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

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

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.

And the difference is that the Defective Premises Act 1972 imposes a duty of care on landlords to ensure that their properties are "reasonably safe". It doesn't mention owner occupiers at all.:)

ukcarper

antrobus wrote: »

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.

Surely if you reduce the amount of council housing the shortfall has to be found somewhere and that combined with deregulation of rental sector is what has caused the increase in BTL. I believe BTL mortgages were available before 1997.

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

Surely if you reduce the amount of council housing the shortfall has to be found somewhere and that combined with deregulation of rental sector is what has caused the increase in BTL. ...

If you sell a council house all that happens is that the person or persons who used to pay rent to a council for the privilege of living there, now pay a mortgage repayment to a lender for the privilege of living there. Otherwise there is no change. And no 'shortfall'.

ukcarper wrote: »

...I believe BTL mortgages were available before 1997.

BTL was invented in 1996. In 1998 there were 28,700 BTL mortgages, by 2010 there were 1.3 million of them. I think you can see when the growth occured.:)

ukcarper

antrobus wrote: »

If you sell a council house all that happens is that the person or persons who used to pay rent to a council for the privilege of living there, now pay a mortgage repayment to a lender for the privilege of living there. Otherwise there is no change. And no 'shortfall'.



BTL was invented in 1996. In 1998 there were 28,700 BTL mortgages, by 2010 there were 1.3 million of them. I think you can see when the growth occured.:)

But a large number of ex council houses are now private rental properties and majority of people who could afford to buy would not be the people on housing benefit.


Do you think that if the Tories had been in power there would not have been that increase, as I said Labour were not the cause they just didn't do anything to help.

Thrugelmir

ukcarper wrote: »

I believe BTL mortgages were available before 1997.

Around 30,000. The term BTL was coined by Bradford and Bingley in 1998.

SeduLOUs

Generali wrote: »

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.

I live in rented and could call out someone today to do a gas safety check at my own cost if I wanted to.

Yes, I shouldn't have to pay for it as it is the LL's responsibility to do it, but I certainly still have a choice as to whether to fork out for it myself of take the chance. If I don't like those two choices, I have the further options of complaining to the LL to try and force him to do it, or moving somewhere else entirely.

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

But a large number of ex council houses are now private rental properties and majority of people who could afford to buy would not be the people on housing benefit....

I have no doubt that there are a number of former council houses that were acquired by their owners have since been sold and bought by landlords under BTL. I have no idea whether or not a former council house is more or less likely to become private rental, compared to a former owner-occupied house that was never a council house. I have not seen any statistics. And I'm not convinced it would be of relevance to the topic at hand.

ukcarper wrote: »

...Do you think that if the Tories had been in power there would not have been that increase, as I said Labour were not the cause they just didn't do anything to help.

The statement you were querying was that "we won't forget in a hurry whose watch this was created under either". I must admit that I am assuming that the poster concerned meant 'Labour's watch', but there is no suggestion that they were the cause, simply that it happened under their watch.

ukcarper

antrobus wrote: »

I have no doubt that there are a number of former council houses that were acquired by their owners have since been sold and bought by landlords under BTL. I have no idea whether or not a former council house is more or less likely to become private rental, compared to a former owner-occupied house that was never a council house. I have not seen any statistics. And I'm not convinced it would be of relevance to the topic at hand.



The statement you were querying was that "we won't forget in a hurry whose watch this was created under either". I must admit that I am assuming that the poster concerned meant 'Labour's watch', but there is no suggestion that they were the cause, simply that it happened under their watch.

As far as I can tell 1/3 of properties sold under RTB are now private rentals.

The post I replied to said "created under" which to me means what it says not whose watch did it happen under. As I said Labour didn't do anything to help situation and I can't see the present goverment doing much either. With very little social housing being built and nobody wiling to get into large scale private rental BTL seems to be the only solution.

cells

ukcarper wrote: »

With very little social housing being built.

This is not true, in some areas 50% of all new vuilds are social homes. The London plan calls for 50% of all new developments over 10 units to be social and in practise it is achieved eg my borough had 49% of all new builds as social last year.

Of course the figure varies council to council and I don't know what the national figure is but I suspect it is north of 30% of all new builds as social

so we have in the region of 40k or more social homes built per year. About 10k get sold via right to buy so in fact the sector is expanding

ukcarper

cells wrote: »

This is not true, in some areas 50% of all new vuilds are social homes. The London plan calls for 50% of all new developments over 10 units to be social and in practise it is achieved eg my borough had 49% of all new builds as social last year.

Of course the figure varies council to council and I don't know what the national figure is but I suspect it is north of 30% of all new builds as social

so we have in the region of 40k or more social homes built per year. About 10k get sold via right to buy so in fact the sector is expanding

ONS figures 136610 new homes in 2013/4 of which 30590 were social and affordable rent. I can't find breakdown between social and affordable, affordable rent can be 80% of market rent.