Every seven minutes a private renter in England is given eviction notice even though they have done nothing wrong.

Most people in Europe rent, they do not pine to buy a house as soon as they can. There is absolutely no shame in renting, we have known people since the 60 s still in the same property with neighbours who have been there fir years too.
There is a social housing system but a lot are also private landlords.
I don’t know the percentage between social and private landlords but there certainly is no stress about young people needing help to get on property ladders.
I know Germany best and last time I looked I couldnt find a single estate agent selling houses/flats on any high street. Things may have changed but doubt it, most people rent happily but their laws may be different to ours, and they clearly have security. We look on property as an investment, to sell on and increase value etc, they don’t see it like that,
As an aside my grandmother rented the same 2 up 2 down terrace in London from about 1900 until my aunts death in the late 80s. So it used to work well here too.
I blame all the council housing being sold off with such high discounts with no consideration for future needs.... enter private landlords being paid to let to people who can find nowhere else. Thus no security.

Smileness sorry about your experience, really unpleasant but at least you have it back.

Further restricting the ability of private landlords to obtain possession of their properties will simply lead to people not letting properties out and selling up. They rent properties out as an investment and a means of getting an income, not as an act of charity. We are heavily reliant on the private rental sector, partly because of the right to buy legislation. If private landlords decide it’s no longer worthwhile where will all the tenants go? There’s nowhere near enough social housing to put roofs over their heads.

I agree nadateturbe Wed 27-Apr-22 05:06:03

Hetty58

DaisyAnne, tenancies are, by definition, for a set term, usually renewed yearly.

A relative lets out their property here - but lives abroad. Should he decide to live here again or return long-term (due to work commitments) he'd need to have his house back. If those terms didn't exist - he wouldn't own anything here and that tenancy wouldn't exist.

Blame Thatcher, not private landlords, for the lack of social housing and secure tenancies.

Hetty58:

DaisyAnne, tenancies are, by definition, for a set term, usually renewed yearly.

They are currently Hetty. The intention is/was to change this with the only date in a tenancy agreement being the start date. It has been like this in the past. It isn't something that hasn't happened before, or in other countries.

One of Johnson’s many broken election promises was to build 300,000 new homes a year. Not coming anywhere close and Jenrick (now sacked) repeatedly ducked questions asking him why.

Johnson should keep his promise and ensure that of the homes that are built, there are many more to rent - not the tinkering around the edges handful of “social” housing tacked onto overpriced private developments. How I loathe the term social in that context. All housing is social.

Thatcher has a lot to answer for and no one in government has the courage and vision to put right what she did. I’d willingly invest in government bonds to fund a return to the building of local authority rented homes and see the demise of the private landlord.

We have taken out a rent guarantee insurance which, should we ever get nightmare tenants, would pay us the rent, and, more importantly, pay our legal fees if we needed to evict them.

It’s ridiculous to say that property shouldn’t be bought for investment purposes.
We have done this for decades to provide a source of income for our retirement, and in that time have provided clean, modern, well maintained homes for quite a few tenants.
Our hope has always been that if we offer a rental home in good condition, it will attract the best tenants who will respect it and look after it.
We always use a well established local letting agent who vets potential tenants very carefully.

growstuff

Hetty58

DaisyAnne, tenancies are, by definition, for a set term, usually renewed yearly.

A relative lets out their property here - but lives abroad. Should he decide to live here again or return long-term (due to work commitments) he'd need to have his house back. If those terms didn't exist - he wouldn't own anything here and that tenancy wouldn't exist.

Blame Thatcher, not private landlords, for the lack of social housing and secure tenancies.

I'm not that bothered who's to blame. I'm more bothered by the situation people are in now and finding solutions which would ensure tenants have more security.

Exactly growstuff. It will take a change of mindset when it comes to "investing" in a property. That change from short term "invest, strip and run" to long term "grow and maintain" needs to change in businsess just as much as in housing.

You need to know you can cash in an investment should you need to do so. In that respect a house is no different to a savings account. If selling with vacant possession is made more difficult then people will not invest in property to let. What’s the point in deliberately removing an important source of housing?

