Only a minority of tenants want longer-term tenancies, ARLA Propertymark managing director David Cox has claimed.
Cox said that the minority shouldn’t harm the majority seeking shorter-term tenancies.
He was speaking at the Paragon Great Buy-To-Let Debate as panellists discussed the recent Housing White Paper and proposals for longer-term tenancies.
Cox said: “If tenants wanted longer-term tenancies, the market would have reacted to it.
“Tenants don’t ask for three to five-year tenancies, they ask for six to 12-month ones.
“There is probably a tiny percentage that want longer-term. Should the majority be penalised by the minority?”
Cox backed longer-term tenancies being introduced as a condition of Build to Rent funding, as outlined in the Housing White Paper.
He also addressed the issue of the impending tenant fees ban consultations, comparing the fees to what a buyer would pay when applying for a mortgage or getting a property survey.
Cox added: “If the Government wanted to make renting cheaper, tenant fees are the tiniest slice of it. This is just a populist policy that won’t assist anybody.”
His views were echoed among audience members with one shouting out that the Government had decided on its policy on banning fees despite not yet even consulting on it.
Right wing & left wing politics unite. Rule by dictate and like so many public bodies decide announce and hold a meaningless consultation after the event.
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If ARLA members hadn’t systematically ripped tenants off then there would be no need for the Government to ban fees. But ARLA members have ripped tenants off and they didn’t consult anybody before they did it. I guarantee no-one shouted about that at this meeting though.
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No need to foam at the mouth. There were a few but like always it’s the extreme 5% that made all the headlines.
A better criticism is that the industry, including ARLA but its not the only way, should have taken the initiative and solved this itself, on its terms. Not doing so opened the door to this government sledgehammer. Let’s be more proactive in future and we’ll have control.
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Indeed. And let’s not forget two things:
1) that in 1977 the Monopolies & Mergers Commission under LABOUR decided that Fee Scales (which is what this will be – either capped or £0!) were declared anti-competitive and operating against the public interest. No Government since has ever seen fit to change this – I cannot believe that it is now the Conservative who are supporting market interference. Mind, you, they are not real Conservatives any more.
2) tenants are FREE to negotiate the fees payable and take advice, or look at and offer on a different property/agent.
Government interference in the Open Market never has a happy ending. Who remembers the 1970s Rent Controls, for example? From 1971 to 1980, Labour’s deliberate policy successfully managed to destroy the PRS and reduce the number of privately rented properties from 3.7m to 2.4m (-35%). What would a similar policy now do to rental values? Basic economics anybody?
I am a BTL landlord, but the last thing I want is a ‘rent-bubble’.
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