I think tenants do need decent legal protections against bad landlords. They should not be evicted without good reason or against the terms of their lease. They should expect timely repairs and decent standards of accommodation. Rental increases should be set out in contract and relate to market conditions and costs.
I also think good landlords need protection against the small minority of bad tenants. If a tenant has money but refuses to pay or is misusing housing benefit there needs to be redress. If a tenant damages the building other than by accident or fails to keep their maintenance obligations under the lease there needs to be a way of resolving it.,
I see nothing wrong with a landlord and tenant being able to agree a short hold tenancy to be terminated by either at the end date without further reason. If the new legislation swings things too far against landlords then we know what will happen. More landlords will decide to abandon letting out property, cutting the supply of private rented homes. This will tend to take rents higher and cuts choice for tenants.
Scotland is already experiencing this unfortunate outcome. Paris discovered rent controls cut choice and drive rents higher. Of course if a landlord withdraws their property the property is not lost. However some will cease renting but keep the extra  home for family and leisure use. Others will sell the  property to a new owner occupier, cutting rental choice.
October 10, 2024
If the Landlord and Tenant Act governing commercial property is anything to go by, politicians have no idea of the balance required.
It was assumed that the Landlord was all powerful and the tenant a weakling. Tenants are allowed to remain in the property after the lease expires, and to agree a further lease when it suits them.
As rents are based on market conditions, huge corporations with buildings full of lawyers delay until there is a crisis, for instance big companies withdrawing from the high street. Landlords are responsible for the business rates on empty properties, so you lose your income and your costs go up exponentially – business rates are often higher than the rent. Landlords pay charities to occupy their properties so that they are relieved of the obligation to pay many thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands in business rates on empty property.
That means rents reduce because there are empty properties or payments to charities to occupy – at that point the companies which refused to renew the lease when it expired agree a new (lower) rent.
In this way they have driven rents down. Of course while you have no lease, your property is worthless, you canât raise money on it to tide you over the empty period.
Thatâs why landlords held a âcushionâ of cash to smooth out this politically imposed mess. But Johnson, an instinctive socialist used up everybody’s cushion.
So these heart-on-the-sleeve politicians have destroyed the High Street. We depend on the huge corporations which are the only one allowed to keep trading when the rest of us are âlocked downâ.
Now letâs see if they can engineer a good percentage of the population sleeping in the streets. It will be a âphenomenonâ like âinflationâ – oops sorry thatâs a grown up word, I mean âcost of living crisisâ.
October 10, 2024
I don’t detect too much real life management experience in this bunch Lynn, just political dogma.
They are busy finding out what ‘The Law of Unintended Consequences’ means in practice but still seem intent on digging the hole deeper. Perhaps, a little red light has started to blink in the back of Ms Reeves head but it’s far too late. Unfortunately, we will all be caught up in their shenanigans.
October 10, 2024
Good morning.
There is another option.
The Landlord could do a deal with a large company acting on behalf of the UK Government and rent it out to illegal immigrants.
Guarenteed money. Timely repairs. What is not to like ?
October 10, 2024
Indeed.
The only real protection for tenants is plenty of other choices of properties to rent. This bill ensures they will not have that. In the same way the only real protections for employee is plenty of available alternative jobs. Employment protections (especially from day one) ensure decent job availability is rather unlikely, wages are lower and you are likely to have to work alongside (and carry) poor & lazy workers alongside you. Workers who can never be easily fired. Perhaps even teachers of your children or surgeons doing you operations.
Like everything Labour are doing (Non Doms, housing, vat on school fees, energy policy, net zero, two tier policing and justice, tax increases, mugging pensioners, road blocking, zero deterrent immigration, healthcare ⊠they are all totally in the wrong direction of travel.
October 10, 2024
The problem is a shortage of properties to rent or buy (or too many people if you prefer) this bill will inevitably make matters far worse.
October 10, 2024
Agreed with the population growing by over 1,000,000 per year, latest official figures announced only this week, is it any wonder there are more people than homes.
If 1 in 100 resident people are already here illegally, also announced this week (and considered to be an under estimate) what legal protection do you think they or the landlord have ?
As I understand it the landlord is supposed to be able to vet those who apply to rent their properties !
