Further pressure for rental regulation...this time, from RICS

Thrugelmir

CLAPTON wrote: »

I'm unclear what you are saying.

There are some regulations but they do not seem to be enforced.

What qualifications or licence do you need to open a letting agency?

The regulations falls on landlords, many of whom are accidental ones. So have no concept of running a business.

Road_Hog

Yes, several groups that want to cut a cut of the market, will apply political pressure. They will get their regs and their profit from it.

Two things will happen, landlords will pass on the cost to the tenant.

Accidental/small landlords will withdraw from the market. They are the easy going ones, that allow smokers and pets.

You will be left with the professional landlords that don't allow anything, are up to date with all the regs and make sure they have rent reviews every 6 months.

Enjoy.

Generali

Road_Hog wrote: »

Yes, several groups that want to cut a cut of the market, will apply political pressure. They will get their regs and their profit from it.

Two things will happen, landlords will pass on the cost to the tenant.

Accidental/small landlords will withdraw from the market. They are the easy going ones, that allow smokers and pets.

You will be left with the professional landlords that don't allow anything, are up to date with all the regs and make sure they have rent reviews every 6 months.

Enjoy.

The response to which may well be rent controls and some security of tenure. Which would of course lead to a greater shortage of rental accommodation.

The problem with failed regulation is that it invariably leads to more regulation not less.

ruggedtoast

We do need security of tenure and we do need rent controls. That may well lead to a further shortage of private rental accommodation, but the private rental industry has demonstrated itself as thoroughly unfit to house people anyway.

What are we supposed to do, go back to tenement slums and workhouses because it suits private landlords?

At some point the government is going to have to build more affordable houses for people to live in or face a homelessness crisis.

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

We do need security of tenure and we do need rent controls. That may well lead to a further shortage of private rental accommodation, but the private rental industry has demonstrated itself as thoroughly unfit to house people anyway.

What are we supposed to do, go back to tenement slums and workhouses because it suits private landlords?

At some point the government is going to have to build more affordable houses for people to live in or face a homelessness crisis.

I guess you remember neither the terrible shortages nor quality of private sector rentals prior to the AST.

Council housing was often badly built and under maintained. DIY on council properties was illegal so tenants had to watch wood rot rather than be allowed to paint it.

Surely a definition of madness is to do the same thing and expect a different outcome.

The problems in the UK's housing market are simple to resolve: allow builders to build houses people want to live in where people want to live.

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

We do need security of tenure and we do need rent controls. That may well lead to a further shortage of private rental accommodation, but the private rental industry has demonstrated itself as thoroughly unfit to house people anyway.

What are we supposed to do, go back to tenement slums and workhouses because it suits private landlords?

At some point the government is going to have to build more affordable houses for people to live in or face a homelessness crisis.

you seem to be saying .. create an artificial shortage of rental property right now leading to people having no homes; then some in the future (lets say 10 years or so) we build more social housings
At first sight it doesn't seem a very attractive option.

IveSeenTheLight

Two thirds of more than 1,000 people who have rented a home in the last two years in England said they did not receive an inventory when they moved into their property, which RICS said showed the "worryingly low standards" tenants have come to expect.

As the OP link refers, is this just an issue in England.
In Scotland, all landlords need to be registered
https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk/Pages/Process.aspx?Command=ShowHomePage

Failure to register can lead to a fine.
The registration allows the local authorities to ensure the landlords are contactable, responsible and should any issues arise, help resolve the issues

http://www.prhpscotland.gov.uk/prhp/1.html

I also know that the local council can contact the mender if there is an issue (one of my properties is factored for maintenance) and I received a letter from the council as a landlord because there was a gutter that was broken and needed repaired.

I was "politely" requested to make the repairs., which I duly did by forwarding said letter to the factoring company and chasing them up until the repair was made.

I see a quick search you can see quarterly reports of the properties which have gone through the system
http://www.prhpscotland.gov.uk/prhp/729.html

I can also see details on individual properties as well
Repairs Search
Rents Search

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

I guess you remember neither the terrible shortages nor quality of private sector rentals prior to the AST.

Council housing was often badly built and under maintained. DIY on council properties was illegal so tenants had to watch wood rot rather than be allowed to paint it.

Surely a definition of madness is to do the same thing and expect a different outcome.

The problems in the UK's housing market are simple to resolve: allow builders to build houses people want to live in where people want to live.

No I dont remember.

Its a little known fact on this forum that I am not a boomer.

:mad:

In any case I don't really mind who tackles the accommodation crisis as long as someone does. When I said about the government building houses I didn't really mean council houses. I more had in mind a capital investment infrastructure project like they do in Japan. Except building something useful rather than spending billions concreting river banks in the middle of nowhere.

I'm not sure builders want to make cheap houses, or to rephrase that, builders will only make cheap houses but they dont want to sell them cheaply. The prices of newbuilds are absurd, and it seems that a lot of them are constructed on landbanks the builders have been sitting on since well before the boom.

Are they really going to drive up volume, reduce price and abandon ticky tacky as their main construction medium just with more lax planning?

IveSeenTheLight

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Are they really going to drive up volume, reduce price and abandon ticky tacky as their main construction medium just with more lax planning?

New-Builds have received some negative press over the quality of the new-builds, however.....

I am in the process of finalising a self build property and am finding the new regulation to be positive improvements on the previous regulations.

This is of course a step in the righ direction and I wonder if "new builds" of the future will be regarded with higher esteem that the previous "new builds"

CLAPTON

One of the major problems is that new builds are burdened by extra taxes ( the sort that tuggedtoast doubtless approves of) which make newbuilds expensive compared to the existing stock