An angry landlord has contacted Landlord Today to show what she calls the “twaddle” response she has received from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in reply to a complaint.
The landlord - who has asked not to be named - contacted her local MP to complain specifically about what she calls the “potential destruction” of the private rental sector when Section 21 powers are scrapped.
She has cited real examples to show the existing shortage of rental properties, explaining that in 20916 she would let a two bedroom house for arounds £615 to £625 per calendar month, and receive four to eight enquiries when the property was listed.
Now she would get some £895 or more and in excess of 40 enquiries.
She expressed her alarm that this dire situation would get even worse when elements of the Renters Reform Bill are enacted, only to receive what reads like a standard reply which fails to address the figures which show the core of the landlord’s complaint.
The letter reads:
“Thank you for taking the time to write to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities regarding your concerns about landlords leaving the private rental sector. Your correspondence was passed onto the Private Rented Sector Division as we are the team responsible for leading on the reforms. Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you and I hope the information below is helpful.
“Good landlords provide homes to millions of people and the country and we value the service they provide. Currently the system doesn’t work for good landlords or tenants and, as well as implementing reforms to deliver a fairer deal fort tenants, we are also putting in place measures to ensure landlords are protected.
“We know the profile of landlords providing homes in the private rented sector has changed over the past 20 years. A wide range of landlords operate in the sector, owning different numbers of properties and focussing on different markets. They all have a role to play in providing secure and decent homes in the PRS.
“To address you concerns regarding landlords leaving the market; according to the English Housing Survey the proportion of private rented sector households has remained relatively stable for nearly a decade. The private rented sector was 19 per cent of households in 2013-14 and continues to be at 19 per cent according to the latest data for 2022.
“Our reforms are designed to support good landlords and target poor landlords who are unwilling or unable to provide a decent home for their tenants. Good landlords should not fear our reforms. We want too encourage good landlords by improving grounds for possession and making courts more efficient and discourage poor or bad landlords through clear standards and robust enforcement.
“We are not expecting our reforms to lead to a destabilising effect on the market, with the planned reforms being introduced in a managed way. Looking at the Scottish private rented reforms, supply remained stable after section 21 was abolished - showing how little impact this had open landlords’ business models.
“Once again, thank you for taking the time to write to the department about this important issue.”
“Yours sincerely,
“The Private Rented Sector Division.”
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“Twaddle” is an understatement!
Typical lazy, generic and unhelpful civil servant response. The public sector has become bloated. They are all ‘working from home’ especially when there’s nice weather. Often they don’t produce a lot. When they do it’s not productive. To think our taxes pay this person’s salary…
Britain is now turning WOKE. It’s time to get a bit of normality back into peoples thinking.
Government Ministers and their civil servants can’t even answer a simple question like “What is a women”?
Soon it will be "what is rent arrears?” Or “what is ASB?” Or more likely “what do you mean it’s your property?”
Actually I can see that being suggested.
“It’s not your property it’s the tenants you are just the leaseholder & you need permission from council and tenants to sell”
What a ridiculous reply from the Department of levelling up time scrap this Department now.
It says the current system doesn’t work for good landlords and Tenants but it has been working well for decades.
So now since they got involved they have made a complete hash of it and the system is no longer able to function.
Driving out thousands of landlords causing thousands to switch to AirBnB, driving Tenants renting costs through the roof.
Their Department of the so called levelling up is Detrimental to both Tenants and Landlords so they are not about improving the Private Rented Sector at all but to implement its demise.
She cannot of really believed that a genuine human being would have replied 😂👎🏻 . It’s over for a lot of us, I accept this and am planning my life without the PRS.
I have never had a reply from my MP or whoever he has passed my letter on to, the actually addresses my concerns. It is always a platitude like this one. They may be supposed to represent their constituents but most MPs either think they know better or simple tow the party line.
Well all I can say is that I for one had Eleven Rental properties at one stage.
That number is now down to Four of which one is going through the selling process right now.
Only one of these sold 7 properties has been sold to another landlord.
So even an idiot of a government pen pusher should be able to do simple maths and work out that PRS Rental properties are shrinking.
