Lib Dems want to introduce landlord licensing and rent controls

The Lib Dem reports says,"We do not see evidence that the proposals outlined here would significantly reduce the availability of privately rented properties on the market.

This Lib Dem statement is untrue.

There is a significant percent of PRS Landlords leaving the sector now. The estimated number is 143,000 for 2023. Over half are not being sold to other landlords as the properties no longer fall into the category of a good PRS investment.

When rental incomes fall below other alternative investments landlords do leave the sector. For example NS&I investment bond at 6.1% provides a better income than 30% of all existing PRS investments.

Absolute bonkers there are new builds that don't reach epc b, thank goodness they will never get in , only by coalition if that's the case sell up .

We are doomed. So does that mean I will have to evict my tenants of seven years? Apply for a licence and then re-let to new tenants? I can't see my properties reaching an EPC of B unless they are knocked down and rebuilt

If they bring back some decent Feed in Tariffs, I’ll consider Solar PV.

However, I cannot justify spending £8,000 when the annual rent is £6,000 or less. Rent would rise by around 15% to recover my investment and the tenants wouldn’t benefit financially.

I love these well educated people that don't have a glue.

Having a 5 % in crease on rent is not the same as a 5% mortgage increase.

Government already acknowledge 2 million homes will never reach EPC of C.

In Scotland northern Ireland have had licensing for landlords for years . Not made a single bit of difference .

What does he call the 194 pieces of legislation that the private sector landlord has to comply with.

Scotland brought in rent evict ban .

I for the time being stopped buying there.

It needs pointed out sec 21 34% increase was to do with a few things COVID ban and also if other sections were mandatory rent arrears criminal anti social behaviour were mandatory the use of sec 21 would be rare.

Out of the five million private tenancies very few get evicted when you look at the figures.

Around 66% of court time is taken up evicting social housing tenants

"not labour intensive". Is he joking, these people have absolutely no idea. My husband has spent practically a whole year at our rental building working 6 days a week.
The year prior to COVID he spent more than a year refurbing one of our flats, which also involved works to the roof. He is a self employed builder and when COVID money was being thrown at everybody we found out he wasn't entitled because he had spent so long working on our rentals rather than his self employment. It was hard to hear people laughing about the "easy" money they received when we needed help. During COVID when people were told to stay at home and not go out, landlords were told they had to carry on as normal. At our age we did not want to visit our properties because all the tenants were young and thought they were invincible and therefore they did not take as much care as we did. I remember when I had to go to a builders merchant at the beginning when no one could get any masks I put hand sanitiser up my nose, 🤣. The government's attitude towards landlords was terrible at this time but people are generally unaware of this.
Our building is very cost intensive because it is a 4 storey end of terrace listed building. Maintenance costs are high. To say that the only variable we are subject to is the interest rate is the most stupid thing I have heard. Material costs have gone through the roof, contractors are so busy they give you ridiculously high prices which has been a real eye opener. My husband is getting older, so jobs he has always done we have had to get quotes and it has been a real eye opener. They seem to want double what he would have charged. We just had 3 lead valleys re- leaded at a cost of £13500. Scaffold alone costs £5000 to put round the building. Our flats are starter flats mainly for young people just starting out so we can't charge the massive rents that many other listed properties charge. The current housing crisis is helping us because we have been able to increase the rents and I will continue to do so online with other market rents. This finally means that the rents are coming somewhere near to matching the costs of the building. Ordinary houses and purpose built flats will always have the potential to make more profit than us because their maintenance costs are so much lower than ours. But it is finally our time because hopefully if listed buildings are exempt from EPC regs it will finally be our time. But who knows what will happen. At some point they may break us, and if that happens we will likely sell our own house and move into the property and convert the 5 flats into one house. So a loss of 5 value for money rentals. We will not likely sell because of the capital gains tax. The tax will be about 90K. Which I realise some people will say what am I complaining about but if we sell the property the proceeds are not even enough to buy a 3 bed house in our town. (These listed buildings are valued at so much less than people imagine)

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 29/09/2023 - 09:39
I thought it was only us that lived like this!
I am the husband in this set up. I have worked intensively on my rental properties since I gave up my full time job over 20 years ago and became a builder/developer. I had a very well paid but high pressure job but it had become impossible to carry on working with the phone constantly ringing with issues in our rentals. I thought I would try to be hands off so I borrowed money to employ 2 separate teams of builders in 2 separate areas and both basically ripped me off because I was a young guy wearing a suit and stuck in an office, One said "if you can do it so much better do it yourself", so from that moment on I did.
I have since worked solidly on property for 20 years.
I literally finished refurbishing a trashed house a couple of weeks ago. My wife was fed up because I had been there 7 days a week since March. I do this. Hit a project 7 days a week for long hours for months or occasionally years at a time, but what is the point? It just keeps coming at me and on top of that every bloody politician seems to want to twist the knife.
I am not sure what has gone wrong. A decade ago I could afford to have people working with me and it was reasonably fun. Now I need to do everything alone because even a slightly experienced worker is wanting £200plus a day now which is basically £50k a year, meanwhile my profits are lower than they were 20 years ago. My van isn't ULEZ compliant, my mortgages have gone up and even more is continuously expected from an ever decreasing pot. I think I have reached my breaking point, so much so that I couldn't face anything today for the first time.
Moron policy ideas from people that don't get their hands dirty don't help.

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 29/09/2023 - 09:39
Some of us can remember
The government's attitude towards landlords was terrible at this time but people are generally unaware of this.

When Corbyn in March 2020 stood up in Parliament & demanded a rent holiday for tenants. He instantly made thousands of tenants homeless.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 29/09/2023 - 11:03
All I will always remember is consistently across my HMOs the young twenty-something tenants in paddling pools in the gardens having a merry old time, whilst I still had to go around fixing things and then, as you say, them all being told that they didn't have to pay. For a while I thought it was the end.

totally taklking out their ar$3.
Waffle dismissed.