MSE News: Three-year minimum tenancies could be introduced for renters

Cakeguts

I can't see the point. All it will do is force landlords to keep tenants that are a problem for longer. We have rolling tenancies that have gone on for a lot longer than 3 years. If the landlord is happy with the tenant and the tenant is happy with the property there is no reason for the landlord to get possession. The problems only occur when people let property for a short time and don't tell the tenant or the tenant causes problems.



Introducing 3 year tenancies makes absolutely no difference to landlords who are in it for the long term because their tenants stay for however long they want to regardless of how long the original fixed term was. Many of these landlords don't seek possession unless the tenant has caused a problem and most of the time it is the tenant who gives notice.



All 3 year tenancies will do is to force landlords to keep problem tenants for 3 years and force people letting property to let it for 3 years. If it runs on the same method as France only the tenant can give notice in the first 3 years.

Owain_Moneysaver

ripplyuk wrote: »

Why does this put landlords off? In the olden days, weren’t all tenancies secure? 3yrs doesn’t seem very risky compared to that. Or maybe there was hardly any landlords and tenants back then and everyone owned instead of renting.

In 'the olden days' yes, some tenancies were secure, but landlords had no incentive to maintain a property for a secure tenant, and many were in appalling disrepair. Landlords also used unsavoury techniques to force secure tenants to leave, because they couldn't use a legal eviction process. And there was a shortage of rental property because most landlords couldn't afford to buy-to-let or build-to-let on the returns they were getting.

This is partly why there was such a massive council housing building programme post-war.

The buy-to-let market is a major customer for many new apartment developments, and if landlords are put off investing in rentals those flats won't sell to FTBs, because FTBs can't afford them. It's more likely those flats won't be built, making fewer houses available in total and further depressing the construction sector.

gadgetmind

Daughter is working away from home for a year and needs to rent out the house she owns to be able to afford to rent elsewhere.

She has some friends who needs to rent for exactly a year.

The government should keep their noses out and let those with property, and those who want to rent it, sort out the terms themselves.

Daughter is already having to tackle of paperwork and inspections before she can rent out the house as it it, so please let's not have further knee-jerk regulation that would just see houses left empty.

thelem

All sounds very hypothetical at the moment, just a general desire to give tenants greater security.


Personally I don't think longer fixed terms are the answer, rather I'd increase the notice period from landlord to tenant to 6 or 12 months. Tenants would be still be able to leave with one month's notice, and landlords would be free to offer incentives to tenants to leave sooner.


Longer fixed terms are very friendly to the tenant at the start of the fixed term, and friendly to the landlord at the end of the fixed term. By having a longer notice period instead the balance stays the same throughout the tenancy.

PasturesNew

As a tenant, I'd like a 3 year tenancy .... with the tenant able to give one month's notice after 6 months. Tenants struggle to pay double bubble if they suddenly have to move and rent a 2nd flat with an overlap....

Years ago you'd just rock up to a flat and say "I'll have it" a rent book was whipped out, you handed over money and moved in - and when you wanted out you gave a month's notice and that was it. Much easier... I bet a lot of the housing shortage is caused by tenants having to stay/pay longer for where they are as the LL won't let them out early.

tlc678910

Only when the last landlord has thrown in the towel and the last private rental has been sold will we realise that there are not enough homes for people that need to rent.

Recent policies (tax changes, minimum EPC requirements, registration with fees) will one by one result in another wave of landlords leaving the sector. This is another of those - the tenant can have a break clause because they shouldn't be stuck for 3 years but if the landlord becomes ill/is under financial pressure/ has a nightmare tenant, they should suck it up for 3 years.

I know many people think landlords selling up is a good thing but surely only if there are homes for the tenants to go to. The solution to buy is not for everyone. Look at the current thread running re single mum, 7 months in arrears with her rent, despite no doubt receiving the public funds to pay it,- she's not going to be buying a home!

To raise standards in rentals while keeping rents affordable the government needs to invest in new social housing and redevelopments that provide real competition to the private rental sector. Housing that normal people can obtain, where you don't have to have an addiction problem and many children to stand a chance. If tenants had a choice of properties at reasonable rents poor landlords with poor properties would find themselves with an empty property.

Tlc

Red-Squirrel_2

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

This is partly why there was such a massive council housing building programme post-war.

Crazy idea, maybe we should be looking at doing something like that again?

Red-Squirrel_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

As a tenant, I'd like a 3 year tenancy .... with the tenant able to give one month's notice after 6 months. Tenants struggle to pay double bubble if they suddenly have to move and rent a 2nd flat with an overlap....

.

Sounds good, a balance of security and flexibility for the tenant.

westernpromise

I'm sure this will be three years only in the tenant's option.

It will reduce supply, of course, because many mortgage lenders won't tolerate and because if a landlord is on a fix with less than three years left that he finds he can't renew for whatever reason, he could be faced with a tenant who can't be made to leave so he can't even sell.

FTBs (or others) buying these are not the solution, because typically three owner-occupiers take up the same space as four renters. There are about 5 million renters; if every last PRS property were sold to owner-occupiers, they'd house only 3.8 million former renters. The other 1.2 million would presumably sleep on the streets.

In reality what'll happen is that at some point short of the PRS diminishing to nil, it will become very small with a proportionately large number of billy bunters trying to rent whatever's left. At this point it can be really really 5h!tty but someone will still rent it because they'll have to.

I didn't get into letting property to become a Rachman landlord, but if that's the way the regulation cookie crumbles, I'll just have to take the money, I suppose.

ripplyuk

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

In 'the olden days' yes, some tenancies were secure, but landlords had no incentive to maintain a property for a secure tenant, and many were in appalling disrepair.

I don’t understand this part. Landlords don’t have any incentive to maintain properties now. They can just evict tenants if they complain. A secure tenancy means the tenant doesn’t have to be afraid of getting evicted and can contact environmental health/take legal action etc.

Or do you mean there was no regulations back then and they could just leave them all as slums?