Mary Latham questions landlords rights to reposess

a bit of bad history there.

you guys are missing the point i'm trying to make here.

the purpose of the exorcise is to change the law, not try and establish who wrecked the economy.

by changing the law, landlords would be encouraged to start buying property again and we would see an increase in the value of property and the economy would start to pick up.

give any business a safe environment to work in and it will flourish.

and the reason why our leaders should look at this is down to equality.
we only supply one of the 3 BASIC NEEDS and we are punished for it.
equality means that Tesco must be made to give free food to a shoplifter for the next 2 months
and a lady of the night should be forced to give her favours for free to any client that refuses to pay.

and yes the idea of Tesco or a sex worker giving there goods and services free for two months is ridiculous.
it's just as ridiculous as Landlords being forced to give their services for free for 2 months.

now do you get the point.

we must change the laws.

landlords across Europe do not have the problems we have here. to bring into line with Europe !?

there are so many reasons on so many levels why the laws here are so wrong.

Absolutely do concur with what you state; but I think things are much worse than no rent for 2 months.
If your tenant is not on LHA and chooses not to pay you, even though they could, you would be facing more than 2 months loss of rent.
Mine was 9 months plus criminal damge and theft.
All because of the useless County Court system and the law being the way it is presently.
I think the one thing that can be relied upon is the law regarding a LL ability to get rid of a tenant once no rent is forthcoming will NOT change.
It is NOT in the govt's interest to see people who haven't paid their rent booted out immediately.
Politically they would be seen as the 'nasty' party putting out people on the street; which actually they would have to house and that would cost them a fortune.
Presently it is the private LL that takes the hit.
Not many votes are lost by govts not protecting a LL interests!!!
There are only so many cardbord boxes out there!!!
The real effect of govt policies will be evidenced by the amount of homeless tenants.
I can't remember where I saw this but apparently about 20 % of tenants are in arrears
There are 4 1/2 million tenants so I think that would be 900000 evicted tenants if the law allowed this.
Therefore despite agreeing wholeheartedly with your take on the law bing changed; it ain't ever gonna happen.
We as LL are going to have to continue to suck it up!
No matter how annoying it is and no matter what the effect on us might be.
Therefore we can only try and protect ourselves as best we can via
RGI
LL insurance, content, malicious damage etc
Home owning guarantors
2 months deposit
Advance rent
Full referencing including LRS and tenantid
Additional referencing that Mark does as mentioned in his post about letting.
Most LL only do 1 of these, when actually ALL of them are required

You pose pertinent qtns and i think we both know as an amateur, me and a professional . you; that very few LL would have managed to enter the PRS had such capital adequacy regulations been required.
Where would all the 4 1/2 million tenants have gone!?
Of course the reason these CA requirements were effectivly discounted was because there was a wall of cheap cash looking for a home.
You know exactly all about this as you were there at the beginning of it all.
But we are where we are.
I just think the banks are mad foreclosing and crytalising their losses just for the sake of a few extra quid monthly.
It has been a case of the banks being penny wise and pound foolish.
The seem stuck in a dogmatic mindset rather than look at the pragmatic way of managing things.
Banks by their adherence to outdated ways of managing their loan books are suffering losses that neeed not be the case.
After all if mortgage payment fall short by £100 per month, so what!
At the end of the year the mortgage debt is £1200 odd more.
Capitalise it, add to the overall mortgage debt.
It will be another £5 extra for that extra £1200 on the overall mortgage debt.
do this for say 5 years.
That is peanuts.
I do this with service charges.
I increase my mortgage debt by £6000 per year as I refuse to pay service charges.
The lender has to pay the charges or lose 1st charge security over the property.
The cost to me is an extra £15.00 per month!!
Plus it is in my interests to increase my mortgage debt as much as I can.
Now with the interest rates being so low.;........MX and all that I can easily afford the extra, providing I have a tenant!!
It clearly makes sense for the lender to cover the situation otherwise they would lose about £150000 in valueas my properties are well below the water level.
They at least are being pragmatic; but only because I have them by the s & c's!!!!
Invarably the mortgagee will be able to recover and start making full payments and possibly pay down the extra amount borrowed by default , as a result of the lender's forebearance or assistance.
Everyone wins.
Of course the ones who are really suffering are those large portfolio LL that are coming off fixed 5 year deals and CANNOT obtain refinancing for love nor money as the banks have changed their criteria.
They bankrupt the LL with very little possibility of recovery and crystalise massive losses, allowing cash rich investors to hoover up all the dirt cheap property.
It is not a sensible way to manage existing bad debt.
Best to keep the finance going on original returns if rent is coming in than take the massive hit to the loan book.
Banks seem to think they will be able to recover their losses from the LL; they live in a dreamworld!
By the way I still use my Money Centre coaster that I received back in the day!!
There is also that Norgen principle thingy that Ben has posted about at length which would prevent a lot of repossessions if mortgagees knew about it.

