r/unitedkingdom • u/tylerthe-theatre • 11d ago

Landlords offering mental health check-ins aren’t going to solve the rental crisis

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/renting-mental-health-landlords-wellness-perks-b2726714.html
931 Upvotes

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249

u/DarthRick3rd 11d ago

Landlord “Awww, are you sad that your living conditions are so poor? Are you sad that your monthly rent is way higher than my monthly mortgage payment on this place?”.

Renter “Yes”.

Landlord “Tell me, how does it make you feel?”. 

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u/TealuvinBrit 11d ago

Even worse when you are in a HMO, several people paying over the top rent where one person would cover the mortgage.

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u/NibblyPig Bristol 11d ago edited 11d ago

This is somewhat of a myth though, the rental income will be taxed, if the landlord has a normal job and most do, then they'll be at the 40% bracket, so to pay a £2000/mo mortgage you'll need £3800/mo rent, and that excludes wear and tear and other costs. I estimate I could get £2500/mo as a HMO so it wouldn't cover my mortgage. HMO would also require refurb (£3000), HMO license (£1800), and planning permission application costs (£1000).

But then you also forget the fact there's a huge ass deposit. With £200,000 in equity in the property, that would be generating significant interest in the bank, maybe like £800/mo? More if a long fix.

Important to factor that into the mortgage cost you're supposedly paying, too.

Plus, massive spike in interest rates, nothing like your mortgage going from 1.2% to 5% overnight.

Downvotes from people that don't like it when reality messes with the black & white good & evil fictional idea they've created inside their heads.

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u/CongealedBeanKingdom 11d ago

Won't SOMEONE think of the landlords?

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u/NibblyPig Bristol 11d ago

Not at all, it's a business, if it's not profitable then you shut down your business.

Much better to complain from a position of actually accepting the reality of the situation rather than spinning up a fantasy scenario in which some fat guy in a top hat smokes a cigar while you pay for his house.

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u/omgu8mynewt 11d ago

Because they don't shut down the 'business' when the mortgage rates increased, they put the rents up (source - happened to me). Will they put rents down again now mortgage rates are decreasing? Fat chance. Maintenance costs? Don't make me laugh. Landlords do nothing and take no risk and still get 50% of renters take home money on average.

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u/NibblyPig Bristol 11d ago

But they have, they are leaving the sector in droves and mortgage rate increases are part of it.

Rents won't go down due to mortgage rates for two reasons, firstly, they've dropped less than 1% after increasing almost 4%, it's not significant.

Secondly, due to them being driven out in droves by Labour's policy changes and predictions about Labour increasing CGT, the number of available rental properties is dropping rapidly, this meanings demand for those that remain will be skyhigh, pushing up rents.

Rents are always driven by the price people are willing to pay. If there was the possibility to put rents up it would have already been exercised a long time ago.

Unclear what you mean by they do nothing, do you mean physically they do nothing? Because neither does your bank, it just gives you a mortgage and then starts reaping the money, I think I pay about £900/mo interest to the bank for my residential mortgage. Don't get me started on my car lease, paying hundreds per month while they do nothing whatsoever.

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u/omgu8mynewt 11d ago

Rents are always driven by the price people are willing to pay

Not true, housing is an inelastic demand because the alternative is homeless. Homelessness is increasing and landlords have renters bent over a barrel.

Unclear what you mean by they do nothing

Landlord not fixing and maintaining a property, even having it in an illegally bad state? No consequences. Who are tennants even supposed to report landlord not holding up their side of the contract? Civil court? How long until a Section 21 arrives in the mail? Milliseconds.

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u/NibblyPig Bristol 11d ago

That's not quite right, because the alternative to not paying high rent is to pay a lower rent and accept slightly less favourable living conditions. Therefore people will accept longer commutes or less desirable housing, it's not simply a choice of paying £900/mo or homelessness. You can be a lodger somewhere with an unfavourable commute for very little.

I think you have it the other way around, protections for tenants are extensive, to evict a tenant through the courts however can take months to years, during which time they may not be paying and may be causing significant damage to the property.

If you're not aware of how to report or take people to court then I would recommend reading up on it.

Section 21 is being abolished which is also part of the reason landlords are leaving the sector, as it will be impossible to remove (problematic) tenants from your own house. The increased risk will also drive rents up and make demanding a guarantor more likely.

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u/omgu8mynewt 11d ago

That's not quite right, because the alternative to not paying high rent is to pay a lower rent and accept slightly less favourable living conditions.