How do you tell if a good fake passport, and other information, is real or not ?
October 10, 2024
Worker who know they cannot be easily fired for incompetence, and tenants who know they cannot be evicted easily (however ever badly they behave) often make very poor employees and tenants.
One other point is damp and mould this is usually nothing to do with the landlord. Tenants often cannot afford to heat the premises properly, some often sublet and overcrowd the premises, do not open windows and dry wet clothes on the radiators. Socialist Gove wrong on this as he is with much else might have to cancel my Spectator Subscription.
Determined tenants can make any flat or house damp and very mouldy in just a few week very easily indeed then blame it on the Landlord.
October 10, 2024
I get the impression that the Labour agenda is to create more and more parasitic jobs for lawyers etc. so as damage productivity even more. Again the complete reverse of what is needed.
October 10, 2024
You can already effectively do that in London, if you have a rental property you can hand over to the local council to rent out to and they pay you a fixed amount and take on all the responsibilities for the property including repairs, insurance, etc.
October 10, 2024
Until recently we rented 2 properties out and I think we were good landlords. Fortunately we had a family member who vetted new tenants and acted as our agent as we were working overseas.
It gradually got too much hassle after one tenant doing a runner and leaving his wife and child behind. She found it very difficult to cope with budgeting so after we managed to help her get a local authority home we sold up.
Just in time I think.
October 10, 2024
I read The Telegraph, and numerous reader comments are that they have just sold off their properties for rent! The feeling of relief seems profound.
The present government are really clueless, dreamers!
However, as someone said here recently, ” to build back better” first you have to destroy what’s there. Is that what we’re seeing?
October 10, 2024
I don’t see any ‘better’ on the horizon?
October 10, 2024
In any business contract there must be advantages to both sides, and at the same time legal boundaries with recourse to resolution. A lack of balance shrinks availability.
As local councils have handed responsibility for low end property rentals to housing associations (HA) , it appears that there are no final sanctions that can be exercised against really bad tennants. My partners sister has for years lived above a flat from which so much canabis is smoked accompanied by loud music at all hours, that both permeate her flat above. Both police and HA fail to control it. The offending tenant being on permanent benefit is impossible to effectively sanction.
My partners best friend own her own property outright. Next door is an HA block of flats used as a last resort set of homes for difficult tenants. The car park to this block is in frequent use for drug deals, and the exchange of underage women, a seemingly normal activity for elements of the ethnic population that has taken root in the area. The boys in blue are notable for their absence or very noisey infrequent visits, that have no lasting deterent effect. Not the situation you would wish on an 80 year old suffering terminal cancer.
There are two factor which play into the above. Uncontrolled legal and illegal population explosion, and a cessation of adequate, in numbers, building of social housing. Overlay it with a well established veneer of fear within the upper echelons of our police forces, Home Office or government to do anything effective to erradicate it, and you have what the electorate are growing all too aware of. The inadequacy or inclination of any political party bar one to deal with it.
October 10, 2024
Good Morning John,
Personally, I own a couple of properties that I rent (and have previously lived in both). They are kept in extremely good condition with long term tenants, but I have decided to sell one and will sell the other in around 12 months time. The anti-landlord rhetoric I read almost on a daily basis, has made me decide to sell up and move my investments into other things (probably overseas). I have already shared my feelings with Rent ‘Smart’ Wales, especially the encroaching regulation that is slowly taking personally owned properties, out of the control of the owners. Sadly, another couple of desperately needed rentals in my area will have disappeared.
October 11, 2024
I tried to sell my 2-bed BtL house last year but thanks to the BofE and Not-a-Conservative-Party I got no sensible offers, so I re-let it before the onset of winter. When the tenancy contract expires I’ll try again.
It’s pretty well maintained and well insulated, but I won’t be shelling out to bring it from an EPC D to EPC C. It may have just tipped into a C as I improved the insulation after buying the place, but if not then the work will be expensive and the rent it generates means it simply isn’t worth it.
The NaCP started the war on landlords, just like it started the war on drivers. Labour is simply carrying on where Gove left off.
