Will Shelter ever step up to help tenants AND landlords?

For many of us, the private rented sector has turned into a battlefield, and at the heart of the latest skirmish is the issue of guarantors – or rather, the call for no tenant to need one.

We have seen 28 organisations, including Shelter, Generation Rent, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the renters’ union Acorn, pressing the Labour government to revise the Renters’ Rights Bill.

In an open letter to Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, they warn that the current Bill could prevent poorer tenants from accessing housing in the private rented sector since ‘excessive guarantor demands’ will see landlords unfairly excluding ‘undesirable’ tenants.

To me, having a tenant who doesn’t have to provide a guarantor means they get a golden ticket: no need to rope in a friend or family member to vouch for their reliability.

For landlords, however, it’s a nightmare. When tenants rack up rent arrears or leave properties in tatters, it’s the landlord left footing the bill for repairs and chasing arrears through the (expensive) courts.

So, here’s a radical idea: why don’t tenant activist groups like Shelter – flush with millions in donations every year – step up and do something constructive?

If they’re so confident tenants are paragons of virtue, why not act as guarantors themselves?

Shelter could transform lives

Shelter, a charity raking in public money and donations from gullible corporate donors, could transform the rental landscape overnight.

With their war chest, they could underwrite tens of thousands of vulnerable tenants, guaranteeing rent and damages for landlords.

They could even negotiate an insurance package to cover the costs – which would hardly be a stretch for an organisation with their resources. Yet they won’t. Why?

Because Shelter isn’t about solutions; it’s about politics.

As Polly Neate, Shelter’s outgoing chief executive, tweeted this week about leaving her ‘dream job’ of 7.5 years: ‘Boy have I had fun’.

Landlords, grappling with trashed properties and unpaid rent, wouldn’t call the last few years fun. They’d call it a crisis – fill in your own punchline there but Shelter seems content to exploit rather than solve.

I’ve mentioned before that Polly has managed to malign the good name of landlords everywhere without apologising for the slur and without any comeback or criticism for doing so.

Shelter provides no housing

The reality is stark: Shelter provides no housing and no direct financial aid to tenants.

Its mission appears laser-focused on demonising landlords, with tenants as little more than pawns in their anti-private-rented-sector campaign.

Alongside anti-landlord councils and groups like Generation Rent and Acorn, Shelter has become a multi-million pound enterprise while offering nothing tangible to the renters they claim to champion.

Instead of stepping up as guarantors or creating a safety net, they’d rather bask in the glow of moral superiority, while pointing a wagging finger at small buy to let landlords for society’s ills.

A landlord isn’t a charity

Let’s be clear: being a landlord isn’t charity work – it’s a job, a business or even a calling for some.

What we are not is a social service.

Private landlords don’t owe anyone a tenancy, especially not tenants with poor credit histories flagged by routine checks.

Would you risk your livelihood on someone who’s already proven unreliable? Of course not.

Yet tenant activists push to ban guarantors and upfront rent, making it harder for landlords to mitigate risk.

Then they feign shock when landlords exit the sector in droves, fed up with tenants who stop paying rent or trash properties – and the glacial eviction process that follows.

Yes, most tenants are decent, but the bad apples leave lasting damage, and landlords need a way to protect themselves.

Evicting to sell

Take the new laws proposed under the Renters’ Rights Bill: landlords can still evict with four months’ notice to sell a property. Is that secure for tenants? No, but life isn’t secure.

Tenants, meanwhile, can hand in their notice on day one and vanish, leaving landlords in the lurch. Where’s the equality in that?

The government’s one-size-fits-all rules are driving out the majority of landlords who are honourable, leaving the field open for corporate giants to swoop in.

These middle-class cultural Marxists, railing against small landlords, have no clue about what’s coming when the PRS becomes a corporate playground.

At the heart of this mess is viability. No one asks whether a landlord can afford to take on a benefit tenant who might not pay, or a renter who decides rent is optional.

Tenant activist groups loudly demand change, but they house no-one. Not even Shelter whose name would suggest they do.

Instead, these groups destroy the PRS, then wonder why the remaining landlords demand guarantees. Banning guarantors doesn’t help tenants – it just makes it tougher for higher-risk renters to find a willing landlord.

That leaves us with a conundrum as activists cry that ‘landlords are abusing their power’, but what power? A sitting tenant can effectively seize control of a property indefinitely, while landlords jump through legal hoops to reclaim what’s theirs.

This isn’t abuse, it’s a legal mitigation of risk and it’s ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

Activists and leftie MPs harp on about ‘Everyone needs a safe, secure and affordable home’. Fine. But every landlord needs a secure rental income.

Why cap guarantors at six months’ rent when tenancies can last forever?

If Shelter and Generation Rent truly believe tenants are flawless, they should back a nationwide rent-and-damage guarantor scheme.

A government-backed tenancy bond could cover provable losses such as unpaid rent and trashed homes, and if tenants are as reliable as claimed, it’d cost peanuts. They could even save on homelessness budgets.

But they won’t. Landlord-bashing and tax hikes trump solutions every time.

Shelter could step up, using their millions to bridge the gap between tenants and landlords.

They could prove their rhetoric with action.

Instead, they’d rather revel in the ‘fun’ of the fight, as Polly puts it, leaving both sides to suffer.

Landlords aren’t the enemy – and neither are tenants.

The real failure lies with those who’d rather posture than build a system that works.

Until next time,

The Landlord Crusader