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Rental Reform - public survey backs landlords over tenants

The public at large are not falling behind the government’s proposals for private rental sector reforms, it seems.

A survey conducted by the Lincolnshire Live news website suggests many feel landlords are wrongly restricted in terms of who they allow in their properties.

The government says it will ban Section 21 evictions and extend the Decent Homes Standard to the sector. It will also end what it calls “arbitrary rent review clauses, give tenants stronger powers to challenge poor practice, unjustified rent increases and enable them to be repaid rent for non-decent homes.”

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It will be illegal for landlords or agents to have blanket bans on renting to families with children or those in receipt of benefits. 

And it will make it easier for tenants to have pets, a right which the landlord must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse.

No figures are given as to the scale of the Lincolnshire Live survey but public opposition was voiced about landlords not being allowed to choose their tenants, and over landlords potentially being obliged to accept tenants with pets.

“Our readers felt that landlords should be able to rent to ‘whomever they want’ and should be allowed to turn away whomever they please” says Lincolnshire Live.

“Many said that there were as many ‘terrible tenants as there are landlords’ and one reader described the government as having ‘shot itself in the foot’ by putting forward the proposals.”

Different reader comments were included in the piece, with one person saying: “So many landlords will move to holiday letting, which is much safer and far more lucrative … Good luck to all those who wish to rent when the council have no houses available. The government is making it so unattractive to be a landlord, yet there clearly is a market for private rental."

Another was quoted as saying there should be a mechanism for compensating landlords if properties are damaged by pets.

“Owners [must] make sure their pets don't cause any damage. While some owners will be responsible, others will not” claims a reader.

And another reader says that, as a landlord, she feels there is "little protection" for landlords already. Others expressed concern that rent would increase to "astronomical levels".

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.

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    So that's where all the sensible people live. I am moving to Lincolnshire

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    The Govt responds to populist pressure & the anti LL brigade have been shouting the loudest. Most people in the PRS are happy with their LL or tenant but that won't stop new legislation being brought in which will reduce the PRS & make renting harder & more expensive for all tenants.

    If EPC C comes in too it will be RIP PRS.

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    Why would a Tenant rent a non decent home and then look for his money back, such hypocrisy.

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    Because we now have a group of 'Professional tenants' who have worked out how to play the system. Look at the ones who lived rent free during covid when evictions were banned!

     
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    At last a sensible article, Tricia is spot on … if EPC C comes in then it’s game over.

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    Good (land?)lord! Are my eyes deceiving me? A public survey that backed landlords?! I’ve felt like we’re living in an alternate reality for some time now, but this is beyond all belief. Some sensible people do still exist then?

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    15 years or so, ago, l went into the local b&q, l had a little problem with a rented property and explained it to the assistant. When he realised l was renting the property he thought it was hilarious and that l was "mad" to do it.

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    I n the 90s I had a bank manager that told me I was mad, few yrs later he proudly told me he and his wife had just bought 2 flats to rent, had he bought them in the 90s they would have been less than half the price he paid for them in the 00s

     
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    When I was running a business my bank manager told me that I was breaking lending rules by buying a BTL property with a 20% deposit when I still had a business overdraft and I should pay that off first.

    I did the same again several times but after a few years remortgaged one flat and paid off the overdraft to reduce my total interest payments.

    I believe overdraft rates are now around 39.9% because of Government interference with unauthorised overdraft fees and interest rates so I shudder to think what it must be like now to have an overdraft nearly double in only 2 years (up by 96%) if no interest payments or reductions are made I the meantime.

    This was another unintended consequence of the Government interference in the banking market when trying to protect the feckless at the expense of the prudent.

     
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    So what is the difference between govt.'s attitude to LLs and What Russia is doing in Ukraine??

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    We have too many do-gooders willing waste assets owned by others??

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    Recently, the Buy Now Pay later BNPL phenomenon has awoken - Of course Govt couldn't see this last year when they facilitated ' extra credit ' by the Breathing Space Moratorium !

    Landlords have been experiencing this RENT now Pay later for decades with a totally inept and dysfunctional civil justice [sic] process.

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