Landlord Action responds to Government’s further extension of ban on evictions

I just sent this to Jenrick and my local MP

‘without prejudice’

Dear Mr Jenrick,

Since the heady days of Mr Cameron & Mr Osborne HM Government has been sticking the boot into Private Landlords. Ignoring the fact that the sector was encouraged by previous governments as a way to compensate for the completely inadequate level of new home building over the last thirty odd years, it has been handed sucker punch after sucker punch by ‘the party of business’.

Now you are panicked into extending the moratorium on evictions ‘due to Covid 19’. Do you realise just how many utterly reprehensible tenants you are unwittingly protecting by doing this?

One client of mine has not been paid £1650 per month rent since December 2019. The tenants are simply choosing not to pay, safe in the knowledge that you are protecting them. Their non-payment of rent has nothing to do with Covid 19 but is a wilful act on their part. Proceedings were commenced prior to lockdown yet the case is now hamstrung by your actions. Legal costs are also mounting. Where is the help for these Landlords?

Our very decent cohort of Landlords has bent over backwards to assist tenants in trouble due to Covid-19. Any ‘crisis’ is only being pushed down the road and worsened by your actions. Someone could quite easily think that it would suit some of the big money interests to see private Landlords forced into ruin so that they could pick over the remains.

It would be very easy to use the Courts to pre-determine possession cases (triage them so to speak) so that those tenants simply using Covid-19 as a smokescreen for their deeply antisocial behaviour or financial terrorism of their Landlords could still be punished. Indeed those cases where there is a claim for money and possession could at least have the money judgements issued so tenants who are working and earning and simply choosing not to pay their Landlords could be taken to task.

Private Landlords are already selling up in droves due to the unfair tax treatment of individual Landlords, many of whom quite responsibly simply wanted to provide for their retirement. The Government relies heavily on Private Landlords, nearly all of whom are demonised by lobby groups such as Shelter who do NOTHING to provide ACTUAL shelter for anyone. You are creating a housing crisis by forcing private Landlords out of business. This on top of the starvation of Local Authorities means that nobody can solve the problem. You are heading inexorably for a ‘hunger games’ outcome.

This Government’s reactive style of decision making is deeply flawed. You give in to lobby groups fuelled by a bitter sense of class war whilst turning your backs on the middle-class wealth creators.

I am ashamed, as a life-long conservative at the way this current Government is a) Flailing around like a loose fire-hose over things like exam results b) wasting millions on failed PPE Contracts with zero oversight given to friends and donors and c) driving us into a Brexit brick-wall through dogma alone.

Get a bloody grip and stop beating up your natural voters!

I look forward to a reply once The Government / Dominic Cummings has had a chance to commercialise the solution via one of your party donors’ or associates’ companies. Alternatively, drop me a few million quid, no questions asked, and I will try and solve it for you!

Yours sincerely

Good luck, I feel us landlords are toast. The Tory party wants to win votes and not be seen as the landlord party.
In fairness with a lot more tenants than landlords out there you can see their logic.
Time to sell up I feel.

Reply to the comment left by at 21/08/2020 - 19:03
I share your sentiments but how can we sell when we are obliged to give our tenant 6 months notice??

Regards,

James.

"Whilst no-one who has been impacted by Covid-19 should face losing their home..."

Are you just saying that Paul because of the woke society we now find ourselves in? You're right that no-one *should*, but then that must also extend to no-one should lose their jobs because of Covid-19...and we all know that, certainly for those that have been in-post less than two years, it won't be the case. Either everyone is protected in all aspects of their lives from the effects of Covid-19 or they're not.

Why do we have such a problem with applying parity when it comes to logic?

Selling an HMO is now almost impossible without adding massive further losses to the already mounting costs. Rather than support our retirement property has put us into debt, kept us working well beyond our expected retirement age and fear of bankruptcy. Are we bad landlords - I don't think so, we have passed all the inspections with flying colours. Are we greedy - I don't think so, having invested our pension in property rather than the stock market.

