Private renting voters could be critical in deciding the outcome of the next General Election, according to Shelter.
The campaigning charity - which, like other similarly-minded groups is in the dark on the future of rental reform policies - has been worked with polling organisation Stack Data Strategy to bolster its pro-reform agenda.
The polling of more than 10,000 adults shows what Shelter calls a growing “rent wall” in 38 key constituencies where private tenants could in theory be decisive at the ballot box.
Shelter says the poll shows that one in three private renters who voted for the Conservative Party in 2019 now plan to vote for another political party.
Stack’s projection suggests no political party is currently on course to win a majority - quite unlike almost all other recent polls, which show a very substantial Labour lead.
Under the Shelter poll the Conservative Party is predicted to win 266 seats and Labour 298 seats – 55 and 23 seats short of a majority respectively.
The charity goes on to say that the cost of living crisis means the majority of the electorate think it is urgent to fix the country’s housing problems.
Half say that housing policies will influence which party they vote for at the next General Election. This figure apparently rises to two thirds of private renters.
The survey says private renters are more likely than homeowners or social renters to think that politicians do not care about them.
A statement from the charity goes on to say: “Shelter is urging all politicians to show they are on the side of tenants by championing the long-promised Renters’ Reform Bill, which will see Section 21 no-fault evictions scrapped in England. It is also calling on every party to prioritise building a new generation of decent social homes with rents pegged to local wages.”
Shelter chief executive Polly Neate says: “Private renters are sick of hollow promises, they want politicians to hurry up and fix renting. This poll should be a loud wake-up call for every party.
“Millions of private renters are fed up of paying through the nose to live in insecure and dangerous homes. Now the cost of living crisis is making the cracks in our broken rental system wider.
“Yet tenants are powerless to challenge conditions or unfair rent hikes for fear of no-fault evictions.
“Private renting voters will be critical at the next General Election, but they feel let down by politicians who haven’t done enough on housing.
“By getting the long-promised Renters’ Reform Bill across the line, politicians can show millions of renters and their families that they care. Politicians must act to make private renting safer and fairer before voters get to the ballot box.”
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'Millions of private renters are fed up of paying through the nose to live in insecure and dangerous homes.' - If this is true how can over 80% of tenants be happy with their LL?
The adversarial nature of the LL tenant relationship is a figment of Shelter's imagination & is extremely damaging. The tenant bodies should be working with LLs to produce a PRS that works for everyone. We need each other & the constant attacks are damaging for everyone.
Being happy with a landlord doesn't mean being happy with the power imbalance of the constant "Sword of Damocles" threat of S21 and once that landlord decides they want the property back or want to sell it with vacant possession the tenant will likely no longer be happy with them.
Besides that 20% feeling unhappy is a pretty high figure. Would you be at ease if only 80% of cars on the road had working brakes?
The problem HouseMartin is that landlords are not prepared to lose control of their properties. The private rental sector is not for indefinite tenancies; that is the role of social housing.
There were assured tenancies (tenancies with Section 8 and not Section 21) in the past. Tenants couldn't find anywhere to live.
HouseMartin..that's the nature of renting and not owning something. It's not yours and you're not entitled to it indefinitely.
Housemartin you miss my point - Shelter use misleading headlines which promote the idea of tenants & LLs being at war. I want all tenants & LLs to be happy and the tenant groups working with LLs not against them would be more effective than demonising all LLs unfairly.
House Martin
Agitators like Shelter, Acorn, Generation Rant and the SNP/Green dictatorship in Scotland are a key reason for Landlords selling up and decent tenants needing to find other accommodation.
They are the real enemies of decent tenants and only protect the rogues, preventing properties from being available for decent tenants.
Poor Housemartin seems to have misunderstood. The actual figure is 84% and relates to ‘satisfied’ or ‘extremely satisfied’ with their private rental situation. Of the remaining 16%, the largest proportion is those who do not have any feelings either way with only around 4% recording dissatisfaction. Some of those will be tenants who don’t understand the law or their responsibilities so the actual percentage with genuine concerns is small. And the PRS beats social housing on these figures every single year without fail. Also, they mention that no tenant wants to be evicted because the landlord wants to move back in or sell, yet these are two things that will continue under Section 8, so is that now a ‘sword of Damacles’ as well? You do realise that the govt, Shelter and every landlord hater in Britain WANT landlords to evict their tenants so the house can be sold to a homeowner, right? That’s been the whole point all along and Shelter wrote many blogs supporting this. Homeless prevention charity my a7se!