It is the PRS LLs who have kept the rental market strong and these people are not fools. They know that it’s not a viable business any longer and what ever government says they will soon be left with a massive housing problem.
In fact now they are reducing the Capital Gains Allowance drastically LLs are selling up at an even faster rate.
I for one am getting out of the game as soon as I possibly can and I’m one of the good LLs but not a fool.
It is amazing that the DLHC should ignore this ladies comments about the critical increase in rents (a very unbiased comment for a landlord to make), preferring to prevaricate with generalities and quotes of overall market statistics. I too have received several letters from them in the same vein.
I don’t think the abolition of S21 is anything good landlords should worry about other than whether the courts will cope promptly with applications…this is the real concern.
The proposals to scrap AST’s for the student market is universally condemned by students,universities, councils and landlords alike. It is without merit unjustified and highly destructive.
In the main the renters reform bill is nothing more than a political diversion and will have little effect for good Landlords and tenants.
Of course the route of the problem is a lack of affordable housing and responsibility for this is firmly laid at central governments door.
The National Union of Students has a petition on it's website asking student to support the RRB!!!!
@G romit - the NUS is just a bunch of angry, lefty losers who certainly do not consider the welfare of students. A bit like Shelter supporting S24. Anything to stick it to those evil landlords even if it means skyrocketing rents for those poor downtrodden tenants
The courts won’t cope.
And I object to going to court to get my own property back altogether.
Standard response, a condescending opening paragraph saying how important Kabdards are and how much the Government appreciates Landlords contribution, quickly followed by a restatement of their policy or another kick in the gut., And ending with a few more platitudes.
What's then really makes my blood boil is your MP thinks it's an acceptable answer and washes their hands of it.
Every Landlord should send an individual letter of petition and protest
A proper registered by post letter to number 10 complaining, we all need to rank the pressure up on the housing minister!
Just done it. The page signing the petition gives the details of the MP for our address
It just doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I have a draw full of similar letters. As G romit says, they all follow a similar pattern - platitudes and meaningless statistics to justify their position. Policy these days is made up by reacting to all those noisy activists (Shelter, Gen Rant etc) - anything for a quiet life, and they know they'll be out of a job next year anyway so it's just a problem that they'll leave for Sir Kneeler and Nandy Pandy
Exactly they know they are out so why bother
too encourage....from a government
You only have to look at Scotland (The UK’s very own Social laboratory) or (WOKE central) to see what anolishment of section 21 has done. More unexpected voids, higher rents to cover voids and unpredictability of tenancies, and more recently a rent freeze and now a rent increase cap. The government is trying to control everything but making a shambles.
Typically, we should ask these MPs and other people answerable questions on the inequality of how the law treats landlords and tenants :
Why should landlords go to court when tenants are bad, to prove they are bad - such as ASB, treating the house badly, claims on deposits, etc. We need to ask them why we are asked to provide evidence, and how we will provide evidence of ASB if who ever reports are not willing to come forward and accept that was their complaint. Whereas the bad tenant squats with rent arrears, trashes the house, is usually a person people are afraid to confront for ASB, would do everything to cause damp and mould!!!!
We have to collect evidence which will never be available, and then serve notice like we are pro lawyers so we are supposed to know all the legal ways of serving notice, then wait for the court to hear, and then a decision, and then if it is favourable …….. until then sit in more rent arrear and wrath from the bad tenant!!!!
Where do we query this? Who do we go to????????????
Time to get out. Similar to what you have said - what exactly will be acceptable evidence of ASB? I'm not chancing it. Judges will say it's not enough etc. The tenant goes because I say so. It's the only way. Otherwise judges will dither and delay at every opportunity. Looking for a way to work against a landlord.
It just seems like those in The Gov have nothing else to do so they decide to mess around with things that are working quite well. Nothing is ever going g to pkease everyone but this one is ok as is. So leave alone MP’s. Please.
I honestly think that the country is beyond fixing.
I wrote to my MP a couple of years ago concerning a number of issues (boat invasions COVID nonsense etc). I receive the same WP generated inane pointless response. You could sack 80% of the MP's and it wouldn't make any difference.