This is just blow after blow to good, honest landlords. I just cannot see a way out. The stress will kill me long before COVID-19

Dear Kevin Foster,
Further to Jon's post I have sent the following to our MP, Kevin Foster in Torbay, South Devon.:
Dear Mr Kevin Foster,
We are sure you are aware of the governments further extension to the ban of evictions. We do understand that there are genuine cases of tenants struggling to pay their rent. What the government seems to be overlooking is that there are many landlords who are helping their tenants with either a reduction in rent or a 'holiday' period. Also the governments action is forcing landlords to the brink of despair and possible financial ruin. Many landlords are facing loosing their rental income for long periods of time - in some cases 12 months - with absolutely no chance of recovering the arrears that have accumulated. Furthermore, it can take the landlord the same length of time to actually gain possession of their property.
It is not surprising that many landlords are saying that 'enough is enough' and are selling the rental properties they own. This surely is not helping the housing crisis. We are now, after almost 17 years of providing homes to Torbay residents at a very modest rent (way below 'market' value) in 5 different properties, that perhaps for us to 'enough is enough'.
The big question is : How long will it take us to repossess our property/s using the legal section 21 Form 6A proceedure ? 12 months ? , 18 months ?
and how much rent arrears will we also have to write off ?

We are sure that you are aware of the Property 118 website. I have copied , below, a recent article. There are a number of comments from landlords that can be read when going to the website.

Yours sincerely

Reply to the comment left by Mike T at 24/08/2020 - 11:04
Good Luck on getting a reply from him - I tried the same tack and despite all my properties being in Paignton he said as I am the owner who lives in another area he is not interested in pursuing this unless my own MP writes to him in the first place.
You also need to remember even if you could sell at the moment you can't - you need to give tenants 6 months notice! Who's going to buy a property then with a potentially sitting tenant no once can shift?

On a side note - is there a local Paignton/Torbay LL group I can get involved in do you know?

Why ' 3 ' months ? should be to cover all Genuine Covid-related rent, or else the Government fulfills its welfare duty provisions and provides accommodation.
Private landlords are not the Governments welfare safety net.

Reply to the comment left by Carol at 24/08/2020 - 10:31
I agree shocking state of affairs altogether, but I guess the younger generation don't give a flying banana about your pension. Most of them know they'll be working till 70 to pay off mortgages so feel what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

By extending the eviction ban, it prevents Landlords from giving notice in order to sell during this current buying market window, prior to the March ending of the stamp duty holiday and in turn keeping all tenants in situ - thus reducing the pressures on local Councils struggling to find accommodation - caused by the landlords whom have already exited the business! I could be wrong of course but this is the only reason which makes any sense.

I have a situation in which pre-covid Court possession had been granted and the bailiffs were due to arrive. Then lock-down occurred just a few days before! This was due to worrying anti-social behavior which resulted in the Police breaking down the front door (which I had to pay repairs for) plus severe pre-covid rent arrears running into some thousands. The tenant still remains in situ as of today which is a financial disaster for me and frightening for the neighboring homes, which I'm powerless to do anything about due to the Conservative policy experts!

Good luck those writing to the various ministers, as I found out when having written (pre-covid) to my local local MP, highlighting and warning just how all these new negative policies will eventually impact and very much worsen the UK's housing shortage. A week after writing, I received a response which at first appeared quite positive, with news of it being batted up to the House of Commons.
My hopes were however quickly dashed when a few weeks later I received an update from THC to say they are passing it on to their 'Hot Potato Dept' for review, followed by another letter advising of it being forwarded to their 'Deaf Ears office' and then finally onto their main 'Gone Fishing floor'!! After some four or five weeks of being passed around, a standard letter arrived, answering none of my concerns, but containing nearly two pages about how many new homes the Conservatives have created! This fully restored my faith in the 'making work pay' Conservatives business policy, not!