What should the politicians do?

sevenhills

What should the politicians do in order to make renting better?
Having to spend thousands evicting a tenant is an obvious one, but tenants also need protection.
We have high house prices, so tax breaks would be a negative, stoking the market, and making buying more expensive for private buyers.

seven-day-weekend

For Landlords: The tenant should have to leave at the end of the notice period if they are being evicted for non-payment of rent, not looking after the property or anti-social behaviour. Why should the landlord have to put up with hassle?

For tenants: After a year, there should have to be three months notice instead of two. No rent rises above inflation.

FBaby

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

For Landlords: The tenant should have to leave at the end of the notice period if they are being evicted for non-payment of rent, not looking after the property or anti-social behaviour. Why should the landlord have to put up with hassle?

For tenants: After a year, there should have to be three months notice instead of two. No rent rises above inflation.

Agree totally with this, both sides.

crisp

Politicians should open up their own homes and at least a room, for rent starting with Labour MPs.


The previous post makes sense too.

Letting agents need to abide by clear set if checking in and checking out processes and all inventories should be independently done.

Pixie5740

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

For Landlords: The tenant should have to leave at the end of the notice period if they are being evicted for non-payment of rent, not looking after the property or anti-social behaviour. Why should the landlord have to put up with hassle?

For tenants: After a year, there should have to be three months notice instead of two. No rent rises above inflation.

The landlord should put up with the hassle because the list you have given are all risks associated with letting property. If you can’t handle them don’t become a landlord. Yes there should be a swift mechanism for evicting “problem” tenants but I think that it’s dangerous to give the power to evict tenants to landlords. When letting a property the landlord gives possession of the property to the tenant which is why the tenancy can only be ended by the tenant handing back possession or by a court granting a possession order.

How would increasing the notice period to 3 months help? The notice period is already 2 months so I don’t see how much difference an extra month makes especially since a tenant could easily spin the tenancy out an extra month already if they wanted to.

Pixie5740

The problems with renting that I can see are that there is no security for tenants. If people are going to renting for all/most of their lives they need to have security. 6 and 12 month AST are not secure. The Section 21 legislation is awful for tenants. You don’t have to have done anything and yet you can still be evicted. Don’t want to pay £££ to sign a new contract, here’s a Section 21.

We see time and time again on the forum tenants who are treated as little more than glorified house sitters whilst their landlords try and sell their former homes with tenants in-situ. Then there are the landlords and letting agents who believe the sole purpose of inspections is to comment on the way tenants live their lives, some landlords are just too invasive.

The solution? Scotland has banned letting agency fees, scrapped RTB and has passed a bill, Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) 2015, which will see Assured Shorthold Tenancies and Assured with a new type of tenancy can only have notice served with a ground such as arrears or the landlord needs to sell. rUK needs to catch up rather than rolling out RTB to sell off even more social housing stock.

SerialRenter

From a tenants point of view:

They should actually getting around to removing letting agent fees like they promised.

They should strive to improve energy efficiency of rental properties, if the landlords not paying the bill, they probably don't care (enough to spend money) that their tenants are paying over the odds for old, inefficient, poorly insulated properties.

They should streamline the tenancy deposit schemes. The process to pay back the deposit should automatically start and the landlord/letting agent should be the ones putting in a claim to withhold an amount, submitted with evidence (if disputed), if they fail to dispute within a time period then the full deposit gets returned without the tenant having to action anything.
Make it clearer to tenants how to claim, and what their rights are for example, fair wear and tear. And not allow the LL/LA to simply wait out the claim period to screw over the tenant.

CurlySue2017

Pixie5740 wrote: »

The problems with renting that I can see are that there is no security for tenants. If people are going to renting for all/most of their lives they need to have security. 6 and 12 month AST are not secure. The Section 21 legislation is awful for tenants. You don’t have to have done anything and yet you can still be evicted. Don’t want to pay £££ to sign a new contract, here’s a Section 21.

We see time and time again on the forum tenants who are treated as little more than glorified house sitters whilst their landlords try and sell their former homes with tenants in-situ. Then there are the landlords and letting agents who believe the sole purpose of inspections is to comment on the way tenants live their lives, some landlords are just too invasive.

The solution? Scotland has banned letting agency fees, scrapped RTB and has passed a bill, Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) 2015, which will see Assured Shorthold Tenancies and Assured with a new type of tenancy can only have notice served with a ground such as arrears or the landlord needs to sell. rUK needs to catch up rather than rolling out RTB to sell off even more social housing stock.

Personally I completely agree with this.

There is no way that a LL should have to put up with tenants that don't pay rent or cause damage to the property, I agree with that.

But for people to have to live their lives on a knife-edge day in day out, worried when the Section 21 is going to arrive is a horrible situation. I 100% agree that there needs to be more security for tenants.

Shows such as homes under the hammer and the like have given people the impression that they can simply buy cheap and rent quick, sit back and watch the money roll in....wrong! If you are not prepared to put in the work then you should not become a LL.

saajan_12

Pixie5740 wrote: »

The Section 21 legislation is awful for tenants. You don’t have to have done anything and yet you can still be evicted. Don’t want to pay £££ to sign a new contract, here’s a Section 21.

In principle, I think a LL should have the right to withdraw services eventually (ie with decent notice) and not be expected to provide a home indefinitely (Tesco isn't required to supply food forever).

However the problem is Section 21 notice is often used as a threat, because it's just 'intention' to apply for possession and is free to serve. Some tenants don't know they this while others may assume the LL is bluffing, leaving them with little actual forewarning before eviction costs start rising. Contrast to a tenant's notice to leave, which makes them liable for double rent if they don't leave.

I think Section 21 notice should be binding on the LL so if the tenant leaves at the end of the notice, the tenancy ends and if not, the LL HAS to apply for a possession order. Anything less would be sending mixed messages and liable to use as threats.

cloo

I think the main answer is to get behind 'build to rent', as is happening now, and return to corporate-owned large scale renting rather than single private landlords. I do thing short tenure is the worst thing - I was fortunate only ever to have rented for a brief period when my now-husband was working outside London, but I know so many people who have experienced having to live in 4 or 5 places in the space of 6 years because their LL sold up, or massively raised the rent etc. Investor-owned developments can offer long rents, better maintenance and if the owners want to sell, it doesn't mean the tenants having to leave.

It's a foolish system to have evolved that we have so many small LLs (I was one of them myself for a while) as so many don't know what they are doing and they are in the business of owning an asset, not providing housing, so it is inevitable they will need to sell up at some point.

I certainly think that LLs should all be registered somewhere, all receive legal updates on what they need to know and do, and those who rent out unsafe, overcrowded accommodation should have assets seized and be banned from ever letting property again... the most the worst seem to get these days is a 5-figure fine (which is probably nothing to the worst profiteers) and they'll do it again the moment they get an opportunity.

NineDeuce

Landlords should use housing benefit in order to guarantee mortgages so that more people can get on the housing market and either force buy to letters to up their game or decrease rents.