Landlords have hit back at claims made by Shelter overnight, suggesting that one in seven private tenants in the UK have had their rents incr3eased in the past month alone.
The Shelter claim - which is based on unspecified research by the charity - has drawn a detailed response from Chris Norris, policy director for the National Residential Landlords Association.
He says: “At a time when inflation is so high and landlord costs are rapidly increasing, the latest official data shows that average private rents across the UK have gone up by 3.4 per cent over the last twelve months.
“This shows that most landlords are prepared to bear the brunt of rising costs to keep tenants in their homes when they can.
“There will be cases where landlords are simply unable to shoulder all the increased costs and need to increase rents accordingly.
“Where this causes difficulties, particularly for tenants on low incomes, the government should end the freeze on housing benefits. Even before the sharp rise in inflation, the level of benefits was failing to reflect the cost of rents as they are today.
“Further increases in rents will also be driven by a chronic shortage of homes for private rent. This is a direct consequence of government action to discourage investment in the sector. Ministers need urgently to develop pro-growth policies to ensure supply meets demand in the rental market.”
Shelter’s dramatically worded claim went on to suggest that one in three tenants are spending at least half their household income on rent.
It then claims that almost 2.5m renters are either behind or constantly struggling to pay their rent, a figure which has rapidly increased by 45 per cent since April - just a few months ago.
The charity adds that even before the cost-of-living crisis, private renters were paying the highest housing costs compared to people in social housing or with a mortgage. It warns that unless the government helps those struggling to pay their rent, a huge surge in homelessness is inevitable.
It is urging the government to stop what it calls “this ticking timebomb” by unfreezing housing benefit, “which is lagging way behind rents, having been frozen at 2020 levels.”
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In real terms you’ll probably find rents have gone down , but the lefties love a headline that pulls on the heart strings and keeps them in their well paid jobs
Champagne socialist and hypocrite, Polly Neate, CEO of Shelter is laughing all the way to the bank with a salary plus benefits > £122k.
Lies take the elavator and the truth takes the stairs.
It's probably 1 in 7 of the complaints to Shelter in the last month....
Details, details..
Hasn’t this article been covered elsewhere on landlord today?
The LHA is a major problem now. The cheapest available 3 bedroom house within a 5 mile radius of the main employment area in the 500 square mile BRMA I operate in is £325 a month more than the LHA.
The cheapest 4 bed is £250 a month more than LHA but requires a minimum income of £40500 and is located in a very rural area so would require a car.
At a landlords meeting last night one of our local councils had compiled a questionnaire and was actually asking landlords for feedback on some of their ideas.
As usual Shelter quoting figures but no source. I think they make their figures up. LL are only allowed to increase rent once a year. So if 20 percent raised rent in August then their will be only up to 80 percent rent rises between all other 11 months and some LL don't increase rent each year.
Totally agree. It's once a year and usually below 5%. The only time you could hike it up would be when someone moves out and you advertise for new tenants. I'd guess they are looking at asking prices on rightmove as they can't possibly have figures for all tenancies (which are agreed privately between landlord and tenant).
Isn't it right that a tenant pays a higher cost than the mortgage costs? That isn't comparing like for like in my book.
When charging rent a landlord takes into account costs for Landlord insurance, the mortgage, the wear and tear/repairs, ongoing administration, gas safety, electrical safety, and so on. A tenant pays a monthly fee for these which is called rent. A home owner pays each of these costs separately as they occur - if you total them I'd be surprised if it was significantly different.
I know that some years I make a profit and some years a loss but it all works out about a 4% yield which covers my time and investment risk.
I always try to encourage my tenants to buy their own home but a lot of them like the fact they don't have to worry about all the incidentals, they have a monthly cost that they know up front and just call me if there's any repair or redecorating needed.
In 12 years I have put the rents up once during a tenancy and that was last year by £20 a month which was equivalent to a 3% rise. All my tenants are happy and I have only one couple that regularly fail to pay the rent - but they manage to have Netflix, a new iphone each, new scooters, go on holiday, go out drinking weekly, have take-away every time I'm round there and have two cats (one of which without permission) so forgive me if I don't believe their cry of "can't pay".... And don't tenants already have the right to challenge a rent increase if they consider it unreasonable?!
My dad is currently evicting a benefits tenant as he is selling up (thanks to Shelter et al) - the rent was so low on that property that even the 'we buy any house' type places wouldn't buy with the tenant in situ and the tenant is finding it very difficult to find anywhere comparable for even double what he was paying... the council have offered him and his four dogs (without permission) a bedsit but told him to stay put until he is evicted, and actually told us that they hadn't even looked at his case since June! So now he's going to have an eviction notice against him, no landlord reference (are you kidding), 4 dogs and on benefits - how's he going to find somewhere? But of course it isn't Shelter/Gen Rent etc's fault for all their landlord bashing, increasing costs, and making it so difficult that Dad is now selling up, it's the nasty landlord of course!
We are also considering selling up - the EPC C thing will be the nail for us if it definitely comes in as Victorian terraces are almost impossible to raise to a C. (According to our EPC man everyone will get an exemption... if that's the case, what's the point!) The yield now is about the same I can get for keeping the cash in the bank and I don't get any aggro for that!
In the past when I've had a tenant tell me they can't pay the rent I've taken a look in their wheelie bins, this normally proves that it's not a case of can't pay, it's a case of won't pay
Once the bottle deposit scheme comes in, they can pay you with their empty bottles in their wheelie bins! You might even get more that way!
I used to go around my Bins every time they were due for collection as the tenants could not be bothered to put them out, I Also to try and squeeze in as much as possible by flattering the big cider bottles as compressing the takeaway cartons with a big stick to say they could not pay the rent when the amount of drink and takeaways clearly disposed of was an eye opener
Don't do it anymore I SOLD UP. it's great
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