As the Guardian has noted:
Recent polling by the Resolution Foundation found 13% of renters said they were behind with payments to their landlords, compared with about 4% before the pandemic, according to figures from the English housing survey.
But the campaign group Generation Rent said if rates of homelessness followed the same trend, 45,000 households could be made homeless after being evicted from a private tenancy for rent arrears, up from about 15,000 in 2019.
And this is before furlough ends.
It will get very much worse.
But what landlords will soon learn us that when there are no tenants their priorities have remarkably little value. Evictions work when there are new tenants who can pay who are queueing for property. But such tenants will be few and far between soon. Then the financial crisis really begins.
But that will be little comfort to those evicted who will then be homeless.
The government could solve this, of course. It could provide statutory deferral periods. And mandatory rent cuts.
But will it? I very much doubt it. Expect instead that it will start renting private landlord property to rehouse those evicted by private landlords as a way of keeping private landlord rents high. After all, landlords are at the heart of this government's concerns.
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Sorry Richard, this is ‘off thread’, but It needs said, and I couldn’t find a suitable thread to make it, before I imploded. Apologies for the intrusion.
‘The Independent’ has reported the following exchange between the PM and Starmer on the Leicester COVID-19 outbreak. Starmer asked, “why it had taken a week for crucial data on tests performed outside of hospitals — known as pillar 2 — to be shared with officials in Leicester. Mr Johnson told him he was wrong adding both ‘pillar 1 and pillar 2 data have been shared not just with Leicester but with all authorities across the country’. Councils were given access to summary level data earlier this month for the first time and still don’t have routine access to detail such as outbreaks in certain postcode areas.”
The Independent commented: “The Local Government Association (LGA) and Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said granular data on infections was still not fully available to local councils and public health experts.” and; “Dr Jon Bennett, consultant in respiratory and general medicine at the city’s Glenfield Hospital, said on Twitter: ‘We had no knowledge of any Leicester spike other than seeing more admissions and hearing Matt Hancock announce the Leicester problem.”
ITV reported: “Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby criticised the Government and Public Health England (PHE) for delays in sharing case and testing data which showed how the disease was spreading. And Chaand Nagpaul, council chairman at the BMA, said: “The Prime Minister has talked about a ‘whack a mole’ strategy to tackle local outbreaks, but this is no use if the people leading the response on the ground — be they public health teams or local leaders — are not given the most accurate up-to-date data possible.”
C4 News interviewed Sir Peter Soulsby yesterday evening, and he wryly challenged the PM’s account. This is deplorable. Parliament is being reduced to farce because Johnson cannot cope – with anything.
At the same time Johnson and Alister Jack (Scottish Secretary) have despicably attempted to turn even the prospect (not yet even called for by the Scottish Government in response to the Gretna and Annan potential cross-border ‘spike’) into a pure, vile, political propaganda opportunity for Unionism, and turn a clear, indisputible public health issue it into a politicised free movement of people issue, a matter of the freedom of the people of England (with one of the worst records for outbreaks in the world) to Scotland – they are trying to light a political Molotov cocktail; at the very same time that a geographically specified lockdown for the whole area around Leicester is already being implemented, and while immigration to the UK from other countries is being negotiated, based on COVID-19 infection prevalence. This is monstrous. This is an unacceptable politicisation of a matter of Public Health by a morally degraded, poisonous Government. We are reaching the levels of the sewer in Government from Westminster.
This must not be allowed to stand uncorrected.
I am aware of this because my wife is doing a lot of work on it….and causing a stir on twitter on it
Would you care to expand on that? We need a public reaction to this infamous conduct. Anything!
A range of people on twitter are targeting the government with very focussed questions
That’s about as much as I can add
Have you got married again, Richard? That would be for the third time!
No
I am still married to my second wife
And we talk
We have not cohabited for five years
I doubt we ever will
But we are not divorced and remain business partners
Covered on Novara Media last night, but apparently one of the reasons the pillar 2 test results have been so delayed in getting to councils is that, at least with Deloitte, it wasn’t written into the service contract that this data had to be provided to LAs and PHE. So it is having to go the long way round. Unbelievable!
Quite: unbelievable
Well, the history of the Tory Party since the Thatcher years has been to side with and support Landlords and property owners over tenants. Tenants rights have been eroded and there has been little done to deal with rogue landlords. The catch 22 for tenants is that under Tory laws, if you have a bad landlord and complain too much it is too easy for them to evict you. Most tenants probably say nothing and just put up with it. Of course, ultimately Tories prefer people to own property so they have never done much to promote renting. The final nail in that coffin was selling off the council housing stock after 1979.
The big problem for the Tories now is that house prices are not going up by at least 10 times the rate of inflation every year and this measure of wealth is now increasingly under pressure. What’s the point in seeing house prices going up and up when no one under the age of 35 can afford it? Crazy. I think there needs to be a better balance between long term affordable rented housing and home ownership. I can’t see the Tories rocking this boat, they will prop up private landlords (many of which are Tory mp’s before tenants) over tenants.