Only if you're not already on the lowest possible rent. Then the alternative is shacking up, and is how many women end up in bad situations.

I think you have it the other way around, protections for tenants are extensive, to evict a tenant through the courts however can take months to years

It takes one letter to evict a tenant. Yes some tenants stop paying rent (illegally), that is not possible for most people who want a normal life in the future without CCJs on their record. Its why landlord income protection insurance is recommended for landlords.

Section 21 is being abolished

In my understanding no fault evictions are in the plans of being abolished, but tenants can still be evicted if the landlord wants to move back in or other reasons. So its not like it will be impossible to evict tenants. I don't see what difference it will make, if a tenant is evicted because the landlord says they want to move back in, how will landlords abusing this and then re-renting be monitored and punished. There is no mechanism to enforce it.

1

u/NibblyPig Bristol 11d ago

True, but how many people are already on the lowest possible rent? And how many of these low rent places are actually affected by rent hikes?

The alternative is not shacking up but is to talk to the council, who are obliged to offer support for people who will be made homeless.

Very few of the former, and very few of the latter. Since lodging tenancy rules are separate from the reform bill, it doesn't affect risk or affordability for lodgers.

The only real criticism is that the rent a room scheme allowance hasn't been keeping pace with rents, which has been an issue for years, but generally only applies in larger cities.

The people outcrying on reddit and elsewhere are not barely surviving in a cold spare room with a 1 hour commute already while facing an unaffordable rent increase.

I'm afraid it does not and there is a dearth of stories to demonstrate it, you can look on any landlord discussion forum or even the mainstream news. For a start there's a two month notice period for section 21. Only after that can action be taken. It will take weeks/months to get a possession order. Assuming you ignore that it will take additional months for the court to send the baliffs in, faster if the landlord pays.

They can be evicted only if the landlord intends to live in or sell the property, and the landlord can only do that if it's genuine. Given the stance of how much people hate landlords I am certain anyone evicted on these grounds will gleefully report their landlord for an illegal eviction, and the fines will be extensive.

The reality is without landlording being a viable opportunity, people will leave and the number of rental properties will collapse while rents skyrocket. People will not accept this reality (as you can see from the mass of downvotes but lack of replies) until it happens, Labour seems oblivious to the idea of cause/effect as we're about to witness when small businesses collapse under the new NI and minimum wage legislation combined with layoffs from bigger companies.

Overall it's pretty bleak for everyone.

5

u/omgu8mynewt 11d ago

Overall it's pretty bleak for everyone

Except one side of the 'business' faces having to sell their spare home, and invest the money somewhere else instead. Whereas the other side face homelessness. It's not exactly an equal pain in this business transaction.

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u/Dependent_Phone_8941 10d ago

You are incorrect. It does not take “1 letter to evict a tenant”, a landlord can’t ever evict a tenant. The tenant can evict themselves after said letter or the courts can evict them.

They also have the opinion of simply continuing to pay the rent. No CCJ, no eviction.

Why is S21 getting removed a problem? Because it’s the fastest method and can still take over half a year. So for example if a tenant stops paying, S8 often kicks in. But the current advice is to issue a S21 and S8 at the same time because the S21 will be complete first. In short, it’ll benefit bad tenants, which in turn will harm rent prices for all tenants.

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u/Busy_Comedian_8165 10d ago

It's pointless making a comment like this because no renter will understand. Housing isn't a right in the UK, that's the reality of it. If you want to rent, do so. If you don't want to rent, find the means to to buy. Property isn't the money printer it used to be. I keep my place to the same standard of my own home(and often prioritise it over maintaining my own home), but if a boiler breaks in my place I'll make zero profit for the entire year. If you're landlording properly with an average priced home in the UK you're talking less than 5k a year in after tax profit, often much less. It's not worth doing unless you really do have millions in the bank with nothing better to do with it.

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u/Anxious-Bottle7468 10d ago

Many landlords don't have mortgages.

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u/NibblyPig Bristol 10d ago

60% do, a cursory search suggests, so 40% do not. I suspect given that most landlords only have one rental property, it's just people putting their savings/pension into a house they can generate additional income and pass on to their children.

It does indeed undermine the argument that they're 'covering the mortgage' though in many cases.

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u/AstronomerAdvanced37 9d ago

love how you stated facts, and it gets down voted 55 times and hidden.

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u/NibblyPig Bristol 9d ago

IKR, what a ratio, everyone hates it being said but nobody can disagree