The response from the Department for so called levelling {what ever that is supposed to mean) is incorrect and out of date. The AST was a success until first Osborn and now Gove meddled with it
In 1991 there were 2 million private renters in the country by 2021 there were 5.5 million . That is a success with 80% of tenants happy with their Landlord.
The Scottish scheme has been a disaster they are having to put a eviction on to Stop Landlords selling up . And there is not much possibility of any sane person using his hard earned to invest in a rental property in Scotland .
There are lots of Landlords selling up because of this Government Policies Agents only have 50 percent of available properties to rent than before pandemic . Housing Benefit Tenants have little chance of getting a Private rental and council waiting list have increased .
To say they value the small private landlord is a bit of an insult when the Government and Councils are hell bent on driving us out.
And do they really think anyone is going to want to buy a property costing tens of thousands of pounds and donate it to the tenant for life .
It's almost as if that toad, Gove, wrote it himself.
Why do all government entities and the big six energy companies all send something from a no reply email address? We know it is because they do not want an email audit trail of incompetence.
They should stand on with their replies and be held to account, politicians are being burnt at every opportunity but the civil service appears to be exempt…!
Strong unions here. They can't work and won't work. Now most WFH. Out in their garden or parks today uncontactable. Lazy incompetent people when at work anyway.
The DOLU really needs to get their heads out of their arse's and look at what is happening in the real world.
Every time I look at FB and see someone urgently looking for a place to live, the reason is their landlord is selling up?
Looking on Rightmove, no one here is currently buying, houses are constantly listed as reduced.
Councils nationwide seem desperate to get naive landlords to rent out their houses to them, while shafting the landlords with selective licencing? How do they think this is going to pan out?
Maybe snare a few newbies for a few years and then what?
They are determined to make the PRS a thing owned by corporate friends. I think what they miss is that these will only take the best tenants. Where are the rest going to go?
They get rid of HMO's scumbag landlords, there's going to be a huge amount of homeless people that they need to rehouse in decent houses which are never going to be available.
I'm not a scum landlord and will never be 1. I pride myself on letting out high quality houses to the best tenants.
The council can explain to the everyone else why they have no houses for them. They have caused the problem, but will blame it on PRS landlords
..according to the English Housing Survey: "The private rented sector was 19 per cent of households in 2013-14 and continues to be at 19 per cent according to the latest data for 2022".
The landlords have started to sell up in 2021 or more so in 2022 and 2023, so this will show up and hit the tenants within the next 5 years. I believe
1. 19% is not a sufficient percentage, it needs to be higher as the tenants are increasing and the supply is decreasing. Not sure how and where English Housing Survey made up these figures from? They are probably working on what the government wishes to have on percentage wise. However, the government has proved that they are not methodical in their surveys or research or reading and understanding the actual underlying problems, when spelt out the problem to them (just as their email response above to one of the constituents proves).
2. The Tower Hill council stated early this year that a million people knocking on their doors in January about not finding accommodation. This is going to get very serious with all areas in UK if they have not already concerned about the figures. The council forcing the LL to retain the non-paying tenants by finding faults with the properties that have been damaged by the tenants is totally wrong. The LLL need a fair playing field. Good tenants and god LL, this is where the government can educate the tenants to be good tenants. They have already brought plenty of legislation against the LL for health and safety, which is fine. However, removal of S24 and now S 21 is totally unfair. What about some legislation for tenants to be good citizens, pay their rent on time (no different to us paying mortgage interest on time), look after and be proud of their home instead of damaging it. How about educating the tenants to understand that LL are humans and can get stressed when they abuse the LL and their property. Rent means to look after the property while staying there, as there will be other people moving after them. Every time the tenants leave, many LL, like me have to spend a lot of time and money to get the property back to what it was when the tenants initially moved in. The councils and MP's need to wake up and understand the actual problem rather than burying their head in the quick sand, just so eventually they will loose it. The actual problems can be bad tenants, who cannot be housed at all. These tenants need to be housed by the councils. PRS should not have liability towards housing them at all. I do not trust this survey, as can be seen with the response itself, that respondent do not wish to know the truth. Good old honesty and understanding is required and not dictatorial or c d Acts of Parliament.
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