The latest data demonstrates the failure of government policy for the private rented sector, which in turn is having an adverse impact on the sector.
With demand from tenants continuing to outstrip housing supply in the PRS, the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) predicts that private sector rents are set to increase by 2% over the next year.
This follows recent tax increases including restricting mortgage interest relief to the basic rate of income tax and a 3% duty levy on the acquisition of additional properties.
In addition, it has been disclosed that just 18 individual landlords and property agents and five companies are registered on the database of rogue landlords for offences committed since April 2018.
Consequently, the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) quite rightly points out that either the number of problem landlords is not as high as many have argued or local authorities are focussing too much time on licensing good landlords instead of rooting out the criminals.
In a further blow to landlords, statistics published yesterday reveal that it now takes an average of almost half a year for courts to process claims for repossession of their property.
The RLA argues that during this time tenants may be refusing to pay any rent, indulging in anti-social behaviour or damaging the property.
John Stewart, policy manager for the RLA, commented: “This series of statistics clearly shows the negative impact of government policies. At the end of the day it is tenants who are suffering.
“The drop off in supply caused by good landlords who find operating in the market more difficult means it is increasingly difficult for tenants to secure somewhere to live and they are then faced with higher rents.
“Ministers need to change course and instead of attacking the private rented sector, there should be policies and taxation to encourage growth in the supply of rental accommodation to meet the ever increasing demand.”
Want to comment on this story? Our focus is on providing a platform for you to share your insights and views and we welcome contributions.
If any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.
Please help us by reporting comments you consider to be unduly offensive so we can review and take action if necessary. Thank you.
.png)
Join the conversation
Jump to latest comment and add your reply
It is really pointless being a LL if ever it is required to repossess a property and it continues to take so long to recover a property.
Most repossessions are caused by rent defaulting tenants who refuse to vacate until an eviction is enforced by a bailiff.
It is these type of wrongun tenants that cause over £9 billion of losses to LL every year.
It is simply not viable for LL to have this risk unless they can afford to pay the costs for every eviction or they have RGI which is rarely achievable.
The whole point of being a LL is to receive rent.
The current dysfunctional eviction process prevents that occurring.
It is scheduled to become even more difficult to get rid of rent defaulting tenants.
So what is the point of being a LL in light of these circumstances?
The risks of ending up with a rent defaulting tenant are simply too high.
No LL can guarantee they WON'T end up with a wrongun tenant but if they do there must be a far more effective process to get rid of them.
Otherwise the financial risks for the LL especially a mortgaged one are simply too much to bear.
Knowing what I now know about how dysfunctional the eviction process is there is no way if I was starting out again I would do as I did.
My total investment strategy would have been entirely managed through the prism of the eviction process.
The effect of that would have been investment in only one property in an area where RGI could be obtained on the tenant demographic.
Over the years I have only found 5 tenants who could have qualified for RGI.
It makes investing as a LL a highly tenuous experience!
With the eviction process scheduled to become even more difficult the risks for me are simply too much to bear and so for this and many other reasons I intend to gone as soon as I can.
BTL is a highly risky gamble when all the odds are stacked against the LL with the law of the land very effectively encouraging non-payment of rent with very little effective recourse to ever recover the rent for a service that a LL is forced to provide until eviction occurs.
There has to be a point of redress for landlords re bad tenants. A register for landlords must be countered with similar for bad tenants
See file:///C:/Users/HP%20User/Documents/CBP-7624.pdf with the House of Commons bias Briefing paper policy comparisons, that the government has gone to the extremes in unfair contract practices as based purely on secondary legislation or specification in fair contracts. For innocent landlords, this is a loop-hole for all advisers, the system, regulators. The secondary legislation is illegal 'bottom-up' context alone as the whole system needs to be turned upside down and presented, for agreement as a legal 2 level 'top-down' system (duty of care and protection of the secondary Legislation for legal agreement). But when is the question?
In other words to get around unfair contract laws stick an addendum along side it so it becomes ambiguous when arguing in law but still being able to quote it to get an advantage. Tricks come in all guises
I'm still over 7k down from a rent defaulter who refused to leave until eviction. I've always thought there needs to be an online registry of all defaulters so landlords can find out about rogue tenants before enduring losses. As it is, once evicted, a tenant can go to the flat/house next door and simply repeat - as my ex-tenant tried to do!
If you take them to court at least they will have a ccj against them and other landlords will be warned not to rent to them.
£60 well spent money claims online, we should all be doing this, why shouldn't they have a ccj if they don't pay ?
Please login to comment