I don't know why shelter are getting away with talk of "no fault evictions". Section 21 is a fault.. The tenant hasn't left at the end of the tenancy agreement. That some (a minority) of bad landlords are exploiting Section 21 to deliberately create periodic tenancies so as to be able to intimidate tenants could easily be sloved by the making all petodic tenancies "roll over" tenancies unless a section 21 is served and enforced in a set time frame (eg within two months of the current contract expiring). A landlord who obtains a vacant possession order but dosent enforce should see that order also laspe. The cost and time of going to court eoyid deter those landlords who deliberately create periodic tenancies for nefarious purpose.. Such a reform would help combat Shelter propaganda...
I don't know why shelter are getting away with talk of "no fault evictions". Section 21 is a fault.. The tenant hasn't left at the end of the tenancy agreement. That some (a minority) of bad landlords are exploiting Section 21 to deliberately create periodic tenancies so as to be able to intimidate tenants could easily be sloved by the making all petodic tenancies "roll over" tenancies unless a section 21 is served and enforced in a set time frame (eg within two months of the current contract expiring). A landlord who obtains a vacant possession order but dosent enforce should see that order also laspe. The cost and time of going to court eoyid deter those landlords who deliberately create periodic tenancies for nefarious purpose.. Such a reform would help combat Shelter propaganda...
HOUSE MARTIN. Post WW2 laws that stopped fixed term contracts destroyed the rental market. Shelter and you are unable to look pass the lower benefit end of the market where a minority of bad landlords use Section 21 to intimidate tenants..Easily stopped by making periodic tenancies "roll over tenancies" unless Section 21 has been served and such notices being restricted to one per contract and time expiring.. As for tenants not liking a landlord not renewing.. Landlords may want to refurbish, sell, move in, or get rid of filthy tenants without the hassle of Section 8...And why can't grown ups enter into a fixed term contract? My tenants earn more than my income... You need to worry more abt increased supply of housing.. IE build more whether Council or private housing. Ending fixed term contracts will only reduce supply..
The more they attack, the more tenants suffer…. It’s that simple.
Third one being sold - just waiting for exchange of contracts.
A sad day
I have one property current up for sale because of rental reform. I am kicking the tenant out because they will never leave. They are absolute c****. Mould, £ thousands in mould remediation, lies, late payments, non payments, solicitor costs etc. Thank god for Section 21. Landlords will need that more than ever after the proposed rental reforms (I know it’s supposed to go to).
S21 is a healthy deterrent to rogue tenants.
Rental reform as drafted is horrendous. Who is the Ombudsman going to side with 100% of the time? Like the deposit system now.
Tenants will well and truly have landlords over a barrel. It’s so onerous it cannot be allowed to go ahead.
It was drafted by New Labour. Not sure whether it would be worse for Labour to get in next. Can it be worse? I don’t know. Better? Probably not. I can only see selling as the only ‘option’. Hopefully Truss’ lot will see a bit more sense than our gladly departed Levelling Up ring leader.
Might be better. We have the absurd situation where both main parties are pandering to those who naturally vote for their opponents whilst shafting their natural supporters whose vote they take for granted. The last Labour government abolished the 10p tax rate and reduced Capital Gains Tax to 18%.
I wonder if the wef have infiltrated shelter ?
Explains a lot
Section 21 is the very foundation of Private Rented Sector with Assured Shorthold Tenancies, now both are being scrapped, it’s working well isn’t thousands of landlords have quit, Rents gone far higher than they would have been. House Martin why don’t you buy a house hand all control over to them for ever that would be good, come on put your money where your mouth is.
Why should Government listen to Shelter who don’t supply any housing it’s ridiculous put your money where your mouth is, when they’ll have a load of Tenants demanding everything the boot will be on the other foot, Ah they won’t go there better sit on outside in safety chucking spanners in, now that much easier. I think Liz & Stammer could meet Shelter, give them a good dressing down and remove their Charity Status, That would be good pay tax on £60m but they’ll never get past their legal team is it something like 50 Solicitors ?.
Very few tenants are ever likely to vote Tory what ever the government does
Good tenants very rarely get evicted for no reason.
