Mass appropriation of rental properties for asylum seekers?

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 28/10/2022 - 13:20
I must admit feel the same. But.

The government are screwing private LL's over and despite the fact we are hated, they now need us. So, in a weird way they are allowing their warped belief to become reality.

I KNOW I am not a rogue landlord, but at the same time my property is now required and like it or not, I will let to the highest bidder. Sheer economics. I have tried to take the moral stand and offer it to 'home grown' families on the housing list but no one wants to know.

Given the opportunity to make hay while the sun shines, I will. At the end of the day I'm still in the PRS. I will be hated regardless and be hit and charged with paying higher taxes, SL at some point.... so I might as well take what I can for the lean times we all know are coming.

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 28/10/2022 - 13:20
So if you cast your mind back a couple of years to when we were in the EU we used to have lots of Polish people working here; lots of them were doing low-paid jobs like our care-work. And some were working and taking work-based benefits then having that paid to family members living in the EU, not the UK. And EU rules stopped us from withholding the payments. Eventually when we left the EU the gravy train stopped.

Now if we have nice people from the Ukraine or elsewhere who might fill the gap in our care sector left by all the Polish people who left I'm guessing we wouldn't have to pay benefits to Ukraine, or wherever else they are from.

If Serco pays the rent then I presume you don't have the problem you have with benefits claimants which is that:

(1) If the rent is paid to the tenant as housing benefit rather than direct to you the tenant may not pay you and you may struggle to evict.
(2) If the rent is paid direct to you by the Universal Credit people and somebody finds out that they were not entitled to benefits then the Universal Credit people can come and get the money off you, even though as a landlord you have no powers at all to check their eligibility.

So from my point of view if the rent is paid by Serco, if the tenants look after the property and they get on with the neighbours or Serco take action when they don't I can't see why I wouldn't consider them. I've not experience of Serco but for me it all boils down to just how good a tenant Serco is.

If Serco is a good tenant it seems to me that they may be a much better bet than the Universal Credit people or your local council social housing people. I have an open mind about them.

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 28/10/2022 - 13:20
I wonder what happens when they've used up all the 'slack'. Because it will come. Eventually. And sooner than they expect...!

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 28/10/2022 - 12:57
A lot of government thinking isn't very joined up is it? It was a difficult situation during Covid and that has to be acknowledged but none of the governments showered themselves with glory; they spent billions trying to stop a disease that could never be stopped, and when it was obvious that it could never be stopped. So we ended up with the government carrying unprecedented levels of debt and with small business, the bit of the economy that employs the most people and creates the most new jobs after a recession carrying unprecedented levels of debt. Then Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine and creates a crisis that any competent government ought to have foreseen. And we end up with an economic crisis. All that as a response to a disease with a mortality rate of 1% and which could never have been stopped.

So whatever happened to the climate crisis, the thing that everyone was talking about as being the greatest threat to mind before our latest economic woes? And now we have a huge deficit so we can expect lots of people to be saying "...we screwed up...so it must be someone else's fault....who can we blame and get someone else to pay for this....it must be all the rich people."

And because most of the rich people are in places like Switzerland and Monaco the next people who are perceived to be rich that are available to target are "the landlords" most of whom don't have may properties, but they are just an easy target.

Now whether it's because of population growth, immigration, asylum seekers, not building enough houses or changing demographics we don't have enough houses. Cost of government borrowing is high and government doesn't have enough money. The only solution to both reducing the impact of climate change and housing people is investment. So at the moment the jury is out....will governments (regional and national) realise that the only solution is to allow investment in housing stock that is easy to heat with renewables and changing the incentives such that this will happen? Or will they all go "...let's bash the landlords.." because 'the landlords' are the easy whipping boys to attack for the failure of their governments and their policies.

