Landlords are not greedy

franklee

tbs624 wrote: »

No, what Clutton was saying really isn’t remotely like any of those things. The purpose of the selective licensing that she has mentioned in areas of Manchester has much to do with the Council seeking to address tenants’ antisocial behaviour in those areas (Gorton, Harpurhey , Moston, Bradford ) by making LLs more responsible for dealing with it.

Local residents in those areas complained of problems with private rented housing: three-quarters of the complaints related to tenants' behaviour, so Clutton’s reference to “bad tenants” will be as in those who are ASBO material, causing problems for the local community. The "solution" is to pass the buck on to those who let out the properties in which those "bad tenants" live by making them register with the Council.

Silly me, should have realised landlord licensing wouldn't be to protect tenants :rolleyes:

mbga9pgf

clutton wrote: »

Do they think it a good idea ?

I think its a great idea. It means BTLers have to pay tax like the resat of us and cant use resi mortgages for BTL properties illegally

tbs624

Registration should be aimed primarily at Letting Agents IMO. We've had a few threads on here in which LAs have apparently shafted both the LL for whom they were supposed to be acting *and* the T to whom the property was let. I find it absolutely astonishing that there is no restriction on who can set up as an LA,handling , as they do, thousand of ££s worth of other peoples money & property, & pronouncing on LL&T law despite not having had to undergo any training.

There is already ample legislation in place to deal with LLs who fail to keep their properties up to scratch or to act appropriately with their Ts deposit. What is needed is better funding for the Private Sector Rentals Teams and a fast track court system to deal with LLs who fail to comply with their legal obligations. You'd only need a few well publicised court trouncings of errant LLs to drive the message home.

A register for all private LLs is pretty much another one of those "let's look busy while actually doing nothing useful " schemes ( bit like EPCs)

As Rob says, many of these types of registers are simply dressed up as being there to protect Ts when their main function is to provide useful info for other Govt bodies.

Welshwoofs

Well from what Clutton has said, this register is of no benefit whatsoever for the tenant nor the landlord....it's simply yet another way for the Government to ensure that the tax coffers are full *shrug*

clutton_2

i am glad there seems to be a good debate going on about this

Dr Julie Rugg did indeed include letting agents in her proposals and thought they should be registered also.

When asked what she was a doctor of - she said "history" .... draw your own conclusions as to her qualifications and experience ......

any "register" of a collection of like-skilled professionals, is nearly always a body which acts solely in the interests of the skilled-professionals who pay for the register ..... eg... have you ever tried to get help from CORGI to castigate one of their members with ??? NICCIE is there to protects its members interests .... NHBC will defend their builders to the hilt .... and on it goes

so i really fail to see how this new proposed landlords register will help EITHER landlord or prospective tenant

Franklee - if i were a prospective tenant again, i would much rather ask to see a LLs new membership card for National Landlords Association - that would be a far greater reassurance to me - knowing that a LL was at least willing to pay a few quid to get expert advice and to keep up with new legislation etc.

i can well see how a new register would help central or local government or police

I think Prescotts views of landlords was clearly obvious when he refused time and time again to put a ceiling on the Selective Licence Fee which Councils may charge when he was formulating the 2004 Act. Councils are charging up to £500 for what ??

If selectively licensed areas (like manchester) have 800 too few landlord registrations after more than 2 years (with penalities of up to £20k ) - how on earth does Julie Rugg think a simply register can be enforced .........

The one thing which i completly agreed with Julie Rugg was that considering the small number of complaints about landlords each year, as registered by Shelter, Councils and CAB - the WHOLE of the landlording community has become demonised way out of proportion ....

similary i am sure some landlords think that all tenants are demons - but - us reasonable and rational MSEers know that is not true either

clutton_2

Franklee - NLA rarely promotes anything to tenants as their sole focus is on us poor downtrodden landlords !! - but they issued new plastic credit-card type membership cards about a month ago.....

i think tenants can ring up and find out if an alleged LL is a N LA member - if you want to test it out i could PM you with my membership number

seven-day-weekend

mbga9pgf wrote: »

I think its a great idea. It means BTLers have to pay tax like the resat of us and cant use resi mortgages for BTL properties illegally

Why does it matter to you what sort of mortgage they have?

And anyway, you can have a 'Consent to Let' on a residential mortgage -that's what we had when we had a flat to rent out. AND we paid tax on the profit.

Can't make up my mind about the register - on balance I think no, because the powers already exist to control bad tenants and I don't think good lls should be penalised for the sake of the bad ones.

franklee

clutton wrote: »

Franklee - NLA rarely promotes anything to tenants as their sole focus is on us poor downtrodden landlords !! - but they issued new plastic credit-card type membership cards about a month ago.....

i think tenants can ring up and find out if an alleged LL is a N LA member - if you want to test it out i could PM you with my membership number

Well I suppose the LL would say they were a member and show the card at the viewing, but that leaves many other tenants not realising that's a plus point to look for in a landlord if they haven't yet come across the scheme or a member yet.

