Rural landlords selling up because of RRA

I think councillor Dickinson is more concerned to make a glib response rather than face the facts. The RRA combined with EPC regulations make it much more attractive to sell for rural landowners. There is steady purchaser demand for these rural properties, why should landowners be bothered?

Fairer for tenants. One example of this is the ability for a tenant to give two months notice on day one and leave after just two months. Enough time for sufficient damage to the property, particularly if a pet has clawed or soiled carpets, for the landlord to again need to prepare the property needing time and money. Will five weeks rent as deposit cover this if the tenant didn’t pay the second month rent.

Meanwhile, in the grown up world not inhabited by many politicians, think tanks and so called tenant rights’ groups – if, for example, a landlord couldn’t meet the lease payments on a three year contract on the vehicle they used for their landlord duties due to non paying tenants and handed it back they would be bound to the full term of the lease with, in my experience, at best a 50% reduction on all remaining payments and at worst 95% of all outstanding rentals would be due.

This so called fairness has one outcome as no landlord will be more likely to remain or become a landlord because of it and many like myself are just not interested in operating under this regime. Just on that one point, a 6 month AST was in MY opinion fair to both parties and as I then let them roll to periodic with just the ONE month statutory notice then required from the tenant to leave the RRA has effectively doubled that.

What the usual suspects fail to grasp it that it is my and other landlords interpretation of fairness that is relevant to the supply of properties in the PRS, NOT theirs or the tenants.

And when landlords like myself have decades of experience of the 1988 Housing Act and ASTs working well with satisfied tenants (especially before 2015 when the clown Osborne started the destruction) it is actually nothing short of a scandal that so many clueless individuals have conspired to come up with such a dogs breakfast of high risk for individual landlords married to overt disincentivisaiton via the tax system.

Time will prove that whether the new regime is fairer to tenants that will be against a backdrop of less available properties (more still living at home, trapped with an unsuitable partner or in a bedsit when they need a flat of their own) and higher rents.

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 06/08/2026 – 10:26
Well said, Keith.
Small consolation to have more “rights” when there are no properties to rent.

Off Course Labour Councillors reject the Claim, They are clueless.

The EPC elephant in the room is also behind these losses, ‘attractive’ rural properties are frequently stone built, often oil heated – it would be hugely expensive to get these up to spec and realistically the subsequent rent is likely to be beyond the means of local people unless the property is commutable from a high wage area.