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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Vast majority of landlords ‘are doing everything possible to support tenants’

Buy-to-let landlords are bending over backwards to support tenants struggling to pay their rent as a consequence of coronavirus, new research shows. 

According to a survey of more than 4,500 private landlords by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), 90% of landlords who had received a request for support from a tenant had responded positively. 

This included offering tenants a rent reduction or deferral, a rent free period, early release from a tenancy or a refund on service charges included in rents for homes of multiple occupation.

Of all the landlords surveyed, 44% had received a request for help.

Some 54% of landlords have been affected in some way by the impact of the virus on their tenants having experienced some combination of rent payment problems or unanticipated periods when properties are empty.

The poll finds that 60% of those landlords who have declared rent arrears have experienced at least the equivalent of one month’s loss of income across their portfolio.

The figures are supported by a large number of case studies the NRLA has received from landlords seeking to support their tenants which has included free or substantially discounted accommodation for NHS workers, and landlords pro-actively assuring tenants that their tenancy is not at risk.

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the NRLA, commented: “This research proves that the vast majority of landlords are doing everything possible to support tenants through difficult times. To suggest otherwise is needless scaremongering and serves only to heighten anxieties for tenants when we need a spirit of co-operation.

“We are continuing to work with landlords and the Government to sustain tenancies through the immediate crisis and beyond.

“As Ministers consider their next steps regarding the ban on evictions, they should not make it more difficult to take action against tenants who may be committing anti-social behaviour or domestic abuse, or where they are wilfully withholding rent which they can afford to pay.

“We need landlords who are going through a difficult time to have the confidence to stay in the market. Otherwise we are only going to end up with a worsening housing crisis as more tenants chase fewer properties.”

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

Poll: Have you received a request for help from any of your tenants during the lockdown period?

PLACE YOUR VOTE BELOW

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    I'm looking forward to the usual vitriol being spouted out again today - it seems as though the usual suspects took a day off yesterday ?

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    • 21 May 2020 10:03 AM

    So then Seb do you mean the sort of comments which you term as vitriol but which most LL consider commonsense! !??

    So do you consider LL should subsidise feckless tenant lifestyles! ?

    Have tenants never heard of saving for a rainy day!!!??

    Or is it the case perhaps knowing about the dysfunctional eviction process they know they don't have to bother as they know it can take months to get rid of them!?

    Can you think of any other service provider that is forced by law to continue to provide a service without payment until legally the consumer can be prevented from having access to that service!?

    Why do you believe it is acceptable for tenants to live a just in time lifestyle.
    Wouldn't the responsible thing to do would be to build up savings just incase for whatever reason the tenants loses his usual income.

    Believe me if tenants knew they could be booted out very quickly for rent defaulting they would very quickly change their attitudes and start saving to prevent being evicted.
    It is the dysfunctional eviction process which facilitates feckless tenant behaviour.

    Now none of what I have stated could in any way be considered vitriol unless you consider the unvarnished truth is vitriol.
    If you did you would be an idiot.
    I'm sure you don't expect LL to subsidise feckless tenant lifestyles.

    Where would LL find the resources if you did support such a bonkers concept.
    I don't know about you but after all my costs I have little if any remaining resources.
    So I will be assisting my occupants to remain by advising them that providing they continue to pay the full contractual rent they may stay as long as they like.

    I only review rents annually and that might mean an increase or it might not.
    But my occupants know what their rent will be for 1 year.
    I do not have any spare resources to enable my occupants to pay less rent than they currently are.
    They have asked and I have naturally declined.
    If you have some free resources you could help me with I will knock off £100 pcm of their rent for the 4 flats I have.
    I'm sure you could spare £400 for me as it seems you consider LL should have.

    Must be nice having a magic money tree to enable you to spread your largesse far and wide to assist all those feckless tenants who couldn't be bothered to save.

    I think you'll find LL have no interest in subsidising the lifestyles of feckless tenants.

    There will be many homeless tenants shortly.
    Any new LL will be asking very searching questions of new tenant applicants as to where they have been living.
    They won't accept they have been with parent's! !
    Tenants need to buck their ideas up and understand that LL will not put up with their feckless way of living.

    Any new occupants I have I will require them to explain how much they intend to save and I will be checking that have kept to those amounts.
    If they don't out they go after 6 months.
    I am not going to have my lifestyle controlled by some feckless tenant who couldn't be bothered to save so rent could be afforded in the event of income loss.
    RGI won't generally be possible as most tenants can't qualify for it.
    I will require any new tenant to have at least 2 months of savings equal to the monthly rent.

