Portfolio Landlords Action Network open letter to Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook – Fairness for Landlords and Tenants

Landlords are calling on the housing minister “to level the playing field for landlords and tenants”.

In an open letter to Matthew Pennycook the Portfolio Landlords Action Network group demands the housing minister support landlords rather than “demonise them”.

Portfolio Landlords Action Network (PLAN) is an informal network of Landlords with 75 Properties or more. Their largest member has over 1,500.

PLAN is a small group of large portfolio landlords who cannot walk away from the PRS no matter what reforms are passed. The network does not want to walk away because they believe in the value of the PRS.

Fair playing field for both Landlords and Tenants

Marcus Selmon, Chair of Portfolio Landlords Action Group, comments:

“What we want is a fair playing field for both Landlords and Tenants and a constructive dialogue with the Government and other stakeholders to come up with a new PLAN for the Private Rented Sector. A PLAN that includes us.

“To assist in that process we have written an Open Letter to the Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook. A letter that we want to circulate widely to the various stakeholders in this debate so that we can start a constructive process of engagement with the Government.

“We now set out that letter below.

“If you want to support our aim of engaging with the Minister please feel free to circulate or contact me in the comments below about how you could do that.”

Open letter to Matthew Pennycook

Dear Minister,

I would like to congratulate you on your appointment to this crucial role. I am writing to you on behalf of PLAN, a group of private non-institutional portfolio housing providers. Collectively we develop, own and manage over 10,000 private homes, larger than many Housing Associations.

Like the Government, we actively want and need, for all concerned, to provide good quality, appropriate, flexible, safe dwellings for those that we house. We are committed to working with the Government to build a healthy and thriving private rented sector.  We support your aims for rogue landlords to be driven out and wish that the myriad laws that already exist were enforced properly before introducing another raft.

We would welcome the opening of a dialogue around:

• Sensible grounds for possession whilst providing security of tenure
• Energy efficiency and carbon footprints
• Access to funding for improvement of existing homes
• Methods to ensure tenants, where desired, have access to buy existing rentals without any of the stakeholders losing out
• Taxation in the sector and the incidence on all stakeholders

The private rental sector, as a whole, provides housing to millions of people. We understand that we are a crucial part of that system, with roles and responsibilities that can make a real difference to our tenants’ wellbeing.

We believe we can offer insights to you and your colleagues at the Department into the wider context of today’s housing market through our knowledge and experience of developing and managing the full range of short, medium and long-term privately rented properties.

The sector is under pressure, not only from the impact of inflation, interest rate increases and huge increases in costs of labour and materials (construction inflation up 40% compared to Consumer Price Index increase of 25% since 2020), but also from the previous Government’s policies, particularly on taxation.  The changes in legislation mean it is highly possible that landlords can be running an unprofitable business and yet still be liable for taxation on “profits” that don’t exist.

The result has been that many private housing providers have left and continue to leave the sector.  Hamptons International points to 163,000 rental properties disappearing from the market between 2019 and the end of 2023. By driving private landlords out of the sector, the most vulnerable in society are worse off and all renters have less options rather than more.  This in turn puts increased pressure and cost on local authorities who have a responsibility to house residents.

The ideas around planning reform, housing target reintroduction, green/grey belt and social and affordable housing all make sense, but all have their own challenges in delivery.  No one wants a sector where tenants are becoming worse off, where rents take a higher share of household income/disposable income or where families have to live in temporary and expensive short-term accommodation.  What’s needed is supply growth and stability.

The Private Rental Sector is a business and will remain so – we believe the Government wants that. So we believe it is wrong to demonise Landlords in the way some groups do. Because the  Private Rental Sector delivers significantly higher satisfaction levels than social landlords (82% vs 74% in the 22/23 English Housing Survey). But many Landlords only have one or two properties and so have a choice if they are put under too much pressure; many are voting with their feet, and retiring from the sector, and moving to passive investments. This is bad timing as it further reduces the available number of rental properties at a time of rising demand. That can only be bad for Tenants

What we consider is needed is a positive vision for Landlords going forward that shows support for the right type of Landlord as approved by the Government. They can then play their part in finding solutions to the current rental crisis.

To do that we believe it is essential to work collaboratively with the Government to develop a solution to the housing issues the country is currently facing.  We have considerable expertise, insights, ideas and solutions that would benefit everyone and enable you to meet Labour’s election manifesto. That is why we are reaching out to you in the hope you will meet with us so we can give our vision of a PRS that works for everyone.

Please can you let me know your availability for an initial conversation to discuss these urgent matters – ideally, prior to Party conference season.

Please note this letter has been signed by a variety of members of  PLAN and the PRS who support what we are proposing namely a dialogue with the Government on these matters

Yours sincerely

Marcus SelmonChair

Portfolio Landlords Action Network ( P.L.A.N)

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