Rents Frozen In Scotland From Today

Grumpy_chap

This policy seems flawed.

Rent freeze for the short term ("winter") is not likely to make much difference in many cases, but where a Government intervenes in pricing, it is s slippery slope.  If the Government wishes to intervene, then the Government should make up the loss income received by the businesses.  Consider the energy price cap - Government will intervene today but will also compensate the energy companies for the revenue shortfall.

Then there is the conflation of the rent freeze with an eviction ban.  This might be an indication from the Government that the rent freeze would cause some LLs to need to take the decision to cease renting.  The trouble is, such a ban is at risk of being taken advantage of by some tenant who simply stop paying.

CurlySue2017

Adam16 said:

Alderbank said:

Adam16 said:

I think the solution isn’t just “Landlords bad. Punish landlords”. 

Its reform. 

If you lent your car to someone, and they didn’t give it back at the end, you’d call the police and report it stolen. How is bricks and mortar any different? 

The difference, and it is a big difference, is that if someone loses the use of a car and becomes car-less, no-one has to replace it.

If a tenant is evicted from their home and becomes homeless, the council often has to rehouse them. Difficult and expensive, especially if they are vulnerable or have children.

But if they aren’t paying for it, the contract is broken. And its not their home. 

This is wrong.  It is absolutely their home.

I completely agree with your other points in other posts that if rent is not being paid, the LL should be able to recover the property.  But to say that a rental is not a tenants home is simply not true and demonstrates how some people see tenants as second class citizens.

A LL owns the building like any other business asset but it is the tenants home whilst they live there and pay rent - this is the point.

Myself and hubby have been tenants in the same place for a few years now and we absolutely consider it our home.  My LL also considers it OUR home and allows us to treat it as such, provided that we look after it and pay the rent, both of which we do.

AJRBADGER

So my tenant received the letter today to start the 84 day eviction process (I had already started the ball rolling before this was announced), the letting agent advise this was still OK to do.

As said, I'm currently doing a self build and financially have no choice but to sell the flat (which is only worth about £50k, but it never had a mortgage on it - flat is Barrmill, Ayrshire), so I am hoping that my tenant plays ball. I used to live in this flat, and decided to rent it out a few years ago when I moved in with my girlfriend (now wife). I will state that the tenant moved into the property fully aware of my intentions to potentially sell the property. I was very clear about that with everyone who viewed, and priced accordingly (£275 a month)

However we are living in a static caravan on the self build site, so I would be keen to avoid a potential 6mth delay to the project. 

user1977

Eldi_Dos said:

user1977 said:

SeanG79 said:

All good and well freezing rents, is she also gonna force banks to stop increasing mortgage rates or do landlords have to support all the vulnerable whilst the rest is business as usual?

As explained above, that's a job for Liz rather than Nicola.

It saddens me to think it but I can see a time in the not to distant future that a Monarch will not sign a bill that one of the Parliaments or Assemblies has passed.

Constitutionally unthinkable, and in any case I'm not sure why it might start with this? (apart from the fact the Royals are landlords of some Scottish properties!)

Adam16

CurlySue2017 said:

Adam16 said:

Alderbank said:

Adam16 said:

I think the solution isn’t just “Landlords bad. Punish landlords”. 

Its reform. 

If you lent your car to someone, and they didn’t give it back at the end, you’d call the police and report it stolen. How is bricks and mortar any different? 

The difference, and it is a big difference, is that if someone loses the use of a car and becomes car-less, no-one has to replace it.

If a tenant is evicted from their home and becomes homeless, the council often has to rehouse them. Difficult and expensive, especially if they are vulnerable or have children.

But if they aren’t paying for it, the contract is broken. And its not their home. 

This is wrong.  It is absolutely their home.

I completely agree with your other points in other posts that if rent is not being paid, the LL should be able to recover the property.  But to say that a rental is not a tenants home is simply not true and demonstrates how some people see tenants as second class citizens.

A LL owns the building like any other business asset but it is the tenants home whilst they live there and pay rent - this is the point.

Myself and hubby have been tenants in the same place for a few years now and we absolutely consider it our home.  My LL also considers it OUR home and allows us to treat it as such, provided that we look after it and pay the rent, both of which we do.

I never debated that it wasn’t a tenants home. 

If they are paying rent, and abiding to the contract, it absolutely is their home.

If they are not paying rent, and therefore not abiding to the contract, it absolutely isn’t their home.

Its no different to renting a car. For all intents and purposes for the rental period its your car. But if you decide to keep hold of it after the hire period, or stop paying the hire company, its then stolen and reported to the police as such.

And that is the point here. The Scottish government are essentially creating policies that allow people to steal another persons property, whilst allowing the owner no avenue of recourse to get that property back.

That is fundamentally wrong. 

theartfullodger

How will councils and housing associations cope with less income than they'd planned?

Private landlords are, I hear, rolling in cash so that won't be a problem for them 

Eldi_Dos

user1977 said:

Eldi_Dos said:

user1977 said:

SeanG79 said:

All good and well freezing rents, is she also gonna force banks to stop increasing mortgage rates or do landlords have to support all the vulnerable whilst the rest is business as usual?

As explained above, that's a job for Liz rather than Nicola.

It saddens me to think it but I can see a time in the not to distant future that a Monarch will not sign a bill that one of the Parliaments or Assemblies has passed.

Constitutionally unthinkable, and in any case I'm not sure why it might start with this? (apart from the fact the Royals are landlords of some Scottish properties!)

I used to think that to but am afraid my thinking is moving on, with the speed that some policies are being implemented by Parliament's  and Assemblies I can see it being used as a brake,bit like the other place sending bills back to the Commons.Hope I am wrong.
Maybe not the place for this on this thread with the issue being discussed being so important to some posters income and livelihoods.

Sarah1Mitty2

SeanG79 said:

All good and well freezing rents, is she also gonna force banks to stop increasing mortgage rates or do landlords have to support all the vulnerable whilst the rest is business as usual?

Smart landlords will have done ten year fixes months ago.

Sarah1Mitty2

born_again said:

It's crazy..
Perhaps all private landlords in Scotland need to sell these & leave the Government the task of finding all the renters new homes. 

Who are they going to sell to with tenants in place? And if they all sell there will be a lot less renters for the government to house.

AJRBADGER

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

born_again said:

It's crazy..
Perhaps all private landlords in Scotland need to sell these & leave the Government the task of finding all the renters new homes. 

Who are they going to sell to with tenants in place? And if they all sell there will be a lot less renters for the government to house.

One of the reasons for well above inflation house/rental price growth is demand outweighs supply. Undoubtedly both are a problem, although far less so in much of Scotland than further south in the UK.

Say there are 1,000,000 houses in the rental market 1,100,000 people wanting to rent - 10% more demand than supply.

If 500,000 were sold to people already renting, we'd have 500,000 in the rental market with 600,000 wanting to rent - 20% more demand than supply. 

Less people renting doesn't make the problem smaller. The issue is a lack of houses.

I do have a big issue with the government moving the goal posts on a whim, particularly with an eviction ban. Already it is being said in parliament that this ban will go on to March and 'possibly longer' - obviously there is a lot of concern there. I did find myself in a situation that wasn't great with a tenant during covid, costing thousands, and I fear it can happen again. I fear that once again - as a landlord - I'm hamstrung to do anything about it.