    The world for tenants is going to substantially change.
    No longer will LL accept taking on borderline tenants.
    Tenants will need to be well resourced.
    None of this just in time living stuff knowing that the dysfunctional eviction process protects them from the real world.

    The brave new world of renting awaits feckless tenants!!

     
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    O you still here I thought you had taken time out to re educate yourself you utter full

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    • 21 May 2020 09:08 AM

    Who cares? If they pay their rent then OK.
    Otherwise they leave.

    I don't see Jaguar letting me have a free car for a year?
    So why should I give them a letting house FREE for an undetermined time?
    And it would cost me about the same as the lease on the car.
    Argument over.

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    I have agreed to take less rent from one property and roll over the arrears to be paid back over upto 12 months.
    They wanted me to not require the arrears,I explained I could not afford to write off the arrears.
    My bank will not allow me to write off my mortgage,my maintenance company will not allow me to write off their contract,my insurance company will not give me free insurance,my contractors will not do free work plumber,electrician,fencer(yes jobs need doing)! why do people think Landlords are rich?!

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    "90% of landlords who received a requested a request for support from a tenant had responded positively"? Of course! - the survey was done by a landlords' association! Who wants to fill in a form or answer questions when they really cannot be proud of the answers they are giving? Also - when and how was the survey conducted? - no details given. To do real research, ask a recognised independent opinion company. (This research was a bit like asking your own children: "Were you good?") Certainly the research does not merit the wording in the title 'everything possible'. Everyone knows there are good landlords and bad landlords.

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    David.
    The landlords that are bad probably don't bother to post on this forum.
    They deal only in cash and don't declare a penny of their income to the HMRC.
    They are not registered with any licensing authority and keep themselves well 'off the radar' for obvious reasons.
    I also very much doubt if they are members of a landlord association.
    I always get back to my tenants often within the hour and sort things out very promptly.
    You seem to have a downer on landlords for some reason, maybe you have had a bad experience only with the rogue ones?

     
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    If I'm not round the same day then I am defiantly round the next day, all my properties are within a 30 mile radius of my home.

     
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    Foolish reply, as landlords can't evict tenant how else can they respond but try to help them through the problem....
    You haven't thought it through, to much woke labour behaviour which will eventually lead to greater homelessness.
    I've been refurbishing a property the council's doubled the council tax because it's take too long, yet I have tenants owing me _16k that I can use to refurbish the property, I'm hit twice by incompetence, and no government support.
    Needless to say, after refurbishment the property won't be rented but sold, the council can pay £50 a night to home the homeless instead, and with 31 out of 75 properties for sale as ex rented property, I'm not the only one getting out.
    Welcome to the housing crisis of 2020/1 with escalating council costs because of bureaucracy and incompetence.

     
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    Seb' its past your bed time after 12.00, can you not sleep or do you not have to get up in the morning.

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    Fellow LL’s - This website has obviously been infected by a ‘bot’ It works when you make ref to the person or put certain words or phrases in your posts. Best thing is to never make reference Can the website owners do a purge for AI bots using clean up software please

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    I have found an easy answer, simply not to read comments from certain people on here, job done

     
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    fosf?

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    We're the ones providing housing...of course we're supporting tenants.

    I usually do monthly inspections and obviously had to stop them out of fear of catching the virus, so I don't know even know the state of my properties.

    What is everyone else doing with inspections?

  • Daniela Provvedi

    Hi Caron,
    I've stopped my inspections for now.
    I'm lucky that most my tenants have been in my properties long term, they're still paying their rents and I trust them - all besides one property. Students taking the p, unfortunately. However, I've got good neighbours who keep an eye out for me.
    Fair enough, they can't see what's happening inside, but at least no funny business is happening on the outside, ie. loud noise, undesirable people hanging around, etc. Do you have a neighbour you could count on to keep an eye out for you perhaps?

    Monthly inspections? Whew, do you have to? A bit OTT isn't it?

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    I know of a student landlord that pays for all the windows to be cleaned every couple of months, that way he gets feed back ''what the window cleaner saw''

     
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    Inspections or not is no difference if the place is like a tip it's the way they have it, have free rains to live like swines don't care and know we can't do anything about it, due to rogue Regulators making us powerless to do anything as you all know. However, the neighbors are very good at reporting not to me but to Council & Police who have visited more than once, sending me threatening letters that their team will be visiting to see if I am a fit & proper person as they say, I am the responsible person, good that isn't we have new justice system its the person that didn't commit the crime gets punished, just as well most Tenants are fine if not its open season. Don't worry there a long road ahead of you its takes me 42 years to become an un-fit & proper person.

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