Right to buy tenant plan to cost LLs £50 Billion

Green_Bear

Kohoutek wrote: »

We need to hugely overhaul tenancy law in this country, probably including, as has been suggested here, security of tenure and rent controls.

If appropriately robust regulation was brought it (e.g. including big penalties which are actually enforced) , it could also squeeze out a lot of the rogue landlords. The FCA did this with payday lending - they toughened the regulation in a way they knew would put a lot of the dubious lenders out of business.

It would be much more effective in improving renters' situation that this right to buy plan (given right to buy only works for renters that can actually afford a mortgage, for one). McDonnell is invariably interested in the 'smash the system' approach for the sake of it, though.

Another option is moving large employers to areas of very cheap / derelict housing.
The employers could own the housing and let it to their workers.
This was the original situation, in a lot of these places.

Coal mine owners often owned and built these cheap houses.
Amazon and Sports Direct don't do that.

Green_Bear

Kohoutek wrote: »

We need to hugely overhaul tenancy law in this country, probably including, as has been suggested here, security of tenure and rent controls.

If appropriately robust regulation was brought it (e.g. including big penalties which are actually enforced) , it could also squeeze out a lot of the rogue landlords. The FCA did this with payday lending - they toughened the regulation in a way they knew would put a lot of the dubious lenders out of business.

It would be much more effective in improving renters' situation that this right to buy plan (given right to buy only works for renters that can actually afford a mortgage, for one). McDonnell is invariably interested in the 'smash the system' approach for the sake of it, though.

I'm an owner occupier (no mortgage) and not a landlord. So I consider myself rather unbiased.

I think the private rental sector does have a positive role, if LLs actually create new housing through either new builds or serious renovation.

But landlords buying up existing housing stock in livable condition does not help tenants. It can only serve to increase house prices. If you tell a certain type of buyer (LL) that they cannot bid on a house, that can only have a downward effect on prices.

I also don't really agree with the argument that owner occupiers can't buy houses that need a new bathroom, because the bank won't give a mortgage. The bank won't give a mortgage because it has demand from borrowers elsewhere. There's no technical reason a bank can't lend on a house without a bathroom. The house still has value.

Homeowners renovate houses all the time, that they already have mortgages on.

RealElement47

Green_Bear wrote: »

I've often wondered how the wealthy expats / non-doms would react if a new govt simply cancelled their passports and confiscated their UK real estate.
I presume they'd just buy citizenship in a different country?

Possession is nine tenths of ownership.

You never really own your property, you just rent off the government where it is located. Just stop paying your property taxes and see who really owns your property.

Cash stamped Governments like to tax or confiscate things that can't easily be moved. Property owners can't easily transport their property to another location. All they can do is sell up now, and buy silver bullion or something that they can take out of the country before the big confiscation begins.

MobileSaver

Arklight wrote: »

If Tory economics worked, there wouldn't be a Labour party.

If Labour economics worked, there wouldn't be a Tory party.

Malthusian

Cakeguts wrote: »

Its interesting isn't it that Labour can come up with stupid ideas to get at landlords but they don't seem to want to help people with credit card debt.

Corbyn did actually come up with one proposal in 2017 - to make all credit cards interest-free.

Jeremy_Corbyn wrote:

And Mr Deputy Speaker, why didn’t the Chancellor take the opportunity to make two
changes to control debt? Firstly, to cap credit card debt so that nobody pays back more than they borrowed.

The BBC says that there is £72billion outstanding credit card debt in the UK. I wonder how much of that is owed by people who have bought things that they don't need and can't afford?

Not a lot. Most of them will pay it back, at some point. Therefore they could afford it.

Some of them will pay more than if they'd paid it in cash, but that doesn't matter as they could afford to pay extra not to wait.

The minority who can't afford them don't matter on the grand scale, because the people who could afford them can afford to pay back their credit card debt for them as well, via the part of the interest that pays for bad debt.

And a lot of that £72bn will represent debt that will be paid off in full at the end of the month, and interest-free credit cards.

Green_Bear

MobileSaver wrote: »

If Labour economics worked, there wouldn't be a Tory party.

You could also argue:

If Tory economics worked, there wouldn't be a Labour Party.

In reality of course, no one 'needs' democracy.
Plenty of people go about their everyday lives in countries like China.

Green_Bear

RealElement47 wrote: »

Possession is nine tenths of ownership.

You never really own your property, you just rent off the government where it is located. Just stop paying your property taxes and see who really owns your property.

Cash stamped Governments like to tax or confiscate things that can't easily be moved. Property owners can't easily transport their property to another location. All they can do is sell up now, and buy silver bullion or something that they can take out of the country before the big confiscation begins.

£230,000 / 500 = 460kg of silver for the average uk house.
That's quite a large suitcase needed.

Thrugelmir

Green_Bear wrote: »

Plenty of people go about their everyday lives in countries like China.

While under the scrutiny of facial recognition. There's around one camera for every 7 Chinese citizens.

Green_Bear

Thrugelmir wrote: »

While under the scrutiny of facial recognition. There's around one camera for every 7 Chinese citizens.

That kind of surveillance is only really meaningful with artificial intelligence systems.

Even if you employed enough people to view these cameras, human nature means they would become bored and inattentive within about 30 minutes.

Sailtheworld

RealElement47 wrote: »

All they can do is sell up now, and buy silver bullion or something that they can take out of the country before the big confiscation begins.

Or they could just avoid voting for a government proposing a big confiscation instead. A bit like now.