Landlords are not greedy

franklee

I was just using consent to let as a simple example, didn't mean to open up the debate on it here

This is interesting, Scotland again:

https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk/Pages/Process.aspx?Command=ShowHelpRegistrationInformation

What Information do I Need to Provide to Apply for Registration

.....

details of any HMO licences and voluntary accreditations you hold in Scotland, and any registration, licence or voluntary accreditation which has been refused or revoked in connection with letting in the UK.

....

You will be asked to confirm:

that you comply with all legal requirements relating to the letting of houses. Information on the law and good practice in letting is available online at www.betterrentingscotland.com, and from other sources. If in doubt about legal requirements you should consult a solicitor or professional letting agent.

tbs624

clutton wrote: »

tbs624 i could not get the link ""Landlord's Development Manual" to work ..... any ideas please

Just checked the link and it loaded okay butyou could try going via here or here if it's still not working for you.

The NLA are so up to date - their website mentions that they are updated their version of the LDM and that it "will be available early in 2009" - that's okay, it's only July

tbs624

franklee wrote: »

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2006/04/28144943

Sez:

Registration of private landlords has a number of aims:

* improve private renting in Scotland by enforcing minimum standards in letting
* oblige those not providing this minimum service to improve, or leave the sector
* allow tenants, neighbours and local authorities to identify and contact landlords and agents of private rented property
* provide information on scale and distribution of private rented sector in Scotland

I think we could probably re-arrange those in order of real purpose

franklee wrote: »

To place a landlord on their register, the local authority will have to be satisfied that they are a fit and proper person to let property. The authority can take into account any relevant information including:

* any relevant convictions, particularly in relation to fraud, violence or drugs
* any evidence that the applicant has failed to take adequate steps to deal with antisocial behaviour in his or her properties
* any evidence that the applicant has failed to comply with the law relating to housing or letting, including management, money and physical issues
* any evidence that the applicant has practised illegal discrimination in any business activity

Many *LLs* would also like a register of Ts - to be certain that *they* do not have any "relevant convictions". There's a few who post in here who would probably like to add an CRB enhanced disclosure check to the list of personal info to be provided when taking up a tenancy.

After all, if LLs are to be expected to play a role in policing the local community, by addressing the anti-social behaviour of their tenants, surely they should be able to provide themselves with advance information? They should know which of their Ts is a spouse-beater, drug addict, petty thief, fraudulent benefit claimant etc

franklee

tbs624 wrote: »

I think we could probably re-arrange those in order of real purpose
....

Many *LLs* would also like a register of Ts - to be certain that *they* do not have any "relevant convictions". There's a few who post in here who would probably like to add an CRB enhanced disclosure check to the list of personal info to be provided when taking up a tenancy.

After all, if LLs are to be expected to play a role in policing the local community, by addressing the anti-social behaviour of their tenants, surely they should be able to provide themselves with advance information? They should know which of their Ts is a spouse-beater, drug addict, petty thief, fraudulent benefit claimant etc

Sure but a landlord can always reference a tenant. Try it the other way round and look at the hoo ha caused round here even for a tenant asking for something simple like consent to let. I dread to think what the response would be if a tenant asked for proof the mortgage payments were up to date or for a credit check on the landlord before committing to a tenancy.

Yet tenants as the norm have to comply with the likes of this:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=23638861#post23638861

So the tenant is far more in the dark about the landlord than the landlord is about the tenant. If I could run similar checks on the landlord as he runs on me then that would be a fine alternative to landlord registration IMO, but that just isn't going to happen. So it would be useful if registration meant the landlord had met some minimum standards, the tenant just sees one big tick - registered, without having to be concerned about the landlord's affairs. As it is now the tenant does have to make a leap in the dark when choosing which landlord/agent to go with. In reality I know little more about my landlord than name and address, whereas he has seen my proofs of ID, proofs of previous addresses, NI number, bank account and sort code, reference from previous agent/LL and credit checks etc. (Which I had no issues to provide).

dizziblonde

As a tenant currently having issues with her landlord - I'd love to get something done to at least make some of these guys who fell into letting because of the credit crunch aware of their obligations to actually fix things occasionally. I've rented for many years, never had a problem until this guy (my old landlord knew I rarely called about stuff needing doing so when I did it was obviously something important).

