Landlords 'earn £5.6bn a year from unsafe homes'

Carl31

CLAPTON wrote: »

Surely if a gas safety check is vital that is it compulsory in rented property then surely it should be compulsory in owner occupiers properties
Are the children of OO less important than the children of renters.

Surely if you are paying for a service, you should be able to assume that the service contains everything to make that service complete, ie you receive the full product, in a complete form. Example, you go to a restaurant and pay for a hot meal, you get a hot meal that is as described and not riddled with salmonella - if the latter was to occur, you can expect a refund, or if the restauranter is less a obliging, you probably have grounds for a legal case

If you buy a house, you are paying for an asset, not for the service of being homed, hence what you do is up to you. Using the same example as above, if you cook yourself a meal, and it is of poor quality and makes you ill, then thats your problem

Thrugelmir

cepheus wrote: »

Nine billion pounds of taxpayers' money goes to private landlords every year in housing benefit. And the Institute for Public Policy Research estimates that at least £3bn of that money is spent on poor quality accommodation annually. That's a lot of public money. And some private landlords are getting rich at our expense while, in some areas, 70% of privately rented homes don't meet the government's decent homes standard.

and we won't forget in a hurry whose watch this was created under either.

ukcarper

Thrugelmir wrote: »

and we won't forget in a hurry whose watch this was created under either.

Who Maggie

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

Who Maggie

No, if you're talking about the condition of 'private rented property' the answer might well be 'Tony'. BTL was very much a New Labour phenomenon.:)

jamesd wrote: »

So lets look into a bit of the truth here. The real underlying survey is the English Housing Survey, commissioned each year by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Citizen's Advice commissioned a report to analyse data from that survey and did not do their own survey....

There is, of course, nothing wrong in principle with the EHS. It is perfectly respectable to carry out a survey of a sample of houses, and to draw conclusions relating to the entire housing stock based on that sample.

What is a bit dubious is to produce a 'report', based on that survey, on the condition of private rented property that does not tell you that the condition has been improving.

ukcarper

antrobus wrote: »

No, if you're talking about the condition of 'private rented property' the answer might well be 'Tony'. BTL was very much a New Labour phenomenon.:)



There is, of course, nothing wrong in principle with the EHS. It is perfectly respectable to carry out a survey of a sample of houses, and to draw conclusions relating to the entire housing stock based on that sample.

What is a bit dubious is to produce a 'report', based on that survey, on the condition of private rented property that does not tell you that the condition has been improving.

I was talking about housing benefit which was not introduced by New Labour also the sale of council housing. The problem did not start under New Labour although they didn't do anything to improve matters.

sebadee

alleycat` wrote: »

Lets condemn all these homes, bulldoze them and put the occupants where?

Sorry i'm having a morning...

Right, because that is the only option. <facepalm>

stator

mayonnaise wrote: »

You came up with a nationwide % based on personal experience.

Okay! :rotfl:

Did I say national statistic? I said it seems more like 25% to me.

alleycat`

sebadee wrote: »

Right, because that is the only option. <facepalm>

I was ironically over reacting in the same way the article was written...

As has already been highlighted on here...

They've extrapolated a small figure to get a big figure. Assumptions shouldn't be stated as "facts".

They've ignored the fact things have improved over the last few years.

So going back to my original theme.

Lets burn all the landlords and use them to heat the homes?

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

I was talking about housing benefit which was not introduced by New Labour also the sale of council housing. The problem did not start under New Labour although they didn't do anything to improve matters.

I was thinking about housing benefit too. To the extent that the issue was one of paying HB to private renters, then I would have thought that the total paid out would be linked to the expansion of BTL under New Labour.

Obviously, the sale of council housing involved houses moving out of the rented sector and into the owner-occupied sector, and since owner occupiers don't get HB, it wouldn't lead to an increase.

Generali

CLAPTON wrote: »

Surely if a gas safety check is vital that is it compulsory in rented property then surely it should be compulsory in owner occupiers properties
Are the children of OO less important than the children of renters.

The difference is that the parents that rent don't get to make the choice as to whether the property is safe to live in without regulation, OOs can choose whether or not to take the chance.