More than half of tenants will challenge rent rises

This may be true but I very much doubt it. Most tenants accept that rent will rise and most landlords impose reasonable rent increases.

I have been guilty of not raising rents every year. This is a practice that is firmly in the past. Annual rent rises are my new policy. Increases will be inflation plus any costs introduced by government and the Local Authority (up to market rate).

I hope to sell one property per year u til they have all been sold. I’ll start with anyone that questions a rent increase at a FTT.

The first tier won’t be the last tear.

Highly unlikely for so many reasons.

Would any landlord take on a new tenant showing up on here?

https://www.gov.uk/residential-property-tribunal-decisions?tribunal_decision_category%5B%5D=rents

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 28/05/2025 – 07:37
ditto. Annual rent increases no matter what from now on. For me its not necessarily about the amount of the increase, but making sure the tenants get used to the new reality.

At the last increase I felt it needed to be explained to tenants that this was not ONLY due to rising costs/ insurance etc, (outside my control) but also now down moreover to government direction (again outside my control).

The more legislation that is imposed, the more red tape to digest and abide by, the demands for higher standards mandated, the cost of selective licencing charged and additional tax added, the more it all add to the rising costs just to be able to continue to provide the accommodation as it stands.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 28/05/2025 – 07:37
Same here. Currently with a surveyor for the sale of my first to go.
25 years a landlord. Never put rents up till I had a change of tenants. Suited me. They stayed long term saving me letting fees and vast majority decent people.
That’s changed and for the last two years have been putting rents up annually.

The Quiet Nationalisation of the Private Rental Sector

There’s a fundamental point being missed in the current debate over rental regulations—and it’s time to say it plainly.

What we’re witnessing is not simply a tightening of standards or an effort to make renting fairer. It is, in fact, the quiet nationalisation of the private rental sector—achieved without the government ever having to take ownership of property or bear the associated costs and risks.

Private landlords are being systematically turned into unpaid state agents.

New laws now compel landlords to maintain properties to government-mandated standards, let them at controlled rents, enforce tenant behaviours like recycling, and even relinquish the right to reclaim possession unless the state grants approval. This is not partnership. It’s coercion.

In any healthy, functioning economy, a good tenant can leave a poorly managed property and rent from a better landlord. That’s how markets regulate themselves—through freedom of choice and accountability. But these new rules strip that mechanism away. Instead, they shield bad tenants or those unable to afford market rents—not through transparent public support, but by pushing the burden onto private individuals.

Why? Because successive governments have failed to create a productive economy in which all can thrive—and yet still carry a statutory duty to house those who cannot. But rather than fund this obligation through public housing or general taxation—where voters might object—they’ve chosen the politically convenient route: vilify landlords, shift responsibility, and mask the true cost.

This is economic sleight of hand. And it’s not new.

Take the second home registration scheme from decades ago. A minor council tax discount was offered to owners of second or empty homes to encourage voluntary registration. A government official later admitted the aim was simple: create a database for future taxation. The cost of the discount was cheaper than the cost of obtaining the information through other means. Once the information was gathered, the rules changed—as they always do.

Today’s landlord registration schemes follow the same logic. You’re not just handing over your details to “comply.” You’re feeding a system designed to capture, control, and eventually convert—quietly and incrementally—your property rights into state-leveraged assets.

This isn’t about protecting tenants or improving housing. It’s about building a state-controlled rental market by stealth—one regulation, one form, and one restriction at a time.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 28/05/2025 – 07:37
The telegraph has just reported…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/27/landlords-can-force-tenants-to-pay-for-insulation-miliband/

…that Sarah Jackman, a justice minister, has now admitted to Parliament that the cost of upgrading properties to EPC “can legally be passed onto renters, paving the way for significant rises over the next five years”.

Everything that labour is doing to target landlords is going to raise rents….EPC upgrades, rent controls, the prospect of rent controls, stopping landlords from taking above-advertised-offers of rent under the Renters Reform Bill….everything that they do or are proposing to do reduces competition, increases costs and raises rents.

And yet they still trot out the same, trite lies. The article reports: “A Department of Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman has said: “Everyone deserves to live in a warm, comfortable home….we have recently consulted on plans to require private landlords to meet higher energy performance standards, which will help deliver cheaper-to-heat homes….These plans could lift up to half a million households out of fuel poverty by 2030, while also making renters hundreds of pounds better off.”

No Ed, this will not happen. This is just “Department of Energy Security and Net Zero” Groupspeak. It’s all just lies.

Congratulations to Sarah Jackman for calling out these lies and telling the truth.

I’m unclear – perhaps there’s no clarity to be had – about the mechanics of determining a fair market rent through a tribunal court. Referencing various national indices is irrelevant to most markets which are typically micro in nature. A fair market rent is what is being asked in a locale for comparable property at the time the rent is stated to change. For most of us that means starting with a search on Rightmove and Zoopla.

Reply to the comment left by Andy at 28/05/2025 – 12:12
Under the Rent Act 1977, Rent Officers set rents artificially below market levels, then cynically used those suppressed figures as comparables to determine future rents—perpetuating a cycle of devaluation. This rental suppression often pushed returns below the basic costs of maintaining a property.

At the time, councils lacked effective enforcement mechanisms, and landlords—though burdened—were not vilified to the extent they are today. Even so, the policy all but destroyed the private rental sector until the introduction of assured shorthold tenancies under the Housing Act 1988.

Today, the situation is even more perilous. Councils now operate well-funded enforcement regimes backed by extortionate fines, while tenants are incentivised to police landlords themselves—often with the promise of rent rebates. The structure is no longer just inefficient—it is adversarial by design.

Unless significant reform is introduced, landlords are blindly walking into a bear trap. Organisations supposedly established to protect their interests are, in practice, presiding over the slow transfer of beneficial ownership from private individuals to the state.

And all of this is happening with the full support—and quiet satisfaction—of a shameless Labour-Conservative consensus that dares not admit its role in the dismantling of private property rights.

We can’t say we weren’t warned what a Labour government would do. The following was published by Property118 on 29th September 2015.

“Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell anti Buy to Let but said very little

During his first speech as Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell hinted at his views on introducing rent controls and stopping tax breaks for Buy to Let landlords without actually giving much away in detail.

The Labour party have estimated that tax breaks to Buy to Let investors are worth £13billion per annum and it is understood that if they were to get into power they would be looking for the ability of landlords to offset costs against taxable income to be abolished. Thus sending many property investments into a negative cash flow position.

From the transcript of the speech McDonnell said: “There will be cuts to the billion pound tax breaks given to buy to let landlords for repairing their properties, whether they undertake the repairs or not.”

“And cuts to the housing benefit bill when we build the homes we need and control exorbitant rents.”

What exactly this means for his plans on the taxation of Landlords and the instigation of rent controls in the Private Rented Sector has been left wide open…”

We’ve had nearly a ten years warning.