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Landlords can't say "No DSS/UC" anymore so they ask for SIX MONTHS rent in advance!

beesonthewhatnow said:
Ownership of more than one property by individuals or married couples banned. Private landlords thus abolished. Rental housing stock nationalised.
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Not very cost effective, current house prices bear little to no relationship to actual construction costs. For the cost of nationalising current rental stock you could probably build at least twice and possibly three times that number of new houses
 
MickiQ said:
Not very cost effective, current house prices bear little to no relationship to actual construction costs. For the cost of nationalising current rental stock you could probably build at least twice and possibly three times that number of new houses
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Yeah that'll be easy to find the space for.
 
beesonthewhatnow said:
lol, you seem to think I'd be paying their owners the current market rate...
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No I'm sure you don't plan to pay them the market rate but since this is purely a thought excercise and your plan of course will never happen, let's explore it further how would you sell that plan to the vast majority of householders who own one property, If you are unilaterally seizing property off one group, how would you reassure another group which far outnumbers both landlords and tenants put together that one day such a scheme would not be extended to them? What about foreign traders and investors whom this country relies on and will do so for the forseeable future that a government with such a casual disregard for private property is a worth investing in without the fear that any investment will just get seized?
 
MickiQ said:
Not very cost effective, current house prices bear little to no relationship to actual construction costs. For the cost of nationalising current rental stock you could probably build at least twice and possibly three times that number of new houses
Click to expand...
Which of course is the obvious answer, if you're not a member of a political party beholden to the types who make money out of property prices, and rentals, being high.

One of the things you can broadly predict with some degree of accuracy is how many homes a country needs, and the shortfall we are experiencing has, in my view, been deliberately maintained in order to maintain property values and the perceived wealth of a lot of Tory support. Even where houses have been built, they've gone in for market-controlling sharp practice like selling them as leaseholds. The whole thing is rotten to the core. If you're going to nationalise anything, nationalise the housebuilding industry, and use it to build the homes that are needed. There'll be a whole bunch of rentier types who'll be up in arms about that, but if you build the lamp-posts on your new estates tall enough...
 
MickiQ said:
How common is this guarantor thing now then? When my son moved off campus into private accomodation during his second and third year at Uni, I had to act as guarantor but I wasn't suprised, I would imagine students are shit tenants but I didn't have to either time he rented a flat after he graduated and found a job. One of them was London as well from 2013 to 2015.
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It is pretty much universal I think for student rentals now, but I didn't realise how common it was for everyone else as well until recently.

I rent and I can basically carry on indefinitely as my landlord really doesn't want to have the trouble of finding someone else, but if I do want to move I might as well buy from all it looks like. I don't have any guarantors, I maybe earn enough myself to cover the requirements but who can tell? You can't plan on that basis. It's easier to plan with a mortgage, it sounds like. I might be able to do that because I've saved up money over lockdown for a smallish deposit but that's unusual - millions can't.
 
MickiQ said:
No I'm sure you don't plan to pay them the market rate but since this is purely a thought excercise and your plan of course will never happen, let's explore it further how would you sell that plan to the vast majority of householders who own one property, If you are unilaterally seizing property off one group, how would you reassure another group which far outnumbers both landlords and tenants put together that one day such a scheme would not be extended to them? What about foreign traders and investors whom this country relies on and will do so for the forseeable future that a government with such a casual disregard for private property is a worth investing in without the fear that any investment will just get seized?
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If someone only owns one home they have nothing to fear from my benevolent dictatorship.
 
MickiQ said:
OK Frank I'll bite whats your solution (full or partial) to the current's housing crisis, A large scale public house building program of a wide range to cover all needs would be great but won't happen for at least 15 years minimum and probably will never happen.
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Nah the solution is calling large sections of the population shit because they're considered unreliable sources of revenue for the rentier class.
 
MickiQ said:
What about foreign traders and investors whom this country relies on and will do so for the forseeable future that a government with such a casual disregard for private property is a worth investing in without the fear that any investment will just get seized?
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Yes whatever would we do without the oligarchs who use the UK property market to launder their money.
 
existentialist said:
We're not that short of land. And it's not like we need the space for the people - they're already there. They just need somewhere to live.
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You really think we have the space to build two or three times as many homes as there are second homes? 1,570,228 people in England and Wales had second homes in 2011. That's a lot of farmland, forests and flood plains to build on.
 
SpookyFrank said:
Yes whatever would we do without the oligarchs who use the UK property market to launder their money.
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Probably be better off without them but it's not them I'm talking about, do you believe a government that seizes personal property off its citizens would appeal to foreign companies that build factories, warehouses etc or indeed UK ones that would no doubt move as much as possible abroad?
Or indeed would have a broad enough appeal to its own citizens to get anywhere near power in the first place
SpookyFrank said:
Nah the solution is calling large sections of the population shit because they're considered unreliable sources of revenue for the rentier class.
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Really? 1/10- Frank complete lack of effort there, I know you can do better than that.
 
MickiQ said:
Probably be better off without them but it's not them I'm talking about, do you believe a government that seizes personal property off its citizens would appeal to foreign companies that build factories, warehouses etc or indeed UK ones that would no doubt move as much as possible abroad?
Or indeed would have a broad enough appeal to its own citizens to get anywhere near power in the first place
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Yes, we mustn't do anything to upset the ecomomic system that...created the housing crisis in the first place.