JenniferEccles

What about the owner of the property? Don’t they have rights?
There are many reasons why a landlord might want his property back. The tenant not being at fault doesn’t come into it.
A property is let for a certain period, six months, a year, two years or more, and both parties realise this when they sign the tenancy agreement.

If too many restrictions are put on letting property, it’s inevitable that some landlords will decide it’s not worth the hassle and sell up, leaving fewer properties available for tenants to rent.

I only know 4 households (well enough to know their financial housing arrangements) who live in rented accommodation.
Three of them have had their homes sold from under them or been given huge (40% huge) rent increases in the last 15 months.
I don't gave the words to describe the months of stress I've seen in them. Two of these homes have been 'renovated' and put back on the rental market at increased rents.

We need more state owned housing with reasonable rents. Some landlords are more concerned to line their own pockets than provide good quality housing at reasonable rents people can afford.

Yes there are cases like that Chardy as well as dreadful tenants who stop paying rent and then trash the property for good measure before they are eventually evicted. Also extremely stressful for the poor owner.

Did those people you mentioned let through a reputable agent I wonder!
Unless the original rent was way below the going rate I can’t understand how the landlord could increase the rent to that extent.
In a similar way to house selling, the market is only determined by what people will pay.
We always take the advice of our agent regarding increases and we also take into account how good the tenants have been.
We would far rather keep the rent the same to keep reliable folk who always pay on time and who look after the house.

Unfortunately there are good and bad on both sides aren’t there?

growstuff

Esspee

Landlord and Tenant laws have been changed in Scotland.

The most common reason for eviction is non payment of rent. When a landlord has a good tenant who is paying their rent there is no motivation to evict the tenant, quite the opposite.

There is every motivation to evict, if the landlord wants to release capital for another purpose.

Yes, certainly but private buy to let properties are usually for investment and income, selling the property would be unusual. Landlords must be able to sell their asset if they need to.

I wish people would prefix their posts with where the information relates to. Almost all statements on this thread relate to England, not the U.K.

This is my concern about private landlords. Tenants are living on a knife edge knowing that any change in the landlord’s circumstances or how he or she wishes to reorganise their own finances could find them out on the street.

I am not saying they are all landlords are like this but I know a good number of people who did jump on the buy-to-let bandwagon after the 2008 crash and interest rates plummeted. There’s little altruism in what they do. It’s all about how much income and capital gains they can make for the least effort. They take the rents and when they judge the sales market is strong, give notice to the tenants and take the capital gains to roll into something else.

The property market here (in England) is extremely competitive at the moment. Properties are selling at eye-watering prices the moment they come to market. I wonder how many of these Section 21 notices are triggered by someone wanting to grab their capital gains in case the bubble bursts. It’s capitalism at its worst.

Urmstongran

I’d hate to be his landlord. He sounds a nightmare.

A friend of mine is a maintenance man for probably the largest property owner in Southend. All of his properties are HMOs and the like. What Sago has described is par for the course.
Having said that, this landlord isn’t a very nice person, either.

Smileless
We had 2 such tenants. One never paid another penny after paying the deposit.
The other one was hotbedding it. The flat was let for 3 people , We received a call from the tenant underneath our flat who told us that people were up and down the stairs at all hours.
We made a surprise visit ? there were mattresses everywhere.
We dealt with both evictions ourselves. No bailiff's or court involved, and no expenses.

We're really thankful that the tenant left Silverlining.

Re. your post @ 9.59 GSM that accounts for a reduction in private land lords.

That's something we're going to look into JenniferEccles. We only paid a solicitor to serve the section 21 and that alone was expensive.

How did you manage to do that MerylStreep? It's a legal requirement to serve a section 21 and if that isn't done correctly, it cannot be enforced.

Another issue for private landlords is the EPC rating. All properties must be band D to be rented out and there's talk of this changing to band C in 2025 for any newly purchased properties for rental.

We've had to have internal wall insulation throughout to bring our flat up to specification at considerable cost. Perfectly decent properties that are D or below can no longer be rented out so no doubt even more private landlords will be selling up if they're unable to afford to increase the rating.

I wonder if councils are ensuring council houses are up the the required specification. Will they be spending thousands of pounds to do what's required on older properties?

