End of section 21

tom9980

Durban wrote: »

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

West Midlands a property in same street worse condition sold in 1 day last week. My tenant is currently buying and will give notice soon.

Cakeguts

Not me I left school in 1976. At a time when there was nowhere much to rent because of the rent acts. My first rental was a bedsit where there was a hole in the floor that you could see into the cellar through. It was single glazed with windows that didn't fit very well and was damp and cold. There was a Baby Belling cooker and a sink and a shared toilet and bathroom. It was furnished with very old furniture.



Our rental properties are much better than this. But unfortunately when governments interfere with tenancies you get left with the kind of property that I had to rent because all the good ones get sold off. I can even predict what will happen in the area that our properties are in.



The only rental property available after this government fiddle will be two bed terraced houses built in the early1900s and in bad areas because those are the ones that first time buyers can afford not to buy so they only have a market with landlords. This is exactly what happened last time. All the nice modern family sized houses will be sold off because there is a market for them and there are fewer of them. So those people who cannot afford to buy and who won't get social housing will have to live in one of the two bed houses in a grotty area because that is all there will be. This is exactly what happened last time. The assured shorthold tenancies were what opened up the market to good quality properties in nice areas.

Cakeguts

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.

The government has a habit of tinkering with the tenancy rules. You can't now issue a section 21 if you haven't protected the deposit or if you haven't given the tenant the rental booklet at the beginning of the tenancy.



How would you feel about tenant security if the government tinkered with the section 8 and removed the eviction for rent arrears and for the landlord to sell clauses so that your tenant had total security of tenure and you couldn't evict them for any reason? Because I believe that is where this is going otherwise they could have made alterations to the assured shorthold tenancies.



There is no clause for eviction in the new assured tenancies for evicting a tenant who sublets or who lies to get the tenancy or who lies during it about who is living there. There also isn't anything about pets. So you could get a tenant who keeps 20 cats in your property and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.

markin

Andysandy wrote: »

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.

Many FTB seem to only want new builds with HTB, They then seem to get stuck when trying to sell without HTB, and are basically in negative eq.


Private rentals should be for a mobile work force, If they want security they should buy or park a tent outside the government to protest the huge lack of council homes.

markin

And how long until the campaign groups get their way and they get Right To Buy!

tom9980

Cakeguts wrote: »

The government has a habit of tinkering with the tenancy rules. You can't now issue a section 21 if you haven't protected the deposit or if you haven't given the tenant the rental booklet at the beginning of the tenancy.



How would you feel about tenant security if the government tinkered with the section 8 and removed the eviction for rent arrears and for the landlord to sell clauses so that your tenant had total security of tenure and you couldn't evict them for any reason? Because I believe that is where this is going otherwise they could have made alterations to the assured shorthold tenancies.



There is no clause for eviction in the new assured tenancies for evicting a tenant who sublets or who lies to get the tenancy or who lies during it about who is living there. There also isn't anything about pets. So you could get a tenant who keeps 20 cats in your property and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.

Not being able to evict for rent arrears will never happen, it would cause chaos no tenant would pay rent at all. Not even Corbyn is that mad.

Unlike your property mine is on an old council estate, it is not a bad area in reality, I lived there 5 years happily but I am not in any way precious about my former home. I allow pets and as long as tenants treat it as their home cause no problems with the neighbours and pay the rent on time I don't have any need to seek eviction.

I am certainly glad that I listened to my gut and did not purchase two properties in 2015/6 when the first changes and anti landlord rhetoric started.

The dilemma now is cash in before cgt changes or wait and risk government botching the new s8 rules and timescales. We could see a situation where good landlords are like gold dust and rents increase due to demand. It is tricky trying to figure out the best course of action.

ancientofdays

May I ask if the changes are going to be retrospective? I thought they would not be. Some changes in the past have not seemed to apply to existing tenancies.

sal_III

Cakeguts wrote: »

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.

As tenant I was thinking the same. Until I was a "victim" of s21 no fault eviction. On top of all the financial loss - £2-3k there is an emotional cost of feeling thrown out like a human garbage.