Government by Landlord.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/05/government-by-landlord
You are aware, aren’t you, that we have had several Labour governments who could have shosen to “fix” the problems with AST (Assured Shorthold Tenancies) – but failed to do so ? So the fact that a landlord can evict a tenant without cause is at least as much the fault of Labour as it is of the Tories.
And you are aware, aren’t you, that there are now rules to prevent “revenge evictions” – and it was the Tories that brought them in ? The fact that they aren’t being applied very effectively is another matter.
And you are aware, aren’t you, that S21 is effectively being done away with soon – by the Tories ? So tenants will be secure unless they breach the terms of their tenancy agreement – such as by not paying the rent.
So yes, it’s all “Labour Good, Tories Bad”. Yes, that’s sarcasm in case you didn’t recognise it.
As to the article, I agree with it in part – if there aren’t tenants to replace them, then evicting an existing tenant is a bad idea. But that’s a big IF there, and it also depends highly on the market and the particular tenants.
Once again, I’ll point out that the majority of landlords will not evict a tenant without a good reason – even when the market is good, it costs money to cover the void and fees to get a new tenant in. But equally, there are tenants where it makes no sense to keep them in – for example if they are making the neighbours’ lives hell, or trashing the place, or just not paying any rent when you know darn well that they are able to (all experiences of landlords in recent times).
But the answer is not to apply a blanket “one big hammer fits all screws” approach. Why apply mandatory rent cuts where tenants are having no difficulty paying the rent ? Why assume that all landlords can afford to accept less rent ? Perhaps it might be better to come up with some sort of targetted system that supports tenants that need it, hmm let me think … perhaps some sort of means tested benefits system that includes a housing allowance element ? Why hasn’t anyone thought of that ?
Of course, “that’s impossible” might be a suggestion. How on earth could a government move quickly on such matters ? I recall a certain Mr Murphy making suggestions a few months ago along the lines of “ALL tenants MUST get several months rent free – because it’s clearly IMPOSSIBLE for a government to get any sort of support system in place quickly enough to support them”. Clearly he was right, and I was just imagining the blocking of evictions for months and the various support schemes put in place for employees and self employed. A I must have been completely imagining that my tenants, by virtue of still having their incomes like the majority of other tenants, were still paying us for their roofs over their heads.
N.B. Early on I made a point of contacting my tenants to tell them not to worry if they had problems – to contact me and we’d work something out. As it happens, but remained on full pay so they didn’t have a problem.
But what has become clear is that a significant number of tenants have taken advantage of the situation by just stopping paying rent regardless of their ability to pay it. And a significant number of landlords have suffered because they’ve been unable to evict (for examples) tenants actively being anti-social, damaging the property, or just taking the wee-wee by not paying rent. Yes, it’s all part and parcel of being a landlord, and yes we all have our part to play in trying to get through and recover from the effects of the pandemic, but no – it’s not right to make one group suffer regardless of their “involvement” or circumstances just so a small minority of another group have a problem.
But then I don’t expect anything but abuse for suggesting that Mr Murphy might be as wrong in his current suggestion as he was in earlier ones. I also don’t expect to get much support for suggesting that Mr Murphy appears to have a very “pro tenant, anti landlord” attitude that is consistent with a lack of any understanding of either the laws or economics related to rented housing.
I am not defending what Labour got wrong – and it did get much wrong
Equally, they have been out of power for 10 years which means it is not now possible to blame them
And as for the demand for rent deferral – I think you will find that was before furlough was announced – which helped achieve the same aim
But then, it was not enough for many to Meet their obligations and millions fell through gaps and got nothing
But this apparently is not a matter Of concern to you
I wonder why?
“ But this apparently is not a matter Of concern to youI wonder why?”
Not entirely fair Richard, Simon was suggesting “means testing” for Govt support.
I think we’ll differ on that
… which led to ‘Mouseland’, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdwySCMovHk …
I think the situation with leasehold and offshore holdings of land by developers is worth adding to this too.
The scandal has been ongoing for years, and it’s another way rentiers are extracting money from people for little to no value.
It’s uniquely possible in this country to be a “home owner” whilst also paying rent to a landlord for the rest of your life, and risk forfeiting your lease if you don’t do so.
Coupled with new build houses using this system, and onerous doubling ground rent terms every 10 years, it’s not just renters that are getting screwed by these people – it’s supposed home owners too.
There’s various other scams that have been used over recent years too, including retaining private ownership of estates instead of having local authorities adopt them, so more service charges can be extracted from tenants for land maintenance in addition to their usual full council tax payments (coined fleecehold).
If you are interested in this at all, the leasehold knowledge partnership are a good source of info: https://www.leaseholdknowledge.com/
Side note: I see this from a landlord’s perspective too – I rent one property to a tenant which I was unable to sell some years ago. I voluntarily reduced his rent significantly when this crisis started, though he has kept his job. I’d hope other landlords would do the same, and I advised the other management company members to do so. The ones I expected to do so seemed to favour the idea, whereas the more right wing types did not. To be expected I guess.