October 10, 2024
Rent control initiatives are an appeal by political leaders to younger voters. The aim is not make rents affordable but to attract more votes from a demographic under the age of thirty. In effect, it is a lie designed to deceive young naive voters and demonise rentiers. Classic Marxist bollox perpetrated by student union minded halfwits masquerading as politicians.
October 10, 2024
Once the Government gets involved in anything, common-sense and logic goes out of the window, the market goes off balance, and everything becomes more costly and complicated.
October 10, 2024
I simply don’t understand why it should be illegal for a landlord and tenant to sign a contract for a fixed term rental which lasts two years. What’s the problem ?
October 10, 2024
@Roy Grainger – ideology, state ownership of people good, people doing whats best for them bad
October 10, 2024
Students sign them all the time, Roy; they only want the contract for 2 – 3 years.
October 10, 2024
The Conservative Government decimated the rental market in their desperation to be seen to be being nice. Legislation to guard against the worst excesses of landlords was not required, the majority are fair. Tax beatings for buy to let were not required, as we can see it is population density, money printing and lack of building that drives the silly house prices and not buy to let landlords hoovering up properties.
Rents have increased, the tenants ability to negotiate has disappeared and there are too many tenants chasing each property. Looking for a different rental is now a fraught process, even for families, it has been fraught for singles for a while but now only the very top end of the market has choice.
This really is where unintended consequences of fluffy policy has screwed the populace. It can only get worse under Labour but this is a Conservative cesspit.
October 10, 2024
I see both sides of this as my son’s rent has increased 50% over the last 3 years. Many tenants could not afford this level of increase. I am also a landlord with a few properties so can see the landlords point of view. I had a tenant who stopped paying the rent but pocketed the housing benefit. The local authority now pays the housing benefit direct to us. I know many other landlords who are selling up because the risk verses gain isn’t worth it with high mortgage rates, capital gains costs, tax changes and tenants rights. This will not be a good outcome for tenants.
October 10, 2024
Christine, I’m just curious: why don’t you sell the rented properties and buy and rent one out to your son keeping his rent down to an affordable level or do a mortgage share with him?
October 13, 2024
I would do more than that as I’ve offered to buy him a house but he never thinks he will stay in one are for long so likes to have the easy mobility of renting. If I bought a house everywhere he has lived I’d be buying and selling all over the country.
October 10, 2024
You are skilled at setting out what is obvious. What I don’t understand is why the government or perhaps the civil service finds it so hard to comprehend. The same lessons have to be taught and retaught. It happens constantly with this lot – the last lot, too. They won’t listen.
October 10, 2024
Following the death of my father-in-law and the deterioration of my mother-in-law’s health through dementia, we had to put her in a care home.
The decision was made to rent out her bungalow in order to pay the enormous cost of care, for which the government gives zero help.
This situation started well with our first tenant. However when he moved on, the second tenants were a nightmare. They caused a lot of damage to the home and forever complained. I spent hours doing tasks around the place to placate them (During this time my Mother-in-law died)
When they suddenly asked to be released from the tenancy agreement we jumped at it and let them go virtually immediately.
The bungalow was then put on the market and sold.
My advice to anyone thinking of renting out a property. Think very carefully. On the face of it, it seems a good way to extract income from an asset. Be prepared for stress, anger, hours of worry and appalling grasping people. The odds are stacked against you. It’s not just tenants who need a better deal!
October 10, 2024
It’s always the Landlord that is perceived to be doing wrong and is legislated against;never the tenant.
There are many bad tenants who fail to pay rent,break the tenancy agreement and ruin properties resulting in the Landlords going through a lengthy and expensive Court case to recover their loss;That’s if you can find the tenant after they’ve left the property
The Law is always against the landlord and pro the tenant; there is already legislation in place to ensure that properties are well maintained through the long established Housing Acts which give local authorities powers to serve repair notices on Landlords.
There are also controls in place to pay back tenants their deposits after they leave,after deducting agreed repairs.Deposits are usually insufficent to cover the losses and can’t be used to recover other costs.
The property sector is suffering from over regulation and unnecessary control,the result being Landlords will sell up,the rented sector will dry up and rents will go up.
Government needs to stop interfering in this matter for the sake of political advantage, and realise that if they keep on over regulating in this way they will kill off a valuable source of much needed accommodation.
