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Tron Cruise said:
Because this particular one is an entitled twat who wants the world to love him and his pension pot - ‘I’m 72 you know’ etc.
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I'm intrigued by this in the other direction. I am nearly 67 and my £4,000 pension pot is useless - due to low interest rates. Royal London add about £1 a year to it. If I turn it into an Annuity it would probably buy me a copy of "The Sun on Sunday" once a week.

On the other hand I do own my own house - so my outgoings are low and manageable on my state pension..

But I know two people into the property game. One has a flat in Valencia or somewhere - and lives six months here, whilst renting it out and six months there.

Another started by buying his bedsit flat on the Weir Estate from Lambeth Council under right to buy and now has a mini-empire of six flats - so he says. Only two are ex right-to-buy he reassured me.

I guess if I was not so paranoid about debt (I paid off my mortgage early) I could have become a buy to let landlord too, if I'd wanted to. This didn't attract me, I was satisfied with the jobs I was doing and the last thing I wanted was business worries on top.

But effectively the last 20 years have funneled people who want to get a return on their savings into things like buy-to-let. When the CEO of Yorkshire Building Society states on TV he doesn't need savers, the Bank of England is supplying all his monetary requirements and savings rates are 0.1% there is a problem.

The Nationwide Building Society has a whole section of it's website devote to "How to become a landlord"
Buy to let mortgages | Nationwide

In other words don't lend us your money - borrow more to become a landlord.
 
I have no "pension pot" of any kind.

I've been living on sickness and disability benefits since I was 23 years old, in 1998. I was 5 months away from qualifying as a nurse when my life (and health) fell apart.

I've done everything I can to get back to paid employment since then but it hasn't been possible for me.

Very few of my mates have any kind of pension or property.

We all work, and contribute to society in many different ways, but we either aren't earning a wage or our wages aren't enough to allow for saving.

Fuck private landlords. Just fuck em.
 
BillRiver said:
I have no "pension pot" of any kind.

I've been living on sickness and disability benefits since I was 23 years old, in 1998. I was 5 months away from qualifying as a nurse when my life (and health) fell apart.

I've done everything I can to get back to paid employment since then but it hasn't been possible for me.

Very few of my mates have any kind of pension or property.

We all work, and contribute to society in many different ways, but we either aren't earning a wage or our wages aren't enough to allow for saving.

Fuck private landlords. Just fuck em.
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Regarding the pension pot - I didn't know I had one until a couple of ears ago.
A company I'd worked for 1984-1989 had been paying a non-contributory pension for all staff apparently.
Sorry to hear of your health problems.
 
The argument here isn't about why people became landlords its that a landlord here doesn't like non landlords saying nasty things about landlords.

I mean I shouldn't be having this argument here.

I come to U75 to get away from this kind of shit.
 
purenarcotic said:
Because housing should be a basic human right, a universal principle of a decent society. Everyone should have access to good quality, safe, secure, comfortable housing that isn’t contingent on how much they earn or whatever. Privatising that significantly reduces the chance of that. And no matter how ‘good’ you are as a landlord, your life circumstances can change in the blink of an eye, meaning that the property(ies) you rent out you have to sell or take back, meaning tenants are forced to move and face homelessness. That’s not something I could live with, subjecting someone to that level of stress and upheaval.
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Of course everyone is entitled to decent housing. For approximately two thirds of households this is achieved by owner-occupancy. Social housing makes up 17% of households and the private sector 19%. My arguement in this thread is that the vast majority of landlords, although they obviously hope to get a return on their investment, try their best to provide decent accommodation.

On your point of landlords giving notice, let me give my own experience. In the twenty years that we've owned the flat, I've never given notice to anyone. I would say that tenants have stayed on average for about two years. Most of them have been sharers and they move on because they're moving away from the area, they're buying a place or they're moving in with a partner.

I agree that there is a need to provide some tenants with more secure leases. Obviously this is partly up to the social sector, but, as I've stated elsewhere, the like of pension funds could help since there investments have to be long term.
 
pave said:
On your point of landlords giving notice, let me give my own experience. In the twenty years that we've owned the flat, I've never given notice to anyone. I would say that tenants have stayed on average for about two years. Most of them have been sharers and they move on because they're moving away from the area, they're buying a place or they're moving in with a partner.
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On the other hand, in my 12 years of renting in Brixton, all three houses that I lived in, we had to leave when the landlord gave notice.

One of the landlords was so-so, but was always sending people round to do bodged repairs, one was pretty good and I'm still in touch with him 15 years later, one was pretty hard to deal with because she could never quite accept that it was our home while we were paying for it, even if it was once her home and still her property so she was often interfering in stuff that was none of her business.