Even if only 1% of the tenancies are terminated with s21 it's too much for all I care.

There is already no no-fault evictions in Scotland and many European countries, yet the private rental market is alive and kicking. So your predictions of doom and gloom are unfounded.

By all means go ahead and evict your long standing tenants and sell off your portfolio. Just don't try to off load any moral guilt to the Government. No matter the size/location of your properties they will remain in the housing stock and someone will buy them to either live in them or rent them out privately, so no loss for the rest of uss really.

Cakeguts

sal_III wrote: »

As tenant I was thinking the same. Until I was a "victim" of s21 no fault eviction. On top of all the financial loss - £2-3k there is an emotional cost of feeling thrown out like a human garbage.

Even if only 1% of the tenancies are terminated with s21 it's too much for all I care.

There is already no no-fault evictions in Scotland and many European countries, yet the private rental market is alive and kicking. So your predictions of doom and gloom are unfounded.

By all means go ahead and evict your long standing tenants and sell off your portfolio. Just don't try to off load any moral guilt to the Government. No matter the size/location of your properties they will remain in the housing stock and someone will buy them to either live in them or rent them out privately, so no loss for the rest of uss really.

Private rental market in Scotland isn't. Lots of landlords have left and there is now a shortage of rental property there.



Edinburgh Fringe performers are having problems due to changes to student accommodation rules which are also wanting to be introduced into England and Sadiq Khan the London mayor is wanting to introduce rent controls because so many landlords have sold up in London because of the tax changes rents are rising. I expect more sales in London because if this change to section 21. I also predict rent controls in London and we all know what happened last time they did that.



It will make no difference to people who can afford to buy. The people it will hit are those who can't afford to buy and who can't get social housing as well as making rents higher for everyone.



If you do some research rent rises are predicted all across the country.

All the research I have found on this is that the number of landlords of private rental properties are falling and demand for rental property is rising.


I consulted our managing agents on this subject and they said that they have never had a no fault section 21 issued by a landlord there is always something that has gone wrong. They manage 100s of properties in the area.



We have only ever issued 4 section 21s in nearly 30 years. 1 was because we wanted to sell the house and the others were all faults. The possession for selling the property won't change under the new rules.







I agree that it will be the same number of properties available for rental but they won't be in the same places as now. Now you can rent a house in an area with low crime and good schools because there are small landlords who own a few properties like us. In the future all rentals will either be very expensive flats owned by large companies or grotty houses that no one wants to buy. The country has been here before and that is exactly what happened last time. It is then followed by rent controls as the rents rise faster than tenants can afford to pay them as the available rental property reduces. It has already reduced in London and Scotland. If you don't believe me about Scotland read this. https://www.landlordzone.co.uk/news/edinburgh-fringe-renting-accommodation-costs-soaring notice that rents have increased by 5% this year that is on top of any increases last year and that isn't just student accommodation.



It is absolutely fine it won't make any difference to me because I won't be a landlord anymore but I do think someone should think about the people who can't afford to buy and who can't get social housing because they are going to be chasing fewer and fewer grotty homes in areas where no one wants to buy and paying very high rents for them.

Semple

Cakeguts wrote: »

To make this fairer a tenant should give one months notice and then take the landlord to court to allow them to leave.

I'm sure you've only said that in jest, as frankly that would be ridiculous.

Based on your claim of having a number of long-standing tenants, i'm going to go on the assumption that you're a fair and reasonable landlord. The problem is there are a number of landlords out there who are not fair and reasonable, and would happily issue s21 notices to tenants who complain of the smallest things that require maintenance - those landlords are the ones that are ruining things for fair and reasonable landlords.

From a good tenants perspective, all they want, is to know that they have some security in the home that they are renting, and that when issues arise (as they always will) they can request the landlord to fix/repair/replace in reasonable time and without fear of reprisals.

From a landlords perspective, i'm sure the only two concerns you have is that the tenant pays rent on time, and that they treat the property with care and respect.

I agree there needs to be much quicker fast-tracking to evict tenants who fall into arrears. But at the same time there needs to be protection for good tenants who end up with rogue landlords who do anything to avoid their duties as a landlord.