Germanshepherdsmum:
They rent properties out as an investment and a means of getting an income, not as an act of charity. [Wed 27-Apr-22 09:59:01]

And therein lies the problem GSM. Houses are homes, not income generators. People also used to accept a lower but steady and secure income. They could learn to do that again.

So I suppose we’re coming back to banning anyone owning more than one property? Ye gods.

I think me and my siblings are good landlords of my mothers house - rent goes towards her care home fees. We used a property letting agency who did the credit checks and acts as go between with the tenant re repairs etc. After a year, the agents did an inspection and sent us loads of photos. All looked good and the tenant wanted to stay so we agreed to move to a month by month lease ( I think that’s what it’s called) and kept the rent the same even though the agent suggested increasing it. We felt that it was best to keep a good tenant rather than risk getting a new one who might cause us problems! We have been very responsive to the tenants requests, we installed a side gate before she moved in as she had a young child, replaced the proven fridge freezer within a few days and got a plumber in very quickly to attend to a small leak under the sink.

However, we will sell the house when my mum dies, it is not a long term let as eventually her estate will be split between four of us.

Broken fridge freezer

We have properties and always use an agent so everything goes through them. My DH is one of the best landlords on their books.
It’s not easy to get someone to leave a property. You can’t just give someone two months notice now without a very good reason. We can’t evict for none payment of rent until 8 weeks in arrears and if they make that payment up to date in the two months notice period a judge will rule in their favour.

We had a property which had a couple and two older kids in and actually we knew them but not well. They were thousands in arrears, did drugs and treated the property like a dump we had an awful job getting them out because also they were disrupting for the neighbours in the street. They finally went and the property was turned around and rented again. We will never recoup that rent.

We have one at the moment where it’s been rented for years to an Egyptian lady. All fine she’s lived there for years with no issues. But now she’s rung the council and said she’s overcrowded and the oven doesn’t work. In effect reporting us. The agents arranged an inspection and finding 4 men living there and no sign of her in a two bed small house who aren’t on the tenancy. Also the oven is so disgustingly dirty because it’s never been cleaned. It was brand new when she moved in. We are having to consult a solicitor to find out where to go from here. Those men have no right to live there and have effectively taken it over.

We have residents in properties who’ve been there for years paying under the market value because they are fabulous tenants and happy and we won’t put the rent up even though advised to do so.

I agree there are terrible landlords but for the great ones like my DH we still get a bad name due to all being clumped under the landlord umbrella.

Sorry to ramble on.

Chardy landlords are unable to increase rents to a sitting tenant by more than 8%. Each 12 months.

MissOops has had to move 3 times in 6 years as the landlords have sold 2 of the properties and the 3rd Landlord is coming back to the U.K. and wants to move back into his house.

Hopefully this newest rental will be ok for 5 years, but my fingers are crossed.

Germanshepherdsmum

So I suppose we’re coming back to banning anyone owning more than one property? Ye gods.

That's not logical GSM. Of course, you are allowed not to be logical. However, it does surprise me coming from someone with a legal background. Where has anyone said they thought you should not own more than one property?

Germanshepherdsmum

Further restricting the ability of private landlords to obtain possession of their properties will simply lead to people not letting properties out and selling up. They rent properties out as an investment and a means of getting an income, not as an act of charity. We are heavily reliant on the private rental sector, partly because of the right to buy legislation. If private landlords decide it’s no longer worthwhile where will all the tenants go? There’s nowhere near enough social housing to put roofs over their heads.

Well if all the landlords sell property prices will drop and more people will be able to afford to buy. Which I would have thought was a good thing.

SmileLess
In answer to your question: not something I wish to publicise on GN. ?
The law isn’t always on the side of the good guys.
On the others side of the coin I had 3 of the best tenants you could wish to have.
One was a young couple. She was 17 and pregnant, her partner was 19. Absolutely wonderful tenant’s.
The other was what you would politely call a ^working girl^?
We had her for 6 years and never had a clue as to how she earned her living. It was only when she left that another tenant told us. She kept the flat absolutely immaculate.
We moved into this flat as a stop gap when we moved back to the uk. On day I had a call on the intercom from one of her previous clients. My daughter was there and was very indignant towards him, I was in fits of laughter ?