Each time we were kicked out (in each case a relatively stable houseshare arrangement) it caused quite a lot of stress for everyone, trying to work out if we should try and move en masse or not, and so on. In the worst case we were only given a couple of months notice (which is not a long time at all, if you have to find somewhere new whilst continuing to work full time) and in the best case we were given a lot more than that.

In the two cases where we had to go via a letting agent, they were completely useless and constantly trying to get money out of us for renewing leases and so on.

All that said, I'm not interested in shooting small time private landlords, and I don't think they are all terrible people. I'm more interested in being angry about things like right to buy, and the lack of funding for proper social housing. Private landlords are just part of a system that's been built to reward people for investing in property and which fails to give sufficient protection to tenants. I don't especially blame anyone fortunate enough to have savings, for deciding to invest them in property when state pensions are meagre and banks barely offer enough interest to cancel out inflation. If they don't do it someone else will. The only way to change things would be to change the wider system.
 
David Clapson said:
Because I've paid my landlord £200,000 in rent, always on time, and I've minimised her indoor maintenance bills to almost nothing, and can still be thrown out anytime. Because the value of the flat has increased by 400 grand while I've been here. And because if she got rid of me I wouldn't find anywhere comparable to live because I would fail the financial background check which all the landlords in the gentrified areas use now.
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What can I say other than agreeing with your point? I'm not arguing that the current housing situation in the UK is perfect. The ideal would be to get more owner-occupier households. Second best would be for the social and private sectors to provide more longer term tenancies. None of this is easy to do and my argument throughout has been that there is still a need for assured shorthold tenancies and the landlords offering these should not be considered the scum of the earth.
 
My landlord isn't the scum of the earth but she will put her finances before my needs. If she could sell at the right price, and condemn me to a massively degraded existence which could wreck my health, I reckon she'd still do it, and she'd blame 'the system' for my woes.
 
pave said:
What can I say other than agreeing with your point? I'm not arguing that the current housing situation in the UK is perfect. The ideal would be to get more owner-occupier households. Second best would be for the social and private sectors to provide more longer term tenancies. None of this is easy to do and my argument throughout has been that there is still a need for assured shorthold tenancies and the landlords offering these should not be considered the scum of the earth.
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You sound like some people I've worked for. Of course they are nice considerate people who want to pay more but every time you ask its not the right time and of course they really want to pay more. They keep telling you this.

Your argument throughout this has been to protect your own interests.

Fair enough that is how a market based capitalist society works.

ASTs are a major part of the problem for tenants.

The argument BTW isn't just about tenancies. Its about rent levels as well.

You have made clear you want neither a return to security for private renters or regulated rents as this would affect your ability to make money. Fair enough. That is a view I'm not surprised a landlord has.

Just don't expect some people to like you for it.
 
Gramsci said:
You complained when editor posted about landlords should be shot.

I've posted several reforms to private renting. From abolishing landlords to rent controls.

You haven't shown any interest in them.

You said you opposed rent controls

You can't see that the power inbalance at present between landlord and renters in this society can end up causing vitriol

One reason ,as you as a landlord confirmed, is that the landlord class will resist any reforms which reduce the social power they have.

The vitriol is caused by the inability to bring about any reforms.

I'm at a loss to explain to you why landlord class may be subject to vitriol. Other than what I've already posted.
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I didn't complain and I was well aware that the firing squad was a metaphor. My reason for replying was twofold. Firstly, the editor made his comment on "exploitative landlords" in response to an advert for a flat to rent in Coldharbour Lane. My arguement was that the landlord was likely to get a return of around 3.4% and I didn't think that was exploitation.

Secondly, I did express my view that the vitriol thrown at private landlords was unjustified.

Do I really need to comment on your proposal to abolish landlords? Anyway I thought you said elsewhere that it would not happen - apologies if I've got that wrong.

I could argue that my tenants have power over me - I need their rent!

The inability to bring about reforms might be because the majority don't want them
 
pave said:
I didn't complain and I was well aware that the firing squad was a metaphor. My reason for replying was twofold. Firstly, the editor made his comment on "exploitative landlords" in response to an advert for a flat to rent in Coldharbour Lane. My arguement was that the landlord was likely to get a return of around 3.4% and I didn't think that was exploitation.

Secondly, I did express my view that the vitriol thrown at private landlords was unjustified.

Do I really need to comment on your proposal to abolish landlords? Anyway I thought you said elsewhere that it would not happen - apologies if I've got that wrong.

I could argue that my tenants have power over me - I need their rent!