The reason may be nothing to do with the tenant such as the landlord wanting to sell for health reasons, retirement or because they are totally fed up with yet more changes to legislation. With a combination of mortgage rate increases and Section 24 some landlords will have to sell because it won't be financially viable to carry on.
The Rental Reforms proposals still allow eviction for virtually all of the reasons landlords would ever evict anyone for anyway so I don't quite understand the fuss from Shelter or other activists.
Landlords have never randomly evicted good tenants. Letting agents may have when they could charge both the landlord and tenant fees for everything but that's ancient history and stopped when tenant fees were banned.
Surely in the current economic climate Shelter should be more concerned about retaining as many rental properties as possible instead of focusing on abolishing Section 21. If between now and whenever the Rental Reforms proposals happen thousands of landlords decide to sell up because they refuse to operate in a system that doesn't have Section 21 that's potentially ten of thousands of tenants that will be evicted.
In reality Section 21 is often used when Section 8 would be more appropriate. If Section 8 had the same degree of certainty as Section 21 there would be no reason to abolish Section 21 as it's use would be minimal. It would improve the system enormously if fault and no fault evictions were well and truly separated. If tenants knew fault based evictions would be rapid and certain how many of them would suddenly become far better tenants? If properties were freed up quicker fewer good tenants would need to spend months sofa surfing and could find long term accomodation more easily. Assuming landlords haven't sold up because of the loss of Section 21.
I have only ever evicted tenants that didn't pay, but have never used sec 8, sec 21 being easier, quicker and certain of the out come
I think the fuss over s21 is about holding tenants to ransom over a rent increase "pay more or I'll kick u out" or not fixing properties and saying "tolerate the bad conditions or I'll make u homeless"
But still, s21 is a necessary process for us to feel secure handing over keys to our properties. They want a perfect system but it cant ever be unless all LLs and tenants are also perfect. Pipe dream bs.
In about 30 years and around 400 groups of tenants, I've only had one bailiff eviction and twice refused to let pain in neck tenants stay on after the fixed term.
That's less than 1% of my tenants who weren't allowed to stay as long as they wanted with good reason on my part to refuse them that privelige.
No business turns away good customers, only problem customers are no longer welcome.
Rik Fergusson. I think all the fuss about S.21 is about holding landlords to ransom and stealing landlords property,
Buy your own tell your lender all the terms & conditions you
want.
Why should we as people be MADE/FORCED/COERCED to deal with some stressful tenants for as long as they want to stay. Its like being in a forced marriage & held captive
I had this situation with single parent dss tenants 10 years ago and the day they all went not only did my quality of life improve ironically my budget increased. I used this to benefit normal tenants with more maintenance sorted & keeping rents stable.
If I wasnt able to use S21 my only option to get out of dealing with stressful tenants is to sell.
This is my problem now. Single parent DSS tenant who lied about being a financial advisor. And being married (he's actually the brother). She creates all sorts of issues including breakages, solicitor costs etc. Due to the retaliatory eviction rules (she continuously lodges complaints) I am being forced to sell. Luckily with all this sh!t atm I am a willing seller!
I am grateful for S21 as it would avoid the endless counterclaims she would lodge all whilst on Legal Aid and costing me a fortune.
Single parents on benefits, had a few in the past, never again
Always avoid DSS people. They are just not worth the grief. It's not even reliable income as some would say. Benefits have been frozen so they have gotten further behind. Once S21 is issued they stop paying because they don't have any money. They can get rehoused (somewhere) as they haven't made themselves intentionally homeless and they can spend their rent money. They won't have any to pay eviction costs. Get their CCJ and then stay the state's problem.
I think it’s an absolute disgrace you make a huge financial commitment probably hundreds of thousands of £’s, burdened all sorts of costs and Regulation Compliance with no rights whatsoever. So you can get stuck with some toe rag with no input could well be supported by the tax payers.
So you are telling me the only option left to remove him is to sell, imagine being forced out of business by a no hoper. Who is dreaming up all this nonsense. There’s a big difference between someone staying in my property by consent, or staying there as of a
right no one will be prepared to do that, are you all mad, it’s laughable, you wouldn’t even do it for your brother. I could see a scenario where some one has massive borrowing and owning nothing could disappear and let the lender take a rap, very unlikely.
This is my situation currently. Forced to sell to get rid of her. A no hoper single mother Nigerian benefit migrant with nearly half a dozen kids. All paid for by us.
