End of section 21

Cakeguts

I hope this is in the right place.



Having just filled up the government "consultation" on the end of section 21. The consultation very much indicates that they have made up their mind to change this and I think there is a lot of indication of possible security of tenure for tenants in the future (all tenancies will become assured tenancies) I wondered how many landlords would sell their portfolios before it is introduced.



I am considering making all of our tenants homeless because of this. Some of them have rented from us for many years but I don't feel I am being given a choice.

wesleyad

I don't see your logic. You are going to evict longstanding paying tenants because you wont be able to S21 them in the future? You can still evict if they don't pay rent, or any of the 17 reasons under S8. Why do you need a no fault eviction?

I assume they will bring in a further grounds for selling the house as in Scotland.

Cakeguts

wesleyad wrote: »

I don't see your logic. You are going to evict longstanding paying tenants because you wont be able to S21 them in the future? You can still evict if they don't pay rent, or any of the 17 reasons under S8. Why do you need a no fault eviction?

I assume they will bring in a further grounds for selling the house as in Scotland.

No I am going to evict them because in the future with a bit of twiddling the next government can remove the ability to evict them at all because that is what the introduction of only using section 8 is aimed at. There is even a hint in one of the questions that landlords will not be able to gain possession. It is security of tenure by the back door provided by private individuals. Back to the rent acts and security of tenure again. I am not getting into that.


There is no reason to change what we already have because it works. The number of tenants evicted for no fault is so small it isn't worth spending taxpayers money to make this change. Most tenancies are ended by tenants. They say it will make it fairer but it doesn't it makes it even more unfair to landlords.


A tenant can give 1 months notice to leave a property and then leave. A landord has to give 2 months and then get possession through a court. To make this fairer a tenant should give one months notice and then take the landlord to court to allow them to leave.



The number of tenants evicted for no fault not including where the landlord wants to sell or move back in which will still be the case is so small that it is insignificant so why go to all the trouble of changing the legislation. Not only that but it is an insignifant number of the housing moves over all. So how come this really small group of people are suddenly more important than all the rest of the population? Does the government really want to end all private renting except the bad properties? They are going to lose all the build to rent schemes too.

Andysandy

With all due respect, it doesn't work for tenants. And I say this as a landlord myself who has rented extensively prior to being one.

The sword of S21 and a no-fault eviction hanging over a tenant's neck is plain uncivilised which is why they have to put up with landlords who act like they're doing the tenants a favour by running a business (just to be clear, I'm not implying that you are one of them).

As far as I am concerned, as long as there is a way to evict tenants who don't pay rent, or break the contract in other ways and to sell the property or move in myself (very unlikely as all my properties are investments), I'm happy.

They have said that the courts will be beefed up to quicken enforcement and I have no reason to believe that that won't happen.

Any properties sold by landlords such as yourself will still stay in the housing stock - either going to other landlords or first time buyers, so nothing lost either way.

Cakeguts wrote: »

There is no reason to change what we already have because it works.

Cakeguts

Andysandy wrote: »

With all due respect, it doesn't work for tenants. And I say this as a landlord myself who has rented extensively prior to being one.

The sword of S21 and a no-fault eviction hanging over a tenant's neck is plain uncivilised which is why they have to put up with landlords who act like they're doing the tenants a favour by running a business (just to be clear, I'm not implying that you are one of them).

As far as I am concerned, as long as there is a way to evict tenants who don't pay rent, or break the contract in other ways and to sell the property or move in myself (very unlikely as all my properties are investments), I'm happy.

They have said that the courts will be beefed up to quicken enforcement and I have no reason to believe that that won't happen.

Any properties sold by landlords such as yourself will still stay in the housing stock - either going to other landlords or first time buyers, so nothing lost either way.

Not first time buyer properties. They are in an expensive area which is very popular but expensive to buy in now.



It isn't just the end of section 21 it is the end of assured shorthold tenancies. All tenancies after this change will be assured tenancies with complete security of tenure except for a couple of clauses to get possession. One is if you want to sell the property and another is for rent arrears other than that tenants get security of tenure for ever and you can't evict them.



This isn't my problem what I see as a problem is what happens if in a couple of years time they remove these two clauses that give possession. It is much easier to do if you have got rid of the assured shorthold tenancy and introduced only tenancies with security of tenure. In a stroke we will be back to the rent act tenancies.



I would have though that having a section 21 hanging over you would have been preferable to only being able to rent from bad landlords or not at all. We have been here before and it decimated the rental market and made it really difficult for people to find a rental property. I am old and I can remember it but whoever came up with this legislation obviously doesn't remember it.

Andysandy

Well I respect your opinion but don't share the (imho) apocalyptic outlook with regard to the future for landlords.

Indeed I'm on the lookout for bargains in my area as quite a few LLs are exiting the market due to the tax changes and to cash-in.

With so little stock to go around, properties will keep circulating in the market. A home mover buys your's, an FTB buys their's and so on.

diggingdude

When do the schools go back??

tom9980

The changes to capital gains tax (lettings relief) in April 2020 do make it an attractive time to sell up. I am tempted to sell and i might do it when the current tenant leaves in the next few months.

I honestly don't mind if tenants get more security but i do want to be able to evict a non paying tenant within 6 months of their first rent arrears.

Durban

tom9980 wrote: »

The changes to capital gains tax (lettings relief) in April 2020 do make it an attractive time to sell up. I am tempted to sell and i might do it when the current tenant leaves in the next few months.

I honestly don't mind if tenants get more security but i do want to be able to evict a non paying tenant within 6 months of their first rent arrears.

I don't know where your BTL is based but that might be cutting it a bit fine, to get property empty , ready for sale , sold and all gone through by April. Properties are not selling quickly here in East Anglia

Twopints

diggingdude wrote: »

When do the schools go back??

Why? Are you missing it already? :beer:

Durban

I have 2 BTL's and my immediate thought was to sell.

Then I thought rationally and will have no knee jerk reaction.

You will still be able to evict for non payment of rent and to sell, so why sell now and make someone homeless and disrupt their lives when there are perfectly good tenants in my properties.

When they decide to leave , I will see how the land lies then and make a rational decision at that time