Interesting stuff from a Tory government! Devil will be in the detail of course and it will be completely meaningless without rent control. Seems to be very little detail out there at the moment?
Not sure how that's supposed to work if the owner wants to sell.
I would support a minimum of 6 months' notice for no fault evictions, or perhaps the last month's rent free and no deductions from the security deposit for cleaning (only genuine damage).
One of the biggest problems for renters moving is that they have to find six weeks' rent plus all the costs of moving, before they get their deposit back, in addition to having to find a new place to live at short notice. That's not doable for a lot of people.
In Scotland you can only evict if you want to sell or move in yourself (or there is fault). We have rent control too but only in specific circumstances. You don't need rent control for it to work but obviously it's going to affect availability.
Sale will be a ground to recover possession (although it is of course perfectly possible to sell a property subject to a tenancy), that has been made clear (and is the thing the mortgage banks will care about most). It will also be possible to recover possession if the landlord wants to move in themselves.
It sounds a lot like the system here in Dubai tbh which works reasonably well. Key thing is rent control. It's meaningless to say a landlord can't evict you if they can put the rent up 1000%.
Agreed the deposit thing is a big issue. Deposits should be capped a months' rent in my view. Insurance is a more appropriate way to deal with risk above that. Given the deposit protection schemes it ought to be possible to have the same deposit securing two tenancies at once as it were (which would mean people would only have top up the deposit if there was a deduction). That's not great for the landlords but again is probably proportionate.
linda, agency fees, and all other "administrative costs" the in going tenant has to bear are to be banned from June 2019, when the Tenants Fees Act becomes operative in June 2019. Well overdue, and many estate agents are going to have their business model disrupted and have to close. It is a shocking scam.
By way of example a friend has just moved in to a new property and had to pay the following fees:
1) Drafting of assured shorthold tenancy £195-00 plus VAT (He is a real estate lawyer at a national firm!)
2) Preparation of inventory £150.00 plus VAT
3) Referencing £150.00 plus VAT
So that is £600.00 before you start, and is a great cash cow for agents. Then of course is the months rent in advance and 6 weeks rent one has to pay,which I think will now be limited to one month only.
The worse bit, is if you want to change a name on the tenancy agreement then they often charge another £200 or so, as well as additional fees for inventory check outs. The big chains make a fortune on these fees.
The government ( quite rightly) seems to have it in for landlords and there nefarious activities. Another change was if the landlord fails to protect your deposit with a government approved scheme in 30 days then , the tenant shall be entitled to 3 times that amount in compensation.
Lady p, agreed. It is not like some 23 year old guy , in a shiny silver matador suit is sat there drafting an AST from scratch, whilst pouring over and considering the nuances of the Housing Act. It is a standard document, available anywhere and everywhere FFS.
Agents are going to be fvcked. I no an acquaintence who worked at Foxtons before setting up on his own, and each office he says makes upwards of 20k a month in fees alone.
Yeah, letting agents bleed tenants dry at the beginning of the tenancy, or whenever the tenancy is being renewed or they want to change a name with extortionate fees to do things no more complicated than printing off a document and having it signed. Banning these fees is long overdue. And then at the end of a tenancy, they'll find whatever ridiculous excuse they can to withhold money from the deposit. I've never moved out of a rented flat without having to have a long, drawn out row with the agent to get the deposit back, despite thorough cleaning each time. Once they tried to charge me for the removal of mugs which were in the kitchen cupboard when I moved in, and for leaving an unused toilet roll in the bathroom cupboard.
And then there was the big old student house which six of us spent two days cleaning from top to bottom to get the deposit back, where the agency deducted money anyway for extra cleaning of a kitchen which was entirely ripped out two weeks later by the landlord (who wanted to rearrange the whole house to squeeze two extra bedrooms in, one of which didn't even have a proper door because it opened out onto the stairs). I found this out three months later when one of the new tenants contacted me to say they had some mail with my name on it and I went round to pick it up.
Ad then there are the upfront fees that he agent takes from the landlord.
They, the chains are really going to be in difficulty, and passing these fees on to the landlord is not going to be possible if they want to remain competitive. I forsee what might happen is the low cost independent agents will take over. There cost base is much lower, they don't have all these fancy foxtonesque type offices to service, with all the additional costs that it brings, with liviered cars etc.
Anna, we whilst at Uni just didnt pay the last months rent, ever. The agents who had the market sewn up, with one agent having over a third of the market had a terrible reputation beyond imagination.
Being a long term renter must be shit, especially if you have kids. Reform is long overdue.
I rent out a house myself and would definitely support my tenants having more rights than they do. LP's suggestion of 6 months is a good one. Landlords already have protection from crap tenants (section 8). It's an unbalanced system that New Labour seemingly did nothing to change.
We had to pay ours quarterly in advance. (Naturally this did not fit in with when student loans actually got paid. I have no idea what people did if their parents were unable to pony up three months' rent in July.)
Lady p, agreed. It is not like some 23 year old guy , in a shiny silver matador suit is sat there drafting an AST from scratch, whilst pouring over and considering the nuances of the Housing Act. It is a standard document, available anywhere and everywhere FFS.
Heh at the thought of an estate agent spending longer than a microsecond thinking about anything. They wouldn't give a shit if the tenancy agreement referred to the wrong property/landlord/tenant, let alone anything more in-depth than that.
@ pancakes there are 95 Estate Agents in my London Borough, which has a population of 200,000, thats one approximately agent per 2000 people, which as you say is ridiculous.
That doesn't include all the dodgy agents I noticed are popping up with a gmail address, marketing the shoddiest of properties you can imagine.
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Not sure how that's supposed to work if the owner wants to sell.
