Mass sell-off if government do not get landlord support?

Mass sell-off if government do not get landlord support?

13:17 PM, 19th December 2019, About 4 years ago 14

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Government Ministers need to ensure that plans to reform the rights of landlords to re-possess rented housing have their support otherwise there could be a mass sell-off of properties.

With the demand for rental housing outstripping supply, the Residential Landlords Association is warning that the proposals in the Queen’s Speech to end Section 21 re-possessions need to be replaced by a system that ensures landlords have the confidence that they can swiftly and effectively re-possess properties in legitimate circumstances. Without such confidence the supply crisis in the market will only worsen, making it harder for prospective tenants to find a place to live.

The RLA has long called for the new framework to provide clear and comprehensive grounds upon which landlords can re-possess properties in cases such as anti-social behaviour and tenant rent arrears with guarantees about the timeframes involved for each and measures to prevent abuses by problem tenants. The Government needs also to develop a dedicated housing court to ensure that there is easily accessible and swift justice available where there are conflicts between landlords and tenants.

David Smith, Policy Director for the RLA, said:

“We accept the need to protect tenants from abuse but it is crucial that plans to reform the way re-possessions can take place are got right if the Government is to avoid a rental housing crisis. Unless the new system is fair to good landlords as well as tenants, those same landlords who we need to support simply will not have the confidence to provide the rented homes that are needed to meet the demand.”


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Comments

SM

18:37 PM, 20th December 2019, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by paul robinson at 20/12/2019 - 08:58
Hi Paul, yes ours are purpose built 1 beds and outside of HMO legislation. But with a 100 flats over 5 floors, everyone is very close. Its a very up market development and the last thing we want is a tenant that is upsetting the people that live arround them.

We've done well with the units we own in this development which is always very popular as our tenants don't want to live in a rental ghetto. Instead they favour a development which is mainly owner occupied. This is usually because they have previously lived in a rental ghetto's and suffered from the behaviour of anti-social tenants.

Michael Barnes

21:11 PM, 21st December 2019, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by paul robinson at 20/12/2019 - 08:58
"one would hope that HMO are going to be excluded from S21 scrapping, maybe the reason why the consultation document completely ignored them."

No.

The consultation included words to the effect "responses to the barriers to longer tenancies consultation suggested that there are special cases such as student lets and HMOs. We intend a system that applies to all lets."

Marie

22:36 PM, 28th December 2019, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Michael Barnes at 21/12/2019 - 21:11
I last lived in an HMO two years ago, and I soon moved out because there were two tenants there making life a misery for everyone else. Yet the landlord refused to evict them. So I left and so did another lady. We couldn’t bear jungle music blaring out at 3am-6am every day, and this same guy leaving all his hair in the shower. He was also very rude and abusive. The woman was a nightmare, because she was always shouting and she smoked weed. One day she was drunk, and she tried to push me down the stairs! The landlord lost all 5 of his other tenants because he kept those two. That wasn’t all they did. He eventually gave them Section 21 notices and was rid of them, then he had an empty house to start again, but post-Section 21, what will landlords with those types of tenants in HMOs do? Not all tenants are compatible living together, and you only need one difficult person to make everyone else living in the house miserable. It is very hard to prove that somebody has threatened other people, been taking drugs, playing loud music, etc. How do you prove it? Force everybody else living in the house to go to court and stand in front of the Judge? What if the tenant is violent or intimidating? That one tenant might be ruining the lives of all the neighbours as well, and all of the tenants getting the blame. It seems insane to scrap Section 21 for HMOs.

paul robinson

10:29 AM, 29th December 2019, About 4 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Michael Barnes at 21/12/2019 - 21:11
I remember reading the part on students, but not on non student HMO's?

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