This clown we have at the moment would quite happily leave the property without a front door that locked if we didn't push and put our foot down (he actually said when the front door lock broke for the 6th time in as many months "oh well they have another door with a yale lock on" - yeah mate - I'm going to invalidate my insurance so you don't have to pay to get something fixed properly for once). I used to be quite supportive of landlords in general as I know there are some lousy tenants out there who play the system - until we had to live with a water tank leaking and pouring water down through the ceiling for over a week (including trashing half my clothes when the leak spread to above the wardrobe) while he tried to fob us off with excuses not to fix it. We're incredibly good tenants - but this guy seems to view us as cheating scum (I rang up about the leak when I first noticed the damp patch because I wanted to advise him so he could fix it before the ceiling on his investment fell down!). We tolerate the endless credit checks, letting agent fees, inspections of the property, being made to feel like criminals because we know landlords take a risk letting out their assets to tenants - but we also take a risk in that we move our entire belongings into a property, and we just have to pray the landlord actually keeps it secure and weathertight (like I said before - our front door is falling apart, has been rebuilt several times, has an inch gap at the top you can see daylight through - and he still refuses to fix it unless it goes into one of the cycles where it won't lock at all). I wish we could have checked him out before we moved here and found out what kind of guy he was - we wouldn't have come.

Getting repairs done when there are guys like these around is a nightmare - the stress has actually made me ill to be honest and I'd love to see something in place to make it easier to access repairs when landlords do drag their feet like our current one tends to do (I don't think he's malicious - apparently from what I can gather from his odd job man - he's just a pathological cheap skate) but when you're stuck with one of these guys holding the roof over your head - you sit there dreading anything going wrong and the battle to try to get it fixed.

We're still waiting for him to fix the damage from the roof leak BTW - if he'd only listened when I first rang up saying "look I think there's something starting to leak in the loft, might want to get it fixed before it becomes a big problem for your" we would still have some paint left on our bedroom wall and Albert the pet mould would have been evicted.

On the other hand - official "organizations" and "registers" are generally nothing more than an excuse to make a bit of cash and send a glossy magazine once every 3 months. But yep - some landlords are incredibly greedy (my old one was a gem though - just didn't have anything else the right size that we could have moved into or we'd have happily stayed renting from him).

princeofpounds

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

It matters a great deal, and I have personal experience of it. My last LL did not have consent to let. He got sued. The flat underwent repossession hearings. The first I knew of it was a court letter that arrived on my birthday saying that I had 4 weeks to leave the flat. Neither the court, the LL, the LA, the mortgage lender would talk to me about it, so I had no idea what was happening and why. The last weekend of hte notice was one where I had a 6hr professional exam which I was working for every night.

It was pure hell, and NONE of it would have happened if the lenders were forced to respect the lease or at least give 2 months notice. Thankfully I did not pay rent once i got that letter so I did not also lose a month's rent.

Edit to add:

A particular reason this was really difficult besides the simple inconvenience was this - we were given a date that the repossession would take place. But because of data protection/ongoing court proceeedings/we can only talk to you on instruction of our client we didn't know what was happening.

So we could have gone out, sorted a new tenancy, only to be rung by the previous LL to say it had all been sorted out and he's like the remaining 5 months of the tenancy to continue as normal, and we would have been stuffed.

Because there was no certainty of tenure we had no idea what would happen.

tbs624

dizziblond - I don't want to divert the thread but do follow Shelter's guide to getting your LL to get those repairs done. See here : essentially, there is a procedure to follow when a LL has failed to effect repairs within a "reasonable" time, which enables you to get them done and deduct from future rent. (Don't shortcut the steps or simply withhold rent, however tempting)

I don't think that LL registration itself would expedite repairs issues - the funding needs to be inplace, as I said in an earlier post, for errant LAs/LLs to be properly chased up.

We already have the HHSRS (Housing Health & Safety Rating System) in place but insufficent council officers to rigorously enforce its contents. Simply having a register isn't going to change that - in fact it will probably divert manpower away from dealing with the real issues.