The inability to bring about reforms might be because the majority don't want them
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That's utter rubbish. if you live in an area that has become popular and in-demand, you can raise the rent and kick out the existing tenants as soon as their contract is up.

And your comment about how much the landlord in the advert is making is pure speculation, although I can guarantee that the rent for most flats in the area have gone up by a huge amount in the past ten years, with exploitative landlords doing very nicely out their investment.
 
pave said:
What can I say other than agreeing with your point? I'm not arguing that the current housing situation in the UK is perfect. The ideal would be to get more owner-occupier households. Second best would be for the social and private sectors to provide more longer term tenancies. None of this is easy to do and my argument throughout has been that there is still a need for assured shorthold tenancies and the landlords offering these should not be considered the scum of the earth.
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Why do you say the ideal would be to get more owner-occupier households? That seems like a terrible idea to me.

My ideal would be for most people to be council tenants with life-long tenancies (as I now have) but, unlike now, for them to be easily transferable when tenants want to downsize, upsize, or simply change location.
 
pave said:
I didn't complain and I was well aware that the firing squad was a metaphor. My reason for replying was twofold. Firstly, the editor made his comment on "exploitative landlords" in response to an advert for a flat to rent in Coldharbour Lane. My arguement was that the landlord was likely to get a return of around 3.4% and I didn't think that was exploitation.

Secondly, I did express my view that the vitriol thrown at private landlords was unjustified.

Do I really need to comment on your proposal to abolish landlords? Anyway I thought you said elsewhere that it would not happen - apologies if I've got that wrong.

I could argue that my tenants have power over me - I need their rent!

The inability to bring about reforms might be because the majority don't want them
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I've given various suggestions about housing and landlords.

None of which included shooting landlords. Which is what you got upset about to start with. None of which would mean landlords would be out on the street either.
 
David Clapson said:
My landlord isn't the scum of the earth but she will put her finances before my needs. If she could sell at the right price, and condemn me to a massively degraded existence which could wreck my health, I reckon she'd still do it, and she'd blame 'the system' for my woes.
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All landlords, however nice seeming, will put their own financial interests before the needs of their tenants. It's a defining characteristic of their class.
 
pave said:
The inability to bring about reforms might be because the majority don't want them
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Yes.

The majority of MP's and lords (who just so happen to be landlords/landlord class) don't want them. The ones who make the laws.

That's true.
 
Gramsci said:
And while we['re] here. A return to the security of tenure and rent controls pre Thatcher would be fine by you?
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Personally I think those rules had their time and place, but many other countries get by with better protections for landlords (some tenants stop paying rent or damage fixtures) and for tenants (having the right to stay in your home for more than 6 months seems kind of...reasonable).

I'm familiar with the rules in Belgium which allow you choose between short- or long-term protection, but, and I say this as a confirmed Centrist Dad, there are many solutions out there that are a lot more fair to both tenants and landlords than anything we've ever had in this country.
 
Ol Nick said:
Personally I think those rules had their time and place, but many other countries get by with better protections for landlords (some tenants stop paying rent or damage fixtures) and for tenants (having the right to stay in your home for more than 6 months seems kind of...reasonable).

I'm familiar with the rules in Belgium which allow you choose between short- or long-term protection, but, and I say this as a confirmed Centrist Dad, there are many solutions out there that are a lot more fair to both tenants and landlords than anything we've ever had in this country.
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Im a secure Council tenant. If I stop paying rent I would be evicted. Payment of rent is necessary for any kind of tenancy. My landlord has protection from non payment of rent. It took me a year before I got secure tenancy. So don't see what that has got to do with it in practise.
 
A family member is a single father, 4 children under 7, he is in temporary housing. Private landlord who lets out a run down, never repaired flat that is supposed to be 3-bedroom. It’s 3 bedrooms because there is no lounge, only a small kitchen a bathroom and that’s it. The rent is £1300+ p.m
Nice little earner, who cares that they live, eat, study, socialise, relax in a small kitchen.
Bloody property profiteering - making money out of other people’s misery.
What a nightmare we’re all living through these days.
 
BillRiver said:
Yes.

The majority of MP's and lords (who just so happen to be landlords/landlord class) don't want them. The ones who make the laws.

That's true.
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I remember my ex Cllr Rachel telling me several Labour Cllrs have their BTL portfolio.

These people ( they all hated Corbyn and what he stood for) are back in charge of the Labour party. So I'm not expecting much from the Labour party. Other than a bit of tinkering around.
 
Your ex-councillor, or your ex who was called Councillor Rachel?

ETA: Not that I need to know, but it isn't clear and I am nosy!
 
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