As quick as I fixed a problem another complaint is lodged. My solicitor said fix it. I did. Then fix the next thing. Otherwise they claim retaliatory eviction. Then you have an agent who's ripping you off on the building charges so looking forward to getting rid of them too!
Nick, never let an agent organise repairs on your properties, they normally add 10 or 20% for themselves, I have a good agent they always call me first, 99% of the time I'm able to fix the problem myself or know someone who can.
Andrew, For the convenience of not having contact with the tenant I have been happy to let them do it. But I'll give you an example of their costs. Remove and replace vinyl to a kitchen in a 3 bed semi. Quoted £400 by one contractor I found but won't move any appliances to do it. The agent (who claims to be all heart but plainly isn't) quotes me over £2k. I reject it and they get someone else to quote about the same. Everything is always way over 100% premium.
Nick, I've found it good to contact the tenant and turn up myself, they normally make me a cup of tea, we have a chat, and when I'm gone the tenant normally thinks what a nice bloke my landlord is, customer relations.
Andrew, I was like that managing the same property myself before with the last tenant. The agent is a large chain and it sh!t. Just collect money and don't accept blame or fix things they mess up. The tenant is Nigerian. Dishonest, scammer, ungrateful for being allowed to live in the house paid by benefits. Chip on the shoulder. She know's it all telling me how the house should be improved here and there. No extra rent offered though.
Nick, large agent big mistake, you are only ever a number and most of their staff are wet behind the ears youngsters, my agent is local, one office and 4 staff, I've used them 20+ yrs slowly handing them more properties to manage, first name terms and we have a laugh
Then again we seen it all before owners throwing their keys into the letter box of their lender or Building Society thinking it would relieve them of their responsibility. That wasn’t long ago this time maybe give keys to occupant see how quick the lender will get them out.
Wow… listening to the sorry tales (especially Nick) of waster tenants, I consider myself very lucky, never had any of it… but I question them like a Stazi guard !! Interesting time ahead, for tenants especially.
Oh I've had waster tenants in the past, we learn by our mistakes , we don't make the same mistake a second time.
Hence my apprehension with people saying I've never used S21 in X years. Wait until it's gone then watch tenant behavior change for the worse knowing they can practically stay forever. Then some LLs will wonder why they were so eager to be all so reasonable. It's going to be terrible after any reforms.
Like when the Rent Act was in no one could rent anywhere because LLs had no control or probably would never get their property back. We are swinging back the otherway.
Shelter are in their own little bubble and don't even see that half the things they are lobbying for are causing an increasing number of good landlords to sell up.
Hence a shortage of properties and further rent rises.
That sums up the situation well.
Shelter wants more problems. It's good for their business.
Happy tenants are not a money spinner for them which is why they want to foment discontent and drive a wedge between Landlords and tenants to drive up their business opportunities.
Absolutely right Robert! They use their undoubted marketing skills to spread totally unfounded facts to promote unrest and encourage donations to increase their income and thereby their salaries whilst actually acheiving nothing to help tenants.
I only wish we had a landlords alliance to actively and fiercely disprove all their rhetoric and we could go into attack mode rather than defensive. In this current world it is always he who shouts loudest who gets heard.
SO ORGANISE LETS ALL PUT A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF MONEY IN TO ORGANISE A BODY TO PROMOTE A MEDIA CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE THREE BIG HATE GANGS EXPOSE THE LIES BIGOTRY AND HATE PROPAGANDA EXAMINE EVERY DETAIL OF THEIR FAT CAT BOSSES LIVES GO ON THE ATTACK GO AFTER THESE HATEMONGERS
MAKE HATE CRIME AGAINST LANDLORDS AND THEIR FAMILIES AS UNACCEPTABLE AS HATE CRIME AGAINST OTHER MINORITIES
START AN ACTION IN THE EUROPEAN COURT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE
BUT DO NOT CONTINUE TO DO NOTHING IF YOU THINK WHAT THEY HAVE PLANNED IS BAD BE ASSURED WHAT THEY HAVE PLANNED NEXT IS A THOUSAND TIMES WORSE
So how do you suggest landlords proceed with this? Are you going to lead it? Several people have tried in the recent past but unfortunately not enough landlords are interested. They just sell up and go away.
Looks like another u turn on S21. Landlords keep going keep selling and get your Solicitors on it straight away, get S.21 served, get millions on the Streets and at Council’s Office’s let them have them all.
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