Good Old Fergus!

grizzly1911

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

So you've owned a second house for 40 years. You've rented it out. It's a big part of your "pension" and you plan to retire fairly soon.

The house is worth £250,000. Your remaining mortgage is £870. It yields £800 a month rent.

You are going to muscle in and serve a CPO at £870 or less on this guy and rob him of £249,130.

Not one of your better ideas I think!

Get off your high horse. No body is coming to take your investment properties off you. I am sure you have morals really.

In cases such as hilighted by the OP in this thread.

EDIT:- I know you have morals I thought I was replying to Hamish...

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Any comment on your previous post about this subject Graham?

Graham_Devon wrote: »

They may well cut housing benefit rates, at a later date.

But, I shouldn't worry too much. Landlords need that money. As we now have so many landlords reliant on DSS money, they are not very likely to just chuck the tennant out because they get less.

Remember, this will be country wide, not just one or two people.

Rents would simply have to fall.

Generali

Isn't the point of them stopping renting to HB tenants that they can't insure against non-payment? It's a decision based on risk rather than on Government policy.

mayonnaise

What's the issue?
Have none of you ever seen 'No DSS' on a private rental advert?
As long as he issues Notices 21 as he should, it's all legal.
He's running a business, not a charity.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Disgusting behaviour.

PasturesNew wrote: »

Off with his b4lls.

I imagine you two would gladly keep a non-paying tenant, just out of the kindness of your heart?
Let's be honest and drop the fake indignation. Please.

chucknorris

mayonnaise wrote: »

What's the issue?
Have none of you ever seen 'No DSS' on a private rental advert?
As long as he issues Notices 21 as he should, it's all legal.
He's running a business, not a charity.





I imagine you two would gladly keep a non-paying tenant, just out of the kindness of your heart?
Let's be honest and drop the fake indignation. Please.

We have avoided DSS tenants for years, although if our existing tenants subsequently claim HB we do not evict them. Back in the 90's I used to rent a house to a DSS family and they were nearly always in arrears, they were very honest enough and I trusted them, but obviously if their finances had taken a turn for the worse I would have lost out, plus it was additional admin to keep a record of the arrears, I wouldn't want to do that for all our properties.

wymondham

Generali wrote: »

Isn't the point of them stopping renting to HB tenants that they can't insure against non-payment? It's a decision based on risk rather than on Government policy.

In a way yes, although if they were in Government social housing, would the Government need to take out this type of insurance?

chewmylegoff

If we're saying this is a sensible business decision driven by a need to take out appropriate insurance then can't we question why anyone with 1,000 properties would want to pay for rent guarantee insurance. I can see why it is eminently sensible to take out such insurance if you had one, or even 10 properties, but surely when you've got 1,000 then it would be cheaper to self insure.

Graham_Devon

Generali wrote: »

Isn't the point of them stopping renting to HB tenants that they can't insure against non-payment? It's a decision based on risk rather than on Government policy.

It might be.

But it just leaves the question as to why he didn't state that if that's what he meant.

Were in danger here of trying to speak for him.

He won't leave himself with 200 empty houses in order to protect himself against the possibility of late payment. That's just absurd. Just using his power in order to try and change the local landscape I should imagine. The council can't cope with 200 people on their doorstep needing re-housing and Fergus knows that.

What he's looking for I'm not sure. Maybe he want's rents paid up at the start of the month instead of a month in arrears and feels these sorts of threats may achieve a change.

It's a bit strange than none of these 200 families have come forward with an eviction letter, so not sure it even exists. We live in the twitter / facebook age. If this sort of letter was sent out with such words as "i prefer eastern European tenants", I'm pretty sure the guardian would have gold hold of a copy by now. He has form for lies in the media.

macaque_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

What exactly did you think would happen?

Rents have been rising so as to ration the limited supply of housing through price. There are not enough houses to go around, so some people must be excluded.

This is the market working exactly as it should.

As I recall, all three of you supported the changes to housing benefits that have caused this situation.

Higher prices should stimulate greater supply but we have seen the opposite. This is the antithesis of how a market should work. The background to this has been widely reported.

ruggedtoast

Based on past evidence I don't think the Wilsons are exemplars of great business strategy. Their main achievement to date has been applying for buy to let mortgages over and over again until they had so many the bankers just changed the rules for them.

They were extremely lucky more than anything. I am quite prepared to believe they are about to fire 30% of their DHSS tenants with no contingency in place for the voids other than raising everyone elses rents and suing people for broken toilet seats because Eastern Europeans won't know the difference, or something.