Bears In Despair part 2......

whathavewedone

We had secure tenancies in the 1970s and there are some tenants that still have such tenancies.

The Rent Act 1977 was repealed because it was a bad piece of legislation. It meant that landlords could not get their properties back if they needed to live in or sell the property that they were renting. Also if/when tenants broke the rules by subletting etc it's virtually impossible to prove as they are allowed to be absent from the property for lengthy periods of time so long as they keep some furniture (or a "friend") there to show an intention to return.

I know this because I've acted for professional landlords with a number of such tenants on their books who play the system shamefully.

Even with the current system many tenants will not pay their rent, will not move out when their tenancy expires, forcing their landlord to go to court for an order for possession and then apply for a warrant of possession. This means that a landlord could have almost a year of no rental income before he can actually get the tenants out by law. A money judgment means nothing as the people are generally hard to trace once they've moved out, assuming that they have any money/assets to go against in the first place.

Not all landlords have a lot of money. People sometimes let their property out when they meet a new partner instead of selling it in case the relationship doesn't work out after a few months of living together. The rent pays the mortgage. I've seen a lot of people suffer real financial hardship because of bad tenants and that's with the legal system that we have in place now.

I think the law is fine as it is and adequately protects both parties. Why should landlords take 100% of the risk?

If you want to know you can definitely stay in a property for as long as you like provided you pay a set sum of money each month then save up for a deposit and buy your own. If you don't want to take the risk that you might lose money on property then that's up to you but you have to accept the negatives that come with renting.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

whathavewedone wrote: »

If you don't want to take the risk that you might lose money on property then that's up to you but you have to accept the negatives that come with renting.

Great post.

ruggedtoast

Property can just be seen as somewhere to live. The majority of the world tends to manage this fairly well free from the house price obsession that exists in the UK.

Cheaper houses mean less risk for landlords and a better deal for tenants.

I have a friend in Germany. His family is wealthy, by most standards, his dad employs over 100 people in Berlin and they didnt buy their own place until almost retirement. Prior to that they lived in a rented house, quite happily for years.

This wasnt seen as weird, wacky or eccentric, there was no talk of missing the boat, jumping in, getting on the ladder. Their landlord got a fair return for the service they were supplying and had secure upper middle class tenants for the best part of three decades.

In the meantime my friends dad was able to spend his time and money building a profitable business that actually produced something of worth and gives 100 people as well as his family a good livelihood.

The system we have here is barking.

whathavewedone

I understand the argument that you're making. The fact is that we have tried secure tenancies in this country and they didn't work. People took advantage of them and landlords allowed the properties to become slums because they knew they would never get them back and weren't getting a market rent for them.

Rising Damp was made at the time when such tenancies were common. It was impossible to find somewhere decent to rent - the price that tenants paid for secure tenancies and low rents across the board were *itholes across the board.

There's no point in comparing us with other parts of Europe. They have a renting culture, we have a home owning one. An Englishman's home is his castle and all that. It's deeply embedded and I don't see it changing, well not in my lifetime anyway.

IveSeenTheLight

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Property can just be seen as somewhere to live. The majority of the world tends to manage this fairly well free from the house price obsession that exists in the UK.

The obsession is not for house prices to rise.
I'm pretty sure every buyer wants to get the property as cheaply as possible.
The obsession in the UK is with being owners, which is not seen elsewhere in Europe.
The obsession to be an owener drives up demand.

The options are, be less obsessive to buy hence lowering demand or get the supply to increase.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

The options are, be less obsessive to buy hence lowering demand or get the supply to increase.

Indeed.

I've often wondered why the few thousand crashaholics posting here and on hpc don't instead devote the same number of hours into campaigning for less restrictive planning laws and more house building.

If they did that, they'd actually have some chance of seeing cheaper houses over the long term.

the_ash_and_the_oak

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Indeed.

I've often wondered why the few thousand crashaholics posting here and on hpc don't instead devote the same number of hours into campaigning for less restrictive planning laws and more house building.

If they did that, they'd actually have some chance of seeing cheaper houses over the long term.

no particular interest in houses getting cheaper tbh (tho i think they will - at least the capital outlay). but definitely not feeling yet more new build estates blighting the land so don't want planning laws to be made less restrictive at all

Pretty sure there isn't a housing shortage tbh - here may well be a shortage of houses *For Sale* but not to live in imo

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

the_ash_and_the_oak wrote: »

Pretty sure there isn't a housing shortage tbh - here may well be a shortage of houses *For Sale* but not to live in imo

Pretty sure there is a shortage of housing. Of the types people want to live in, in the places people want to live, and where the employment exists to support them.

There are 1 million empty homes, but 50% of those are empty for 6 months or less, due to probate, refurbisment, etc. Of the rest, most are derelict or just in the wrong place. A surplus of houses in the north of scotland, where they are cheap, helps nobody in London, where they are expensive.

And given that there are 250,000 households being formed per year, and only 80,000 houses being built, the shortages that do exist are getting worse, not better.

the_ash_and_the_oak

dunno, I live in london imo and I've never had trouble finding anywhere nice to live (still think rents would rise here if there was a shortage imo - according to supply and demand and all that)

lostinrates

whathavewedone wrote: »

I understand the argument that you're making. The fact is that we have tried secure tenancies in this country and they didn't work. People took advantage of them and landlords allowed the properties to become slums because they knew they would never get them back and weren't getting a market rent for them.

Rising Damp was made at the time when such tenancies were common. It was impossible to find somewhere decent to rent - the price that tenants paid for secure tenancies and low rents across the board were *itholes across the board.

There's no point in comparing us with other parts of Europe. They have a renting culture, we have a home owning one. An Englishman's home is his castle and all that. It's deeply embedded and I don't see it changing, well not in my lifetime anyway.

I know you and I have had this converstaion before, and you were patient and kind in explaining your PoV but I still think that changing the security of tenure in rented is a good way forward. I tend to agree about the way british view their homes, only, of course, for a lot of people this is a relatively recent change to the wider social culture too, and I think there is some if not absolute validity in comparing things to other parts of the world if we can improve here. (Especially if we reamin in EU).