It remains to be seen whether our governments have been able to learn from their mistakes. But surely...with a shortage of housing only a total idiot would include that attacking investment in good housing was going to achieve anything positive.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 28/10/2022 - 14:37
https://youtu.be/QDf8ZjR4ato

Reply to the comment left by Luke P at 28/10/2022 - 15:02
It's an interesting video; yes I do remember the 1970s and in fact I sometimes joke that we are back in the '70s....we don't like Russia anymore, people are talking about using nuclear weapons, the power companies are talking about turning the power off in the winter, and the cheapest way for me to heat my house would be with coal. But 18 months ago we had a 'climate crisis'...

The video makes an important point about governments liking inflation because it reduces the value of their debt (and says that is different to the 1970s); but at the moment the government is spending more servicing that debt than it spends, for example, on the NHS. And whilst the government might benefit in the longer term from inflation the Bank of England (a Bank that is now independent of government) doesn't like inflation.

The idea of governments liking inflation to reduce debt isn't a new one to me and I remember people talking about using renewables in the early 1970s.
Liz Truss I think briefly mentioned wanting to make the UK a more attractive place to capitalise on the opportunities from renewables before being given a reminder by the markets of the importance of economic competence; and I believe BMW may be making the electric mini in China. You can't export our housing stock to China and I wonder which government, if any, will have the wit to come up with policies to make the most of that opportunity. It didn't happen during or after COP in Glasgow did it?

None of the governments seem to have any big ideas but the big idea I would like them to consider is to make it attractive for us to invest in upgrading our housing stock to use renewables. And I would like them to allow us to invest our pensions in our housing stock to upgrade it to use renewables. At the moment our tax system doesn't favour that; the cheapest way for me to heat my house right now would be with coal, I can't deduct all the investment required to upgrade my BTL investment to renewables against my revenues and I'm not allowed to use my pension to do it.

At the moment they just seem to be focused on keeping their jobs...getting elected at the next election. So I don't know whether we will just see more anti-landlord "bash the rich" rhetoric, or whether somebody will emerge who has the wit to understand that the only way to fix the housing crisis and the climate crisis is to invest in solutions to fix it. Biggest source of finance in this country after residential housing stock is our pensions.

I once looked at this from a government agency they took over the house I had no say in who when or how many tenants were there but at that time I was still responsible for ongoing maintenance insurance etc and they paid at LHA but took a "cut" for managing the house this was for at that time people in transit
I did not take them up on it at all
looks as all the hotels are full or they have/are kicking them out, the cheapest way would be to send them home as its been proved a great number are fit young men from a non-war torn country just looking for the benefit of a soft "rich" country

Turn the telesope around, this isn't Serco (for government) providing housing for needy asylum seekers, it is the GOVERNMENT deliberately destabilising this country and its indigenous population by having that same population (the tax paying base) pay for its own destruction (of both social and financial fabrics) and using the cover of unrestrained (engenderred people trafficing at vast profit) people movement to do so. Quite simply, this is war and we all are the enemy.

In the 1920s the Bolsheviks used criminal Chinese as a control mechnism for the vast Ethnic Russian population that outnumbered the, largely,non Russian Bolsheviks, they had no means to communicate their orders other than by brute force, we have had a few inter ethnic riots recently, "we ain't seen nuffing yet".

Why should we encourage the growth of exempt housing providers?

PRS landlords are more highly taxed than any other self employed people and our properties are subject to stricter requirements (and penalties) than the rest of the residential rental sector.

Exempt providers do not have to meet HMO requirements, nor do councils have powers to enforce standards. By providing housing to them for all the unprocessed asylum seekers, the government can carry on processing only a small percentage of them while tax payers pay to house the growing number who are not processed.

This week, the DLUHC Committee issues a damming report on the Exempt sector
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/17/levelling-up-housing-and-communities-committee/news/173906/exempt-housing-and-support-services-are-a-complete-mess-says-committee/

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 28/10/2022 - 11:06
Not all discrimination is illegal. You could argue its positive discrimination. How though is it any different to student only lets?