A fairer deal for renters

What we need is more rented property which will bring the price down and make mobility in the labour market easier.  It is important not to impose too many new regulations on landlords, or they will become frustrated and leave the sector, thus worsening the situation of too few properties to rent.

I am currently reading the book "The people of the Abyss" written by Jack London, where describes a similar situation in London 1902.

I highly recommend this book as describes what is happening in London housing, again.

Chapter 3, page 15, about the high rents cause

"And then she explained the process of saturation, by which the rental value of a neighbourhood went up, while its tone went down. “You see, sir, our kind are not used to crowding in the way the others do. We need more room. The others, the foreigners and lower-class people, can get five and six families into this house, where we only get one. So they can pay more rent for the house than we can afford."

Page 12 about the quality of living conditions

"It being plain that as a poor young man with a family I could rent no houses at all in this most undesirable region, I next looked for rooms, unfurnished rooms, in which I could store my wife and babies.

There were not many, but I found them, usually in the singular, for one appears to be considered sufficient for a poor man’s family in which to cook and eat and sleep. (...)

"Not only did the houses I investigated have no bath-tubs, but I learned that there were no bath-tubs in all the thousands of houses I had seen."

Chapter 19

"...in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich.

Not only does the poor worker have to live like a beast, but he pays proportionately more for it than does the rich man for his spacious comfort. A class of house-sweaters has been made possible by the competition of the poor for houses.

There are more people than there is room, and numbers are in the workhouse because they cannot find shelter elsewhere.

Not only are houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms."

The proposed measures will make very little difference to renters in London. Housing is an essential need, or service, much like nurses, teachers and police. It should not be viewed as a method for making property owners rich as is currently the case, especially in London. Any new measures must address rental costs and not just fiddle around the edges.

My husband and I have lived in the same rental property for 13 years, yet each year the rent goes up by £100. Why? This amount is far above inflation. We manage and maintain the property for the landlord keeping his costs very low yet each year our rent goes up. It is not sustainable. We immigrated to London 21 years ago, are aged 50+ and therefore too old to be granted a mortgage. I work 3 jobs to be able to afford our rent. We don't own a car or spend money on holidays. All our income goes towards our rent, which is considered 'reasonable' in London terms. We constantly worry about what we'll do if one of us is made redundant or when we retire. Where will we live? 

The Mayor has an opportunity to make a real difference for Londoners who rent by placing controls on the amount of rent landlords can charge. This is done in other great international cities, like Berlin for example, where the landlord can only raise the rent by the rate of inflation. This type of rent control should be included in any proposed measures if the aim is truly to help Londoners. The current proposed measures are a big disappointment that will have little impact in improving the housing situation for London's renters. 

How can landlords be held to account to do repairs and maintenance?  I keep being fobbed off by my landlord who does not take responsibility for making good after water ingress.  I have a number of rooms with water stains needing redecorating.  The landlord says I should claim on my house insurance, but each time if I had done that I would have to pay the Excess and face an increase in my monthly insurance payments.

I had an expensive coat ruined by water running down the wall next to it.  The landlord has refused to reimburse me.

I now need house insurance to cover landlord and tenant disputes.

There are good landlords and bad landlords, as there are good and bad tenants.  Our last two landlords failed to protect our deposits and had we not discovered our legal rights, would have kept the majority of that money.  The amount we pay for rentng in London would service a £1m mortgage (at currnet interest rates).  We can't even dream of being able to borrow that amount of money but someone with a property - even mortgaged to the hilt, would be able to buy another.  Why is buy-to-let easier than buy-to-live?  Why are there tax breaks for developing for letting? Why is anyone even allowed to own more than two homes? Living should not be a business.

Many landlords have little care for their property as it is simply a money-making machine. We are property improvers and always leave a place in a much better state than we find it. However, we have rarely been anywhere longer than 18 months as either it takes that long to realise that the landlord is not going to fix the leak, mend the broken thermostat, reimburse you for replacing broken locks etc, or the landlord's daughter/son has finished University and wants a place in town. 

Our current rental involved a 'bidding war' with another prospective tenant.  Did they even exist or was the agency advising the landlord to see how much more we were willing to pay? This is definitely a letter's market and this needs to be addressed.  

Why is that government never looks at the real problem and never bothers to tackle the real issues and sets out instead to create more and more bureacracy. The hosuing problem in London is the same as it is elsewhere in the UK. The planning system is a total failure, where planners appear to be dragging out applications to justify their jobs, compounded by Local Government who shoud be building more social housing. The reason we  have a significant private rented sector is because private landlords stepped in to fill the gap left by the failure of Local Government to build social housing.

