Mixed messages have led to lack of trust
If landlords sometimes feel they receive mixed messages from policymakers, it’s probably because they do.
On February 24th, we carried a story about councils appealing to landlords to offer more homes as shortages in the private rented sector deepen.
That plea did not go unnoticed by readers.
After years of licensing schemes, enforcement activity and new regulation, several landlords questioned why councils now appear surprised that supply in the private rented sector is shrinking.
Margaret Venn summed up the concern succinctly: “Soon there will be no landlords left… so how will that help tenants?”
Others pointed to what they see as a deeper breakdown in trust between landlords and local authorities. One reader, A JR, suggested that unless councils ask themselves why landlords distrust them and address those concerns, their appeals for help may fall on deaf ears.
The sentiment was echoed by another landlord who said that after years of feeling unwelcome by his local authority he now simply tells them he has no vacant properties when approached about housing applicants.
A persistent tension
Three days later came proposals from Bristol City Council to impose higher fines on landlords who commit licensing breaches while housing “vulnerable” tenants, including asylum seekers and people with addiction issues.
The council says the aim is to provide additional protection for tenants who may be at greater risk. But many landlords reading the story interpreted it as a signal that renting to more vulnerable households could bring additional regulatory exposure.
One reader, Jo Westlake, questioned the logic behind the proposal. “Surely landlords who house vulnerable tenants should be helped by councils, not threatened with higher fines,” she wrote.
Others suggested that policies like this could simply discourage landlords from taking on such tenants at all. As Simon Logan put it in the comments: “What landlord in their right mind would house that list of ‘vulnerable tenants’ anyhow?”
Whether policymakers agree with that view or not, it highlights a persistent tension in housing policy. Governments want vulnerable households housed, but many landlords feel they shoulder the risks alone.
Whether one agrees with these views or not, they illustrate a wider reality: relations between councils and many private landlords are increasingly strained.
It is against that backdrop that the industry will soon hear from one of the politicians most closely associated with the latest round of rental reform.
Growing sense of mistrust
Former deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner is due to address a major property conference later this year.
Rayner oversaw the passage of the Renters’ Rights Act, which introduced sweeping changes to the private rented sector. But many of the policies in that legislation – including the abolition of Section 21 – were already proposed by the previous Conservative government in its Renters Reform Bill before the last general election halted its progress.
For many landlords, that continuity has reinforced a perception that both of the traditional parties of government have moved in a similar direction when it comes to regulating the sector. Some landlords suspect there may be a simple political calculation behind this – that there are more votes among tenants than there are among landlords.
None of this means policymakers are wrong to pursue reform.
But the comments from readers this week suggest something deeper may now be at play: not just disagreement over individual policies, but a growing sense of mistrust between landlords and the institutions shaping housing policy.
If policymakers want landlords to play a role in solving the housing crisis, the relationship between national and local politicians and the PRS needs rebuilding.
Because as the comment section makes clear, many landlords feel they are being asked to solve a problem by the same system that helped create it.
