The Labour Party says it will outlaw rental bidding wars if it wins the next General Election.
The party's shadow housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, has told BBC Newsbeat that the practice "pits tenant against tenant" and leaves only one winner - the landlord.
"And so for all those tenants who miss out on a property as a result of bidding wars, they're in a bad position.
"But even those who secure a property by that means, they're often pushed to the financial limits of what they can afford.”
Pennycook tells Newsbeat that his party wants the UK to follow New Zealand's lead, which banned bidding wars in 2021. A number of states in Australia have also done the same.
And it says it will seek to amend the Renters Reform Bill now going through Parliament.
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, told the BBC that bidding wars happen due to supply issues.
"You can't go around banning everything, What I would say is we need to look at what's forcing people to make these decisions."
Other landlords who've spoken to Newsbeat say the rising cost of living and high mortgage rates mean bidding wars are a way to make sure they can afford to keep renting out their properties.
You can see a BBC News Online version of the Newsbeat story here.
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I'm not convinced bidding wars are especially frequent. I've only ever had one person offer more than the advertised rent. They weren't the right person for the property so it didn't matter how much they offered.
My main concern is matching the right applicant to the property to minimise voids. A property has to be located in a convenient location for their job and hobbies. My theory is the better the match, the more likely they are to look after the property and be hassle free tenants.
Totally agree
So half a dozen professionals view a property. One later offers a higher rent than advertised. Who will have committed the offence, the tenant or the agent/landlord?
It is a rhetorical question, I guarantee Labour will blame the agent/landlord. I have known applicants offer £100 or more over the asking rent. Did it get them the property? Never since that is the wrong type of money-oriented tenant for me.
Me neither, the rent is what I set it at, no more and no less
Its very rare although I had it a few times but never changed my mind if I had agreed stick to my word.
Why are all landlords rights being removed, we must be the only business that is not allowed Terms & Conditions, Est, Agent Solicitors, Accountants. Shop keepers every man & his dog has them several pages of them. We are forced to accept everyone else’s T&C. I agree we don’t want voids for long periods but sometimes necessary to maintain our property at the same time we certainly don’t want Sitting Tenants or others in Charge of what we own, we have to be in control of what we own or there’s no private leasehold/ freehold property.
So Mr Ben Beadle had the opportunity to converse with BBC and wasted it talking about rent bidding, when the reality is property is often Advertised at higher Rent and then accepts a lower offer. Why did’t he use the opportunity to convey to the BBC the root cause of the Crisis high Rents and landlords exiting the Market which is the anti-Tenant Reform Bill increasing their Rents by 30% and removing Section 21. reducing supply.
Because he’s Ben Beadle. We need someone with some teeth.
Stop 🛑 please 😂😂😂 this much humorous content so early is not good for my breakfast 🍳. …. Maybe next Labour will ban the tide 🤔 🌊
I’ve heard about gazumping but tenants bidding - not had that ever. Jo u gave it- more for the right tenant for the right property. I’d get more peace feel done right . Even if wrong tenant did offer 50.00 more.
A few LLs do something unusual - usually in London - and suddenly it is so prevalent a law must be brought in to stop us all doing it! The anti-LL brigade are just looking for examples of bad practice & then drive the policy makers towards ever more regulation. Instead of actually solving the problem they just keep chipping away at LLs integrity.
Labour to ban all competition as it’s just not fair .
So The Winner Of The Getting Completely TheOpposite Effect Award Goes To..
Oh It's A Tie....
Shelter
Crisis
Gove
Acorn
Generation Rant
Sandra Bowes Rennox
Sadiq Khan
Labour Councils
The ONS
James Turner
With A Special Mention to Ben Beadle for not saying the supply issue is down to S24, S21, RRB which has spooked landlords into selling.
Shhh! You mentioned SBR.😉 Like Beetlejuice if you say the name too often she will appear! 😱
You failed to mention that potty mouthed **** James Turner (the Acorn disciple).
Updated for you Nick..!
Labour will bring RRB. With it they will see quick departure of landlord, no bidding war, but rents will go up based on supply and demand. Usually will people wish offer less rent. Have been very rare case this year where one set of tenants (3) offered £50 a month more. This was asa the property was placed in the market and the first viewer. Agent did not know what rent to advertise as there were very few properties available for students. They had advertised the rent on the basis of what interest we recd. Did not expect it to go so quickly. A lot of other students start looking in August/September. But we had an offer in early July to move in early September.
I strongly believe the government should not interfere in private renting. They have provided guidelines and legislation for safety of tenants but not regarding rent controls or bidding. That is a decision for LL's. Also who to rent to. They need to concentrate of first and foremost building required homes before bashing the LL's. See how expensive it gets for them to build, buy, maintain the rental properties before any interference. The rents will automatically be lowered with more housing. They need to use their brain, if they have any grey matter.
They have brains, just no commonsense like all politicians nationally and locally.
This is much like the rest of politics and is akin to the first principle of magic... misdirection!
In politics the focus is to misdirect to issues that seemingly no right minded, socially conscious, moral person could object to, that are not really a problem in society at all, in order to make themselves look good and more electable. Of course, the reality is that all of these issues are either fabricated or so infinitesimally small that they are irrelevant to nearly everyone.... except the politician looking to misdirect from meaningful policies that would make a difference.
If there was any doubt about this, we only have to consider a simple fact. There is so many BIG issues that need resolving, like building more houses, that any politician worth electing would have no time with such minutia, either to speak or think about it... but they do!
Moreover, the laughable reality is that even in these ridiculously irrelevant issues, the politician has no real interest anyway.... as evidenced by the fact that they haven't thought through the details fully. In this case, before outlawing "bidding wars" they need to clearly define what a bidding war is and is not, and prescribe the legal punishment for the potentially graded offenses that might be commitment. Notice they haven't done so because they know it's virtually impossible to do so!
The effect of any kind of price control on a limited commodity is always the same: people end up charging the maximum that they possibly can as the feeling is that it would be unwise to do anything else. So if bidding wars were indeed banned, landlords would just put up the asking price to the maximum they thought that anyone would bid. If after that they still had a surfeit of applicants, they would then choose the one that is best for them, who can add the most value to the deal. This could even include carrying out routine maintenance like tenants do in Germany.
If an actual cap on prices were to be implemented, then we would likely lose supply as landlords switch their money into more beneficial areas, such as selling properties to pay down existing mortgages or investing in other types of business instead of buying new properties.
I have a German tenant at the moment who is doing routine maintenance without being asked. He is so helpful! The best tenant I have ever had.
So the wildly out of touch Labour Party think Landlords are to blame for upward pressure on rents do they? Tell that to the prospective tenants who are overbidding
I thought bidding wars was for Auction Houses. How did MP’s become so naïve and evolve so so stupid and inep.
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