Renters Reform Bill - just a delay or a major rethink?

Sadly only a temporary reprieve until Labour get in at the next election. I was poised to send out section 21 notices as I won't stay in the PRS. Have already sold three properties in last 9 months as tenants moved. Can't run a business with such uncertainty and effectively the loss of our property.

Fully understand how you feel Geraldine. The risk of losing control/ownership of the property is what is making so many landlords sell. The business is not a safe one.

However, my tenants are on the whole quite good/nice and I would carry on if it weren't for the extremist anti-landlord policies on the horizon.

Too late for 2 of my tenants. S21 done ages ago…one eventually left after sourcing another property and one just need to invoke court bailiff.

Landlords should have the right to get their property back at the end of the contract with their tenants. The tenants should respect the landlords decision to give their tenants notice to leave since both parties have agreed to serving notices to one another. If the tenants refuse to leave, then they are clearly in breach of their contract and this is ‘fault’ eviction. The section21 should be strengthened in favour of Labdlords in such circumstances.

Sam you are correct if the tenancies remain AST. But that is going to go as well. Instead under the new proposed legislation we revert back to Assured Tenancies which they will call it "open ended tenancies". So future tenancies will not have an end date. This new legislation is bringing the old "protected tenancies" through the back door commonly known as "sitting tenants". For this reason, I am out.

That's crediting them with more sense than they have currently!

😂 😂 👍

Same here Saul. I'm getting out too... Enough is enough!

Well let's hope you're right Robert although I have my doubts

Andrew

Remember 1992 when Major unexpectedly beat Kinnock as voters preferred Major's safer pair of hands?

I think Rishi could have the same effect over Labour this time?

Back in 92 it was Rupert Murdoch and the Sun newspaper that rigged the election. In the morning of the election Sun had it on front page "if Labour win, will the last person leave Britain turn the lights off". The Sun has lost its power of controlling voter's mind. I guess Labour is coming, so I am getting out.

I do remember 92 very well Robert, we had a postman deliver to out garage, a good chap, but red hot labour he was convinced labour would walk it, we never let him live that one down, I mean Kinnock ? who could take that fool seriously, it wasn't so much a win for Major, more a disaster for Kinnock.

I remember that morning too. It was great. I was only a teenager but it was such a relief in the morning. I also remember in the run up Kinnock + wife walking on the beach and he fell over.

This was meant as a reply to Grumpy Doug below but I couldn't move it to the proper post reply bit - but now managed to do so.

Without the SNP, I would be looking at monthly rents around £2000, not £2600 - so thank you sincerely, SNP and your little Green helpers!

James

In Scotland students have actually become the tenants of choice and do tend to leave at the end of May or June.

Some do annoyingly leave it to the last minute before giving the minimum 28 days notice but new tenants will live with not having a definite move in date until 28 days before.

I remind them that they will probably be asked for a Landlord reference and cooperation with the Landlord is a major factor for new Landlords to consider.

The lack of fixed term tenancies has destroyed things more for families than students but one major casualty has been the Edinburgh and St Andrews hybrid market with holiday lets from June to September and student lets from mid September to May. Since Landlords can't take definite bookings until the students get their acts together, many student flats are now full-time short term rentals adding further to the overall shortage of rental properties.

There are no winners but families are harder hit than students and rents, which went up about 30% in 2017/2018 when the SNP anti PRS legislation came into force, are now about 30% more than then due to market forces with the rent freeze and cap not applying to new tenancies.

A good 4 bed student flat in Scotland got £1600 per month in 2017, rising to £2100 in 2018 and can now get £2600 or so in 2023 - thanks to the SNP causing so many Landlords to sell up.

I'm still in this for the long haul despite everything that the SNP and their little Green helpers throw at me.

Thank you for that Robert. That echoes much of my thoughts as I plan going forward. I'm exclusively student lets. Your point about references is extremely valid. Here where I am, the student market is mainly managed through about half a dozen agents, all of whom know each other well. News about bad groups of students is widely shared, so those that "play" the system will find themselves out in the cold when they come to find further accommodation or seek references.
I've spoken to all my current groups. Suffice to say they are blissfully ignorant of what's proposed. However it's also crystal clear that they are happy with the current arrangements so I'm fairly relaxed. There'll be a lot more due diligence however and I'm sure a few faint hearts will pull out which is fine by me.
And £2600 for a group of 4 - that's bonkers. The people of Scotland have a lot to thank the SNP for ..... NOT !

Grumpy

Without the SNP, I would be looking at monthly rents around £2000, not £2600 - so thank you sincerely, SNP and your little Green helpers!

Ellie

I agree but those wanting short term rentals just need to give 28 days notice now in Scotland. It's the families who want to stay put that most Landlords in Scotland are now wary of due to the limited options available for repossession.

Also see my reply to James above about how this is panning out in Scotland after 5 or 6 years.

Robert, you are an expert on the consequences of this form of legislation

Aren't there complications though if there are sharers on a periodic contract and one wants to leave and the others want to stay? My tenants have preferred to have six month fixed term contracts which allow one person to return somewhere (overseas usually in my personal experience), so that a new fixed term contract is entered into for another six months with one different person whose references have been checked.

Ellie

You're right about potential problems in a joint tenancy which needs unanimous agreement to be terminated.

