns being ‘foreseen’ were reasonable.

It’s quite amusing that this clown and Sarah Vine (DM hack and Gove’s ex) are both grizzling about the same thing and blaming Labour. Gove and his useless cronies in the (un) Conservative party started it and the Labour thickos are merely implementing it.

Reply to the comment left by GEORGE WARREN at 24/04/2026 – 13:51
Yes, conservatives started it and the, as you call them ‘labour thickos’, implemented it, but the labour thickos didn’t implement what the conservatives originally proposed. They put in a lot of ivory tower socialist ideological rubbish and were able to do so because they had a ‘thicko’ majority.

10 years ago agents used to advise small landlords to hold rents down a bit to minimise the risk of void periods and many small landlords opted to do this anyway because the truth is that most weren’t greedy, or as portrayed by the main politicians trying to scramble their way to the top of the greasy pole and stay there. As the ‘rent control’ spectre crept into the national debate from Scotland and spread further afield, and as the conservative policy of stopping landlords from offsetting their interest payments started to bite, agents changed their advice and advised landlords to raise rents.

So it wasn’t just the effect on restriction of supply which was a problem, although that is an issue. The effect of government interference was to get landlords and their agents to change their behaviour and behave in a LESS COMPETITIVE MANNER, because they had to. And that’s what happens when thickos interfere in the market.

What the thickos should have done was to ask the Competition and Markets Authority for an opinion and listen to it. But because the thickos don’t believe in free markets or understand the benefit of competition, unfortunately that was never going to happen. For a left-wing thicko, market failure is success.

Bottom line is, if you want freedom, if you want choice, if you want market forces to help drive a better life, don’t vote Thicko on the ballot sheet. Today that appears to mean ticking the green thicko box and how very sad that is given the widespread, increasing interest in sustainability and energy security. When the lunatics start running the asylum everybody in society suffers from the failure of parties to kick out their own thickos.