Scotland has its PRHP (Private Rented Housing Panel) and the "repairing standard" as set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006. However, private LLs are needed to make up the shortfall in housing availability and you can see that it's hard for the Council be able to insist on higher standards for private LLs being met when the Councils themselves are dragging their heels on their own provision. (Back in 2005 the Scottish Executive said that 70% of all *social housing* failed to meet apppropriate standards but the Councils have until 2015 to address this)

Shelter Scotland has said that 3 years after the implementation of LL registration (April 2009) the scheme wasn't working well & may never do so. Interestingly, there were cases of LLs who had illegally evicted Ts, for example, still being on the Register and IIRC only 5 or 6 LLs were actually refused registration across the whole of Scotland. Ask any law centre or housing advice worker and they'll tell you that there are more than half a dozen troublesome private LLs north of the border, so either some have managed to register despite their shortcomings or the balance of the bad guys are concentrated in the 10% approx who have so far failed to register.

theartfullodger

As a registered, accredited Landlord I'm in favour of registration: It is likely to help (after teething problems and some time..) in helping weed out a few more dodgy ones... One could similarly argue for tenant registration ... pause for flames....

The Scottish scheme does also allow anyone (neighbour, tenant, busybody ..) to find out who the Landlord is , see..
https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx
- but knowing Engerland (where I also rent out) they'll decide to do it in a completely different way.

Yes I know there a flaws in the Scottish implementation but oddly was talking to someone at Shelter(England) who would have valued, at that time, a way of establishing who the Landlord was (and if not registered knowing they might have committed a criminal offence)

Listen guys, it's going to happen regardless of Landlords liking it or lobbying against it, get over it & move on...

Cheers!


Lodger

clutton_2

i cannot imagine how awful it must be to get a letter from a court saying that you are to be evicted and then no one will talk to you about it - and i am truly sorry for anyone whose landlord does this to them

but, to be honest, whether a LL goes bust and is repossessed has little to do with what Type of mortgage they have - but rather on their own business-behaviour, how they manage their property, whether they have other income, what state of repair the portfolio is in, what type of tenants they have had in the past and so on - it is not a simple equation.

a new LL who cannot sell (for example because he has been promoted to a different part of the country), may choose to rent out his home - if he asks his lender for permission to let he may get swingeing "fees" (Halifax charge the earth - thousands in some cases) PLUS a swingeing increase in mortgage interest rate on a BTL product. If he does not tell his lender he will stay on a residential rate which is often a lot cheaper than BTL rates .....

i think that some of the greed here is that of the lender - some lenders recognisethat some folks need short term (say up to 2 years) help in a difficult sell/buy market and will not charge fees at all, some charge a couple of hundred quid, some charge thousands and increase the ERC% and length of time they apply .... so it then becomes a VERY expensive swop. It is not surprising that some landlords dont tell their lenders.

As i say frequently, it is the BLT insurance that is the crucial thing - as that include a much better public liability protection for tenants.



Re tenants credit checking/referencing landlords...... i ALways offer any of my current tenants phone numbers to prospective tenants when i am doing viewings - i have never ever been taken up on this......

Tenant here on MSE complain about not being able to check LLs - have you asked ? The problem about tenants credit checking landlords, is going to be the thornly question of the landlords private address.

If i lived near my rental properties (which i dont) - i would definitely not want tenants to have my home address for fear of retaliation if there were a dispute. I also would not want tenants to have a list of my properties for the same reason. I would not mind them knowing how many i owned.

I think that prospective tenants can probably tell whether a LL is a professional or not by the amount of paperwork they produce at the viewing and the amount of paperwork given to them on move-in...

These days you need a lot...

sorry got a bit off the subject

lynzpower

but, to be honest, whether a LL goes bust and is repossessed has little to do with what Type of mortgage they have - but rather on their own business-behaviour, how they manage their property, whether they have other income, what state of repair the portfolio is in, what type of tenants they have had in the past and so on - it is not a simple equation.

The lender *can* be a good check and balance to this though.How many times have you seen people come on here ( admittedly less so now he IR is lower)

"I cant afford my mortgage but I cant rent it out cos lender says we wont get enough for it..." The lender can stop[ a lot of the accidental LLs coming to the marketplace.

If you had to show consent to let as part of the conditions of being registered, tenants would only have the option of a registered LL with consent to let, OR unregistered LL.

This has to be a good thing- surely????