I follow the point you are making Paul, however, if landlords got wind of banks continually capitalising mortgage interest arrears, what would be the incentive for landlords to pay their interest every month. A line has to be drawn sadly.

"All because of the useless County Court system and the law being the way it is presently."

Paul, the key word here is PRESENTLY.

have you never heard of the saying....if there is the will, we will find a way.

never say ""it ain't gonna happen"" we must first have the will to make the changes we need to see.

as for non-paying tenants, they are only non payers because they can and can't do anything about it.
change the law and the non paying tenant becomes an extinct beast. they then have to pay, claim LHB to if required but pay they will because it's their only option.

ask yourself " why do I work so hard ?" because you have a mortgage. the debt, the threat of eviction, of loosing everything focuses the mind.

tenants will have their minds focused by a change in the law when they learn what happens if they don't pay rent.

just look at the benefits; rents would stabilise, LL profitability would go up, less damage to property, less abuse by all from all, the economy would certainly start to pick up, property prices would start to increase due to more sales, money would start to move again.

Cosmo - if people with a mortgage don't pay they stand to lose their home and get a bad credit rating making it hard to find another one (eventually!)

If tenants don't pay their rent they stand to lose their home and get a bad credit rating making it hard to find another one (eventually!)

Am I missing the point here or is there no difference?

I do agree with you cosmo; but I suppose having been around for a few years I am a little bit cynical.
I do not believe the short term political imperative, as far as politicians perseve it would be served by helping LL.
They do not consider the undoubted benefits of a such a law in the round.
It would take someone with rather large cahonies to introduce a law to give LL immediate possession of a property if rent wasn't paid.
This I why I state it 'ain't gonna happen'
I wish it would; but am realistic to know that our wonderful new housing minister will not even have this situation in any of his civil servant briefings.
And it won't happen any time soon.
Damn annoying I know; so all we as LL can do is adopt strategies to mitigate these circumstances when they inevitably occur.

In theory you should be correct Mark.
Unfortunately wrongun tenants are able to find sucker LL it seems any time they like.
Obviously this is all wrapped up in CCJ not being aplied to the Registry Trust automatically.
LL not carrying out full DD.
Most tenants know the system is riddled with loopholes which is why they continue to abuse the system and get away with it.
If all LL followed your methodology for sourcing tenants, this would cut down on these wrongun tenants.
Unfortunately LL and LA out there don't carry out this relevant and necessary work.

Yes but surely it is in a LL interest to rent out a property, if they can't because of a tenant waiting to be evicted, surely the lender would apply some common sense; but as you have said, such sense isn't that common!!?
I cannot see many occasions when a LL would deliberately not bother with having a tenant.
Most of the LL problems are caused by non-rent paying tenants and the time it takes to get rid of them.

I think part of the problem with Section 21s is that the advice that is given out regarding them by coucils and other organisations is unbalanced and incomplete. The advice always seems to emphasise that the tenant has a LEGAL RIGHT to stay in the property until eviction and this is what is picked up on. The tenant hears this, it seems simple and straightforward, solves his / her problems and if he overstays he's not even doing anything wrong so why doesnt he just exercises his legal rights? The flip side of this action is never explained so the advice is incomplete.
I would prefer the advice to be more balanced and along the lines of, 1. First things first, you have a legal contract with the Landlord and must leave by the s21 date. As a public body / responsible organisation we will never encourage anyone to break the law, breach contracts, harm your own future, 2. Your future housing needs will depend on good refs, private sector LLs will see any court action as a black mark, 3. However if you do really have to overstay there are laws in place to protect you from illegal eviction and you are entitled to have your day in court.
Once the Housing officer / advisor sees documents the advice should be .... I have spent 30 seconds looking at your AST and S21, checking dates etc and I can see that your case is clearly unwinnable and you will just be incurring costs, delaying the inevitable, wasting everyones time and blotting your future references.