October 10, 2024
Nearly every time politicians intervene in the rental market, allegedly in the name of protecting tenants, it has two results. 1) It reduces the supply of rental property. 2) It drives up rents. The introduction by the Thatcher government of the assured short hold tenancy was designed to meet the problem of Rent Act protected tenancies. Previously it was virtually impossible for a landlord to regain possession of a property. The Thatcher innovation vastly increased the supply of rental properties and as a consequence rents fell. The system has worked well. I await the draft Bill from this government, but it seems that we are going to end up back in a position where the only way for a landlord to regain possession is to go to court. The tenant will have legal aid because their home is at risk. So the landlord will end up with a large legal bill for the privilege of regaining possession of his/her property at the end of a tenancy.
October 10, 2024
This is labour’s ideological terrorism. Remove all private renters, homes provided by the State to keep the Minions beholden(thankful) to Government for their very being.
October 10, 2024
In a similar fashion we get âEmployment Rights Union Bill.â If you are not in employ with a Union that is funding Labour your job is to be outlawed.
October 10, 2024
A good alternative is to Invest in REITs through the stock market but diversify well – the yield may not be as much as owning actual bricks and mortar but you’ll sleep better at night.
Reply This site does not offer investment advice. There are equity type risks in REITs which may trade at a discount to property valuation.
October 10, 2024
The big state likes to interfere – just because it can, but why does it always make things worse?
You can always tell a policy evolved on socialist principles – there will be some kickback to make sure bad things occur as a result.
Labour are particularly good at wording legislation so that it is open to interpretation, and all too often the result is bad laws.
It would be a good idea to limit primary legislation, so that more time was actually spent discussing the details, rather than seeing a poor hashed up set of laws rushed through at breakneck speed.
October 10, 2024
@Bryan Harris – ‘why does it always make things worse’ the one size fits all syndrome. there is assumption in the establishment/parliament that what is right for Metro Left London is what is right for everyone. Individuals, difference, even different requirements and needs have not been recognised this century by our WEF Socialist dictating Governments. Which is why the UK is going backwards faster than any other G7 Nation
October 10, 2024
The countryâs lurch to a Far Left government will bring legislation designed to cause chaos and the demise of a well ordered, properly functioning and prosperous country. The aim will always be to transform to a topsy-turvy world.
This will apply to the New Rentersâ Rights Bill and we can be sure that it will mean in addition more legislation, more lawyers, more chaos, more expense and more prosecutions.
October 10, 2024
The government should keep out of contracts between 2 parties. We already have legislation allowing redress for a broken contract.
October 10, 2024
I was a landlord for over 30 years the last property was in Maidenhead backing onto the golf course
Built in 2006 & maintained to a hight standard
Tenants seem to think they don’t need to pay rent & then close down communication
I used Section 21 to resolve the problem
I had no confidence In Government policy going forward & sold the property investing the
money on the stock market putting me back in direct control
I don’t have any hassle any more
October 10, 2024
As a landlord with multiple properties in double figures, I think there is not much wrong with the current legislation,
The only thing I would change would be for local authorities to be required to stop advising tenants to stay put when they already have a court order in place saying they have to leave the property.
On financial grounds, the Capital Gains regime has already moved so far against property owners that the Laffer effect must already be substantially reducing the tax take. It has already cost the government at least ÂŁ50,000 in tax from me, on properties I simply will not sell but would like to have disposed of.
Increasing the rates to match income tax will just make things even worse. Reeves must know this, but if she does go ahead and increase CGT, it will just be another example of Labour greed and envy at work.
October 10, 2024
It seems to be a fact of life that there is no situation our Government and MPs can’t make worse. It is right there should be a fair balance between landlords and tenants, but if the balance is tilted too far in favour of one or the other, the rental market will collapse.
The examples of Berlin, Paris and Scotland are there for our MPs to see, but as usual, they won’t learn from them.
This is just another example of the Government getting things wrong!
October 10, 2024
@Keith from Leeds – the overriding priority is to ‘rule’ and mould society in their own image to stroke their own personal esteem. They refuse to manage, the refuse to work with, they refuse to allow everyone to reach their full potential, instead they think their job is to attack, bully and fight based on personal terrorist ideology.
October 10, 2024
KfL :
They do learn. They want the rental market to collapse.