London is such a large place.  How would these rules apply?  The rental market for a flat in Newham is a world away from the rental market in South Kensington.  The truth is that London is really now somewhere that you spend a period of your life and then you move on and further out of town if you cannot make enough money.  It is an experience that most people will not be able to afford to sustain forever if they want more space... Why should I have the right to stay longer and get subsidised by those who are coming to London later?  These rules are going to just make our use of the existing housing stock less equitable.  The only people who will benefit will be those who manage to lock themselves into a London flat today and it will be at the expense of those who come later.  Just look at similar meddling with the Airbnb 90 day letting limit rules or banning uber in favour of a small number of greedy and black cabs drivers who pollute the city with their diesel monstrosities.  London is an exciting global city.  Please don’t make it little britain!

The up-front costs of securing a property are prohibitive, and beyond most people's means without help from relatives or a loan.  Whilst I am not  fan of legislating to control the market, I don't believe the London property market is working as a market should because of huge influxes of low cost capital from overseas and because of Quantitive Easing since 2008.  We have reached a point where rent controls as used in New York should be looked at.  In return, tennants should be encouraged to sign longer leases to spread the risk for landlords.

I also believe that the types of property being built is heavily skewed towards short term, single or dual occupancy.  There are very few 'family' homes being built, which is making London into a dormitory for short term, young people and reducing the diversity of our communities.  On top of this the quality and architecture of the properties being built are not homes that people actually want to live for any more than 2 or 3 years. People still aspire to buy the Victorian terraces and Mansion Flats because very few modern builds have anything like their appeal.  Obviously they're not building Victorian houses any more...but we're not building anything to compare with them either.  As a consequence these houses values are artificially inflated to £1M+.  The only way to solve the housing crisis is to create quality, not quantity, and spread the cost of securing them for private rental over a longer period.  I believe such measures might also tackle the enduring stigma attached to renting which classifies tennants as 'failures'.  It should be one choice amongst a range of choices. 

As usual with these surveys, we are asked about general principles, but the effects of this sort of legislation depend entirely on the details.  The big landlords with hundreds or thousands of properties will be able to deal with any legislation; they have the lawyers and other staff to deal with difficult tenants - who certainly exist.  But if the balance moves too far in favour of the tenant, it's the small landlords who won't be able to cope when they have a problem with their tenants. So the result might be bigger big landlords, fewer small landlords and maybe fewer rental properties.

Others have pointed out that the key issue is rent control.  They're completely right; apart from anyt hing else, with long term tenancies there has to be a rent control mechanism.  But again it all depends how it's done.  It was disastrous before, with much of the housing stock left to rot because landlords couldn't afford to maintain it.  I remember in the mid-1960s there were houses in Chelsea with no electricity supply.  Of course we should have legislation to enforce minimum standards - this is now happening piecemeal as some boroughs are introducing rules.  But there should be national standards which provide decent habitable dwellings comparable with what owner-occupiers generally have, but are not so high that rents will have to increase a lot to pay for the improvements.

It's relevant that Government subsidies for buying first homes, which the poorest can't afford to make use of, have increased house prices and so increased rents..

The problem with open ended tenancies is that either it will reduce the number of properties on the market or landlords will find a way to circumvent it. This is what happened around 1975 when controls were attempted. Almost all lets were company lets or holiday lets which were not covered by the legislation. 

IWith these proposals as a landlord I would simply say that I needed to move back in to my property.

I am sorry that as a landlord with one flat, it will be impossible for me to continue renting out my property with open ended tenancies. I have just spent a lot of money making the flat nice for a new tenant after the previous tenant let it become dirty and tired. I as a landlord need the flexibility of having the right to take the flat back every year even though I am likely to be happy to renew the lease. I am responsible for all repairs to the white goods and redecoration from  time to time. I believe that tenants want the same flexibility.  With the changes proposed I, and many landlords, will choose to leave the sector exacerbating the rental property sector.  Please note that not all landlords are bad. We try to look after our tenants.

I spent 40 years working in housing and saw the balance between renters and owners dramatically change over time to the present situation where I am tripping over homeless people every time I visit a town in this highly prosperous country. The biggest reversible change was right to buy which saw a massive depletion of rented social housing in favour of speculative and exploitative landlords renting those ex-council flats and houses back to tenants at extortionate rents with minimal security of tenure. Housing is a basic need. It is the duty of government to ensure that there is an adequate housing supply and that private renting is administered fairly. This has been abandoned by both the Tory and Labour governments. Meantime housing associations have been forced into behaving like private landlords and property speculators by government. They have been forced to merge into huge impersonal housing businesses developing ever smaller and more badly designed multi flatted housing schemes designed by private developers. Parker Morris has been abandoned.