Same with consent to let, the tenant has to realise to ask (and then may not get an answer).

That's why it's a shame there isn't somewhere for a tenant to go to check membership of that would mean certain minimum standards have been met. I agree CORGI, NHBC etc. are crap if something goes wrong but one hopes their involvement at least sets some minimum standard, e.g. in that the CORGI member has some training. Still that's a digression as it seems there won't be something central to help tenants make better choices of landlord. Pity in a way as it would help the good landlord too by driving out the competition who can undercut them by skimping on standards.

Thanks for the offer of your membership number but I don't want to pry. You could ask a friend to ring and test it if you want to see if it works as it should.

tbs624

clutton wrote: »

i am glad there seems to be a good debate going on about this

Dr Julie Rugg did indeed include letting agents in her proposals and thought they should be registered also.

For anyone who wants to read the report , the link can be followed from here and the recommendations from Sir Brian Carsberg's Review of the PRS are available here

clutton wrote: »

When asked what she was a doctor of - she said "history" .... draw your own conclusions as to her qualifications and experience ......

You're perhaps being a tad unfair there Clutton - she's a Research Fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy at York Uni and has a fairly solid background in researching housing issues, with publications going back at least 10 years

clutton wrote: »

Franklee - if i were a prospective tenant again, i would much rather ask to see a LLs new membership card for National Landlords Association - that would be a far greater reassurance to me - knowing that a LL was at least willing to pay a few quid to get expert advice and to keep up with new legislation etc.

One of the recommendations in Carsberg was that LLs should *have* to belong to some kind of association/self- regulatory group. Maybe all LLs should have to sign a declaration to the effect that they had read the Landlord's Development Manual from cover to cover, being unable to claim any form of tax relief until they had done so and completed a written test.

franklee

tbs624 wrote: »

Registration should be aimed primarily at Letting Agents IMO. We've had a few threads on here in which LAs have apparently shafted both the LL for whom they were supposed to be acting *and* the T to whom the property was let. I find it absolutely astonishing that there is no restriction on who can set up as an LA,handling , as they do, thousand of ££s worth of other peoples money & property, & pronouncing on LL&T law despite not having had to undergo any training.

There is already ample legislation in place to deal with LLs who fail to keep their properties up to scratch or to act appropriately with their Ts deposit. What is needed is better funding for the Private Sector Rentals Teams and a fast track court system to deal with LLs who fail to comply with their legal obligations. You'd only need a few well publicised court trouncings of errant LLs to drive the message home.

A register for all private LLs is pretty much another one of those "let's look busy while actually doing nothing useful " schemes ( bit like EPCs)

As Rob says, many of these types of registers are simply dressed up as being there to protect Ts when their main function is to provide useful info for other Govt bodies.

While I agree registration of letting agents is a good idea if it would help clarity of fees etc but, there is only so far that goes. As agents of the landlord the agent can only recommend the landlord do such-and-such, they can't make anything happen without the landlord wanting it done. Take consent to let again, the agent can ask but if the landlord don't want to give any details there is nothing the agent can do, they aren't going to turn the business away.

You find it absolutely astonishing that there is no restriction on who can set up as an LA handling thousands etc., yet for a tenant the landlord's behaviour is as big a deal. It may only be 5-9K+ ish spent pa on rent and one roof but for a tenant that is a lot.

While there is legalisation in place to deal with errant LL's there is not much to assist the tenant to choose wisely (e.g. knowing if the LL is OK on the mortgage front, the T can't check the LL as the LL can credit check the T) or stop a LL's repeat behaviour with the next property or tenant.

Take CORGI (or whatever ever it's called nowadays) that clutton mentioned. For all it's faults it does give the customer some help in choosing the person to fit their boiler. That it's tricky to get help from CORGI to castigate one of their members with doesn't mean IMO we would be better off without it at all. Taking pot luck who was qualified on the basis that if we are blown up there is ample legislation in place to deal with it after the event.

So I find it absolutely astonishing that there is no restriction on who can set up as an LA or a self manging landlord. If there was perhaps it would reduce the overall number of cases gone wrong and simpler queries freeing up the Private Sector Rentals Teams and fast track court system to deal faster and in more depth with cases that do occur including dealing swiftly with errant tenants. (Why aren't there well publicised court trouncings of errant LLs to drive the message home if they would be so effective and the legalisation is in place ...).

Then again if the registers are simply dressed up as being there to protect Ts when their main function is to provide useful info for other Govt bodies so it's not useful for landlords then why bother with them for agents? May as well scrap the whole idea.

I still think registration is a good idea if it can be done in a way to achieve something useful.