As for seizing stuff, it would be more a case of reallocating ownership of houses to the people who actually pay for them. People owning stuff they pay for is entirely inkeeping with the (supposed) logic of capitalism.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
I rent and I can basically carry on indefinitely as my landlord really doesn't want to have the trouble of finding someone else, but if I do want to move I might as well buy from all it looks like. I don't have any guarantors, I maybe earn enough myself to cover the requirements but who can tell? You can't plan on that basis. It's easier to plan with a mortgage, it sounds like. I might be able to do that because I've saved up money over lockdown for a smallish deposit but that's unusual - millions can't.
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Yep, at my age with my savings I couldn't get a mortgage on a garage. Nobody I know earns enough to stand as guarantor. With what I earn I'll never meet the income criteria for any letting agent, not at the rental prices where I live. I basically can never move again, and if I ever get evicted (or need more space) I'm fucked :thumbs:

EtA, I could buy a van to live in (again) but I'm not sure how my son, his mum, or err social services would like that...
 
MickiQ said:
Not very cost effective, current house prices bear little to no relationship to actual construction costs. For the cost of nationalising current rental stock you could probably build at least twice and possibly three times that number of new houses
Click to expand...

It would however I suspect drive down the cost of homes and make it more affordable for people who want to live in them to buy them.
 
MickiQ said:
Not very cost effective, current house prices bear little to no relationship to actual construction costs. For the cost of nationalising current rental stock you could probably build at least twice and possibly three times that number of new houses
Click to expand...
more new houses means more environmental cost. Don't legislate to nationalise, legislation that recognises housing is a right and sets rents to cover upkeep but no more (as rents have been traditionally set in the public sector) will do the job. As landlords dump their properties on the market the cost of buying declines. The cost of nationalisation drops.
 
We're going to need more houses anyway since the population is growing, Though there needs to be far greater focus on building houses that we need rather than what housebuilders want to sell and with a mix of both private and public housing.
Regulating rents is a tricky one since the bulk of rent goes on meeting mortgage payments so getting the figure right will be critical. Set it to low so it doesn't cover the mortgage and landlords will be rushing enmasse to sell up causing a price dip which is definitely needed but what about those people who still can't buy? many of whom will be tenants who are being turfed out to make way for buyers. It needs to happen slowly enough for society in general to adapt.
The 6 month rents up front or a guarantor is most likely a consequence of coronavirus changes where since it takes a long time for tenants to be evicted, it is now possible for a tenant to move in, refuse to pay any rent resulting the landlord being forced to wait until they have built up 6 months arrears then another month to get them out on a Section 8. Not many landlords are prepared to risk that (no matter how rare it might actually be) so the obvious solution is to demand the money up front.
Setting aside the appealing but totally impossible solution of a mob seizing control then the best realistic solution for this is for the state (probably via local authorities) to act as guarantor for everyone rather than relying on people finding a rich and generously minded relative.
There is also another problem which I think is going to rear it's ugly head soon and that is the large number of people who have built up arrears over the last 12 months and when all this ends there is going to be a rush of evictions.
Again a possible response is for the state to pay off that debt and then recoup the money via the tax system a bit like student debt.
The problem of landlords not maintaining their properties can be addressed at least partially by giving local authorities greater control on inspection and enforcement of standards combined with a local fund for low-cost loans to pay for it.
There isn't an easy answer to deal with complete rogues be they tenants or landlords but a lot could be done to improve things without fantasy solutions like a revolution.
The problem is that even modest changes are currently just as unlikely as the most radical ones, the current government has no interest in addressing a problem that doesn't affect most of the population and those it does are not key to its support.
 
They could ask for a reference from your current employer and, say, 12 months payslips from said employer.

This ruling makes no difference. I consider myself extremely lucky to be a council tenant.
 
The saga continues.
So we tried going through Open Rent but that presented its own unemployment-related obstacles. Our focus now is on getting one of us a job so don't have to worry about any crap like guarantors or unrealistic advanced rent or whatever.
 
In the area I live in Glasgow, there's a real shortage of family properties. It's mainly flats or two bedroom houses. Not that many houses with gardens unless you start moving further out. And the further out you go the fewer transport options there are, because all the new estates on based on car ownership. Pretty much all of the new builds near me have either been ridiculously expensive flats or massive private student blocks (like 500-700 bedrooms on multiple floors).

The whole of the UK needs more social housing that is actually affordable.
 
equationgirl said:
In the area I live in Glasgow, there's a real shortage of family properties. It's mainly flats or two bedroom houses. Not that many houses with gardens unless you start moving further out. And the further out you go the fewer transport options there are, because all the new estates on based on car ownership. Pretty much all of the new builds near me have either been ridiculously expensive flats or massive private student blocks (like 500-700 bedrooms on multiple floors).

The whole of the UK needs more social housing that is actually affordable.
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once all the former people have been dealt with and flats bought solely as investments (rather than for people to actually live in) expropriated the pressure on housing will be somewhat eased
 
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