In theory a student could drop out of University, stop paying rent but refuse to move out and the tenancy would continue indefinitely. If their guarantors refused to pay the rent then the other guarantors would have to stump up.

Currently the only escape route for the joint tenants would be to stop paying rent until a court took action to evict them all risking their credit ratings moving forward and landline them with huge costs.

For joint tenancies a fixed term tenancy agreement should always be available to avoid being held to ransom by a rogue flatmate. The SNP refused to treat joint tenants or students tenants differently from families as they said that this would put families at a disadvantage as potential tenants.

Families are now at this very same disadvantage but joint tenants are now exposed to the risk of the actions of their flatmates without the escape route of a fixed term tenancy.

Since 2017 I have successfully twice had a mid term change of a joint tenant when one dropped out. The onus was on the current four tenants to find a suitable replacement and then on the same day the four current tenants signed a formal notice to quit and the remaining three and the new tenant signed a new open ended tenancy agreement.

The departing tenant and the new tenant agreed informally exactly how the change over happened and I didn't have to do anything other than agree to waive the 28 day notice period to allow the new tenant to move in on the day the departing tenant formally moved out.

If all agree, there's no problem. If one doesn't agree, the current tenancy can't be easily or cheaply terminated in the current People's Republic of Scotland.

On a related point, on one of these two occasions, the departing tenant quibbled on paying for utilities after leaving but still a joint tenant. I asked Safe Deposits Scotland if I could withhold part of the deposit to recompense the remaining tenants for the missing utility payments and was told that the deposit couldn't be used to compensate a "third party" - the joint tenants!

It sounds as though it is almost an unworkable system in Scotland for sharers.

I was under the belief that, one tenant can give notice for all on a joint tenancy (which used to be the case *outside* a fixed term).

Luke

In Scotland a joint tenancy can now only be terminated with the unanimous agreement of ALL joint tenants as the focus is on ensuring no tenant, joint or otherwise, can be compelled to give up their home, other than a few strictly defined circumstances like the owner selling, repossession, urgent major repairs etc.

It's actually easier to get rid of a spouse than a rogue flatmate! I'm a bit surprised that the interests of an abused partner didn't get more attention but then the rights of "normal" men and women (usually accepted definitions) are trumped by the rights of those who don't want to be either ( or perhaps both?).

Ellie

It actually works fine for joint tenants in the vast majority of cases, apart from being a major disadvantage for families wanting to stay long term. However the previous system also worked well for the vast majority of tenants but with less protection for rogue tenants than they now enjoy.

Only rogue tenants win under the new system but then only the rogue tenants need or want the help of Shelter, Generation Rant, Acorn and other loony lefties who are really hurting all decent tenants, especially families.

I voted green and labour, not because I support them, simply because I couldn't bring myself to vote tory, the 2 tory councillors did get in, but it was close in what was a safe conservative area, a strong message has been sent to government

Andrew

Unless you are also going to vote Green (aka Deep Red) or Labour in the General Election, then the Tories can recover ground.

Labour might be able to form a coalition with the Lib Dims, SNP and Greens, but that would be worse than pure Labour!

Unfortunately only a majority Tory government, not trying to win over lefty voters, can stop this country from getting even deeper into the mire.

Any coalition will likely come at the price of proportional representation. Sure, the country will have to endure a single term of a predominantly Labour Govt, but then we should be able to send real messages to the Westminster elites and see more Reform MPs and the like.

Charles

There are a FEW rogue landlords but the vast majority are decent as proven time and again in surveys on tenant satisfaction.

You point out that the current legislation isn't enforced so further legislation just pushes up rent due to higher costs incurred by the law abiding majority of landlords and the shortage of properties.

It's simply the politics of envy from the disgruntled lefties who aren't interested in improving things for tenants, just in making things worse for landlords.

Incidentally I dramatically increased my involvement in the prs when my own kids were students but quite fortuitously I bought the properties in their name- initially to give them a tax free income in renting the other rooms to mates, but the main benefit is that these properties have never been part of my estate. All three kids bought a second flat with me acting as guarantor on a btl mortgage before graduation and have continued to buy more despite the current SNP legislation.

I now charge them to manage their portfolios, avoiding breaching the 60% marginal tax penalty and give this excess income directly to the grandchildren, effectively doubling the amount they get if their parents had paid this directly out of taxed income.

I think the only slum landlords we now have in Norwich are the council and housing assocs and in fairness to them that has more to do with the types of tenants they now rent to, the ones we wouldn't touch with a barge pole, horses for courses you might say

In fact there are very few rouge landlords and rather a lot of better ones.
In context, there are circa 2.4 million PRS landlords and nationally 397 were prosecuted for housing offences in 2022.

Context matters.

Don't bother. Wera Hobhouse (Lib Dem) wants employees to be able to sue employers if they have their feelings hurt at work. Anything that comes out of them will not be better.

I think the Tories might be peer reviewing Comrade Gove's work. After the election failures last week they should be taking a long hard look at themselves and listen to the feedback they got from their campaigning and the results.

As my post above prominent people are critical of Gove. AirBNB are also going to challenge his draconian proposals for holiday lets. I suspect those in govt can see he has been going too far for too long in the wrong direction. There's probably a few fisticuffs behind the scenes whilst it gets watered down.