October 10, 2024
Dear Mr Redwood
I see you did not like my honest experience of being a landlord providing high quality rental property
In fact in order to remove the hassle of renting the property was left empty for a couple of years.
The local council RBWM thought they would punish me by doubling the council tax.
After going through the court process do you honestly think this encouraged me to stay in the business ?
October 10, 2024
It’s all very well having a Landlord/Tenant agreement but I believe the law still allows the tenant six months grace before they can be evicted in the event of rent defaults. In some cases, it has been a year or more before the landlord can legally enter his property again. This means that a landlord using the rent returns to fund his mortgage on the house could probably default and lose the house.
I’ve read many thousands of landlords have now decided to sell up because their rental has become too much of a burden to them thus reducing the number available to rent. Those that remain will have ‘cornered’ the market and raised their fees to the limit.
This government should protect the tenants but in turn, ensure they have enough landlords to take the rising numbers of those without accommodation, by protecting their interests too. I doubt they’ll do it though.
October 10, 2024
We’ve been through all this before, with the Rent Act back in 1977 and its subsequent relaxation in the 1980s, when it became apparent that anti-landlord legislation led to a decrease in supply of decent rental property. Anti-landlord legislation put people off investing in rental property…Well, what do you know!
I gave up the idea of renting out my home when I was overseas because of the existing legislation. I certainly wouldn’t do it now.
I’ve been back in the UK and rented out rooms via Airbnb to supplement my income. It’s not lucrative but better than nothing or being stuck with permanent lodgers. If the government make it more difficult, I’ll stop. That means fewer -mainly foreign – tourists spending money in my deprived South Coast home town. What does the government care?
They are looking to nudge the private rental market into being controlled by a few mega financial institution landlords as is happening in the USA, and expanding the public sector in order to get renters’ votes.
October 10, 2024
Punishment of investors in property.
We’re told capital gains tax increase of 33% to 39% so anyone holding on to houses until next year! eek think again.
October 10, 2024
No thought seems to be given, let alone taken account of the many practically unique features of the private rental sector:-
– Unlike in other businesses one is usually dealing with old(frequently50 or 100 years old or more), obsolescent and decaying stock that can never be perfect and cannot unlike say chocolate bars or television sets be held to a standard of near perfection and it is usually very expensive (most especially now after the changes Covid caused in exacerbating a massive shortage of workmen) and sometimes impractical to upgrade or even repair.
– It is the only business I know where the customer can refuse to pay and then have a right to getting more of the same supply (a rental home) he has not paid for, sometimes even when he has claimed money from the state to enable payment. In other spheres he would be criminally prosecuted and risk jail for such behaviour (as he should with housing)
– The suppliers (landlords) are almost all part-time and doing it for a fraction of the income they would get from a full time job. Yet full time social landlords are so inexpert and inefficient and bureaucratised as to be even worse.
The result of ever increasing legislation and the difficulties of the business ( I ask why there are no nice landlords to which the answer is that all the nice landlords have been driven out of business by their tenants which is only a slight exaggeration) is that there are now far more ex-landlords around than present-day landlords, a fact which nobody mentions. The housing mess, exacerbated by huge net immigration, just gets worse and worse, as testified by the ever increasing number of rough sleepers in all the cities and even towns, let alone the sofa-surfers etc;. This can only be ameliorated by less regulation and less tenants’ ‘rights’, not more regulation so as to encourage more accommodation to be used for rent.
October 10, 2024
CBS news – https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/hurricane-milton-2024/
âHurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida. It has since weakened to a Category 1â
Climate change crusaders are guttered
October 10, 2024
A large number of landlords trying to sell up will reduce the housing stock in occupation. The increase in supply will not be matched by an increase in demand, as ousted tenants are unlikely to join the ranks of buyers. The consequence will be that the average time to sell a home will increase sharply, and prices are likely to fall as sellers become prepared to drop prices to secure a sale. Ousted tenants will either have to shack up and share, or secure limited emergency housing places, or end up on the street.
Tolerance of squatting in properties for sale would likely mean that whole neighbourhoods would go downhill rapidly, with crime being rife. It is very hard to see this policy being in anyone’s interest at all – including the Labour Party.