In reply to Richard @ July 2 2020 at 7:35 pm – for some reason, only some of the posts have a reply option
As usual Richard you employ your techniques of cherry picking the bits that support you and failing to address anything that doesn’t. Plus that old standby of putting down the opposition with false accusations.
False accusation ? Well you wrote “But this apparently is not a matter Of concern to you” which is false. To start with the bit you use to justify that is not even in what I posted – so you are criticising me for a position that was neither stated nor inferred from what I wrote. But it is also false in that it does not in any way reflect my opinion.
For the record, I am concerned about those for whom the support systems put in place didn’t “fit”. I am also concerned about the gaps in the way the benefits system works – and for the record, I have been in one of those gaps in the past (so forget any suggestion that I’ve no idea what it’s like). And I have written to my MP on the subject of how benefits are handled, how the system works etc. Beyond writing to my MP, my ability to change the situation is “exceedingly limited” – but that does not mean I am indifferent to the situation many people find themselves in.
But all of that is really irrelevant. I posted factual corrections to a clearly biased suggestion that “it’s all the Tories fault” – when other parties have had multiple opportunities to address the issues raised and failed to do so, and the Tories have in fact introduced a number of measures that favour the tenant (not least, the upcoming removal of S21 notices). But it seems that pointing out clearly false accusations is not tolerated here.
“Equally, they [Labour] have been out of power for 10 years which means it is not now possible to blame them”
But it absolutely is. The problems being criticised were created in (from memory) around 1985 – and Labour have been in power for quite a few of the intervening years, a continuous 13 years for the Blair/Brown governments. You may recall that during the first part of Tony Blairs reign, he had a massive majority that allowed him to push through a lot of measures so it would have been easy to (for example) scrap S21 – but he didn’t, although he did (in my opinion – note that I state my opinions, I don’t push them as “facts”) push through a few measures that have been damaging to the country since.
“And as for the demand for rent deferral — I think you will find that was before furlough was announced”
It was, and you were (from memory, I can’t find the specific post now) being quite certain that no other solution would work or be possible in the timeframe required. I think you were shown to be quite wrong in that assertion.
“But then, it was not enough for many to Meet their obligations and millions fell through gaps and got nothing”
That is something of concern to me, but not something I am empowered to fix – had it applied to one of my tenants then I absolutely would have done all I could (e.g. by foregoing rent) to support them. Perhaps a UBI would have helped there – but that is not something I think could have been put in place, not in a way that would have been both effective and fair.
For the record, I think a UBI has a lot of merit – but it would need a lot of adjustments to a lot of systems for it to work. It would also not fix many of the problems since a UBI would treat a homeowner with no mortgage the same as a tenant with a large rent – so we’d be back to having some form of housing allowance by whatever name it got given.
But before I finish, may I ask if you have a pension – other than a state pension ? The same applies to others criticising people who rent anything out. I do, of course I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity of joining a state approved tax efficient savings scheme provided by my past employers.
The reason for asking ? Well I would have thought I wouldn’t need to point it out, but almost everyone who has a pension based in investments (i.e. almost all non-state pentions) is investing in property and reliant on the returns from those investments. So when people shout that businesses (yes I know it’s slightly different to residential) shouldn’t have to pay rent when they cant trade – it is your pension that will suffer, both short term and long term.
I have no control over what my employer does with my pension fund from them
I have no rent in my own pension arrangement
And I stand by what I said – blaming Labour for anything when they have been out of office for ten years is ludicrous
They made mistakes – but if they havce not been corrected that is not now their fault
And I am really not interested in that pettiness
I think you’ve said all you need to say to prove my point.
I am not “blaming” Labour for anything – merely pointing out that in the thirty five years since the AST was introduced. The “problem” S21 had been in existence for 12 years when they came into power, and 25 years when they left power – so yes, they darn well did have an opportunity to fix it, but they didn’t. And yes, it is as valid to criticide the then Labour party for not fixing it as it is to criticise the then Tory party for implementing it in the first place.
What IS ludicrous (to use your own language) is to absolve them of that responsibility just because it was a few years ago. What is also ludicrous is to divert attention from the point being made – that the Tory party are not the only ones responsible for S21 still being on the books, but they ARE the party removing it.
As to pensions, you DO have the ability to decide where you pension is invested. If, as you have certainly implied, it is morally wrong to profit from rents – then it is morally wrong to invest in a pension that invests in rents. If that means not taking part in an occupational scheme then that would be your choice – but it is, at best, disingenious to criticise something as immoral and then pretend you are not doing that very same thing under the excuse of “I can’t control it”. Most pension schemes are likely to have at least some of their investments in rented property – that is how most large developments are paid for.
If you think that pointing out blatant political lies is pettiness, then that’s fine by me. It says more about your attitude to truth and honesty than it does about me.
I confess I rarely fail to follow an argument here, but maybe I am tired, and maybe it’s been a long week, but I have well and truly lost your thread
He thinks 10 years is only a few years