I would support a minimum of 6 months' notice for no fault evictions, or perhaps the last month's rent free and no deductions from the security deposit for cleaning (only genuine damage).
One of the biggest problems for renters moving is that they have to find six weeks' rent plus all the costs of moving, before they get their deposit back, in addition to having to find a new place to live at short notice. That's not doable for a lot of people.
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In Scotland you can only evict if you want to sell or move in yourself (or there is fault). We have rent control too but only in specific circumstances. You don't need rent control for it to work but obviously it's going to affect availability.
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(Airbnb is booming as an alternative revenue stream now)
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Sale will be a ground to recover possession (although it is of course perfectly possible to sell a property subject to a tenancy), that has been made clear (and is the thing the mortgage banks will care about most). It will also be possible to recover possession if the landlord wants to move in themselves.
It sounds a lot like the system here in Dubai tbh which works reasonably well. Key thing is rent control. It's meaningless to say a landlord can't evict you if they can put the rent up 1000%.
Agreed the deposit thing is a big issue. Deposits should be capped a months' rent in my view. Insurance is a more appropriate way to deal with risk above that. Given the deposit protection schemes it ought to be possible to have the same deposit securing two tenancies at once as it were (which would mean people would only have top up the deposit if there was a deduction). That's not great for the landlords but again is probably proportionate.
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Agency fees are a nightmare too. I thought they were being banned?
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linda, agency fees, and all other "administrative costs" the in going tenant has to bear are to be banned from June 2019, when the Tenants Fees Act becomes operative in June 2019. Well overdue, and many estate agents are going to have their business model disrupted and have to close. It is a shocking scam.
By way of example a friend has just moved in to a new property and had to pay the following fees:
1) Drafting of assured shorthold tenancy £195-00 plus VAT (He is a real estate lawyer at a national firm!)
2) Preparation of inventory £150.00 plus VAT
3) Referencing £150.00 plus VAT
So that is £600.00 before you start, and is a great cash cow for agents. Then of course is the months rent in advance and 6 weeks rent one has to pay,which I think will now be limited to one month only.
The worse bit, is if you want to change a name on the tenancy agreement then they often charge another £200 or so, as well as additional fees for inventory check outs. The big chains make a fortune on these fees.
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In my experience, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that letting agents are the scum of the earth.
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The government ( quite rightly) seems to have it in for landlords and there nefarious activities. Another change was if the landlord fails to protect your deposit with a government approved scheme in 30 days then , the tenant shall be entitled to 3 times that amount in compensation.
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Lady p, agreed. It is not like some 23 year old guy , in a shiny silver matador suit is sat there drafting an AST from scratch, whilst pouring over and considering the nuances of the Housing Act. It is a standard document, available anywhere and everywhere FFS.
Agents are going to be fvcked. I no an acquaintence who worked at Foxtons before setting up on his own, and each office he says makes upwards of 20k a month in fees alone.
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I spent at least 500 quid on agency fees when I moved into my current place. The rent is only a grand a month. It's a shocking rip off.
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Yeah, letting agents bleed tenants dry at the beginning of the tenancy, or whenever the tenancy is being renewed or they want to change a name with extortionate fees to do things no more complicated than printing off a document and having it signed. Banning these fees is long overdue. And then at the end of a tenancy, they'll find whatever ridiculous excuse they can to withhold money from the deposit. I've never moved out of a rented flat without having to have a long, drawn out row with the agent to get the deposit back, despite thorough cleaning each time. Once they tried to charge me for the removal of mugs which were in the kitchen cupboard when I moved in, and for leaving an unused toilet roll in the bathroom cupboard.
And then there was the big old student house which six of us spent two days cleaning from top to bottom to get the deposit back, where the agency deducted money anyway for extra cleaning of a kitchen which was entirely ripped out two weeks later by the landlord (who wanted to rearrange the whole house to squeeze two extra bedrooms in, one of which didn't even have a proper door because it opened out onto the stairs). I found this out three months later when one of the new tenants contacted me to say they had some mail with my name on it and I went round to pick it up.
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Ad then there are the upfront fees that he agent takes from the landlord.
They, the chains are really going to be in difficulty, and passing these fees on to the landlord is not going to be possible if they want to remain competitive. I forsee what might happen is the low cost independent agents will take over. There cost base is much lower, they don't have all these fancy foxtonesque type offices to service, with all the additional costs that it brings, with liviered cars etc.
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Anna, we whilst at Uni just didnt pay the last months rent, ever. The agents who had the market sewn up, with one agent having over a third of the market had a terrible reputation beyond imagination.
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Being a long term renter must be shit, especially if you have kids. Reform is long overdue.
I rent out a house myself and would definitely support my tenants having more rights than they do. LP's suggestion of 6 months is a good one. Landlords already have protection from crap tenants (section 8). It's an unbalanced system that New Labour seemingly did nothing to change.
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We had to pay ours quarterly in advance. (Naturally this did not fit in with when student loans actually got paid. I have no idea what people did if their parents were unable to pony up three months' rent in July.)
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The sheer number of estate agents in London seems like evidence of how bloated the sector is on these fees. Every single area has dozens of them.
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Heh at the thought of an estate agent spending longer than a microsecond thinking about anything. They wouldn't give a shit if the tenancy agreement referred to the wrong property/landlord/tenant, let alone anything more in-depth than that.
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I've never received a draft tenancy agreement that didn't contain some fundamental error or another. These people are shisters
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@ pancakes there are 95 Estate Agents in my London Borough, which has a population of 200,000, thats one approximately agent per 2000 people, which as you say is ridiculous.
That doesn't include all the dodgy agents I noticed are popping up with a gmail address, marketing the shoddiest of properties you can imagine.
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