The Shame of Britain. Young shredded in inter-generational economic meat grinder

JencParker

MobileSaver wrote: »

Hardly one sided when a tenant can leave on the last day of a fixed term AST with absolutely no notice or if on a periodic agreement only has to give just one month's notice.

Almost everything is heavily weighted in favour of the landlord and their 'investment'.

chewmylegoff

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Ok.

So lets look at the stats then from BBC watchdog?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/features/residential-lettings-regulation

8,000 complaints seems a pretty inconsequential number to me, given that there must be at least 4-5 million private tenancies running at any one time.

To put it in some kind of context there were 500,000 complaints about financial services companies in the last year. I realise it's not directly comparable but for me the numbers do not indicate some kind of endemic problem. It may just be because people don't complain of course.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Ok.

So lets look at the stats then from BBC watchdog?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/features/residential-lettings-regulation

From your article...

3.8 million of us are now renting from private landlords or letting agents. That’s over two million more than in 1999 – but complaints are also rising.

Obviously different timescales but it's not entirely suprising that complaints have more than doubled if the number of renters has more than doubled over the same period.

Rugged implied that people don't complain because it's pointless but if people feel able to complain to a TV show then surely they've gone through the TRO at the council first?

I'm really unsure why you or Rugged don't just ask your local councils TRO's for complaints per rented unit over the last 5 years. It would be nice to see some official data and I'm worried that Jen might give herself a Connery based only on Rugged's, albeit amusing, captioned photos.

LucyGoose

Nice_Weather_For_Ducks wrote: »

It someone wants to succeed, and put in hard work to do so, then they will. Whether it be a young person today, or a young person 30 years ago.

For the last 2 years my partner and myself have scrimped and saved every penny we can to get a deposit together for a house.

We have gone without all the new gadgets, shiny new cars and fancy clothes. My parents and grandparents always taught me to work hard. It has paid off for us. We are just about to buy our first home. I have some friends that spend and spend their money and moan when they are living in rented accommodation that they hate.

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

For example, protecting deposits.. The law says a deposit has to be protected. However, in law, so long as the landlord protects the deposit the day before the court case, the landlord is covered.

Wrong. Deposits have to be lodged and protected within 30 days of receipt.

Failure to do so leaves the LL exposed to a liability amounting to 3 times the original deposit.

This is working very well.

Bantex_2

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Wrong. Deposits have to be lodged and protected within 30 days of receipt.

Failure to do so leaves the LL exposed to a liability amounting to 3 times the original deposit.

This is working very well.

I did see on here that no landlord has ever had to pay the 3 times thing. If the deposit is registered before court then the case is always dropped.

Graham_Devon

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Wrong. Deposits have to be lodged and protected within 30 days of receipt.

Plenty of cases where the case is dropped as the landlord registers the deposit just before the court case.

That's what I stated. I never said the regulation specifically allowed for it.

Graham_Devon

chewmylegoff wrote: »

8,000 complaints seems a pretty inconsequential number to me, given that there must be at least 4-5 million private tenancies running at any one time.

The complaints are about letting agents, not landlords per se.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The complaints are about letting agents, not landlords per se.

So it's 8000 complaints divided by a smaller number instead. If you spend enough time playing with the data you might be able to create a really big number that looks scary.

I've dealt with letting agents and have been unimpressed but these arguments always end up with someone arguing that their anecdotal trumps somebody else's.

Is there a word for a collection of anecdotal data?

Or a word for someone that has a fear of collecting real data.

Linton

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I would invite you to try living as a private tenant for a few years if you think it's so pleasant.

No?

Didn't think so.

Now bear in mind that that living arrangement that you (sensibly) would not go near with a barge pole is all many young people are expecting for the rest of their lives.

Forty years ago after leaving university I shared a rented house for two years and then rented a 1 bedroom flat for two years, befor buying a semi after getting married. It was not difficult for two qualified people in reasonable jobs to afford a small house outside London, bit like now.