Landlords continue to exit the private rented sector with many actively looking to reduce their buy-to-let portfolios, leaving thousands of renters facing potential homelessness.
Official figures show that more than 2,000 households a month are facing homelessness in England because private landlords say they are selling up, with some blaming uncertainty caused by government delays to renting reforms.
The data also reveals that of those facing eviction because the landlord is selling up, more than four in 10 families have asked councils for temporary housing.
Meanwhile, almost a third of landlords plan to reduce their rental portfolios and only 9% say they likely to grow them, a survey by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) found.
High interest rates have also deterred many landlords from investing in the buy-to-let sector, according to teh NRLA.
The homelessness charity Riverside said this was evidence of a “humanitarian crisis unfolding behind closed doors in towns and cities across England”. This follows recent data revealing that the number of children living in temporary accommodation in England had hit 145,800, a record high and up 12% year-on-year.
The supply-demand imbalance in the PRS has not been helped by the uncertainty caused by delays to the renters (reform) bill, which returned to parliament for debate in the House of Lords yesterday.
“Landlords selling up is the single biggest challenge renters face,” said Ben Beadle, the NRLA chief executive. “The only answer is to ensure responsible landlords have the confidence to stay in the market and sustain tenancies.”
The campaign group Generation Rent accused the NRLA of trying to “hold parliament hostage to the idea that they will sell up over even the smallest strengthening of tenants’ rights”.
Ben Twomey, its chief executive, said: “Long term, if landlords sell up it makes little difference to the housing market. Bricks and mortar do not sink into the ground, and the home could be bought by another landlord, a first-time buyer or even repurposed for social housing … The short-term issue is that tenants have an appalling lack of protection when landlords choose to sell up.”
Polly Neate, the chief executive of Shelter, added: “Rental reforms are not driving homelessness, no-fault evictions are. Five years on from the government’s promise to ban no-fault evictions, renters continue to face homelessness in their thousands. With just two months’ notice and no need to give a reason, landlords can throw tenants’ lives into chaos at the drop of a hat.
“That’s why it’s essential that the renters reform bill is overhauled so tenants have a longer protected period from eviction after moving in and longer notice periods to help them find a new home if a landlord wants to sell or move into the property.”
Generation Rent and Shelter have won! Well sort of, they just forgot people need somewhere to live.
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Polly and Ben both know that the more they push landlords to sell up the more they can justify their own existence. I think that Polly in particular knows that S21 is not causing homelessness, it’s just a tool used to deal with whatever the motivation is behind the landlord needing rid of the tenant, yet she continues to bleat on about it. I think Ben just enjoys being called a Chief Executive as it makes him feel important.
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Another bleat from Polly Neate… “Rental reforms are not driving homelessness, no-fault evictions are.”
S21 is the effect. The cause is the constant attack on the PRS, led by… YOU!
Fix the cause and the lessen the effect!
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@ Ben Twomey seems to score an own goal here, and it is the lack of understanding and coherent thinking of bodies like his, and also Shelter’s that keep making things worse. He talks about there being no issue long term. Duh! Of course there’s no real issue LT. Thinking LT, more homes could even be built! Sadly, he doesn’t seem to understand that the issue is one of a short term problem, which he accepts can be exacerbated by landlords selling up, yet in the same breath, seems to disagree with the NRLA.
After the damage caused by Shelter also, @Polly Neate continues to spout what she does best. She seems to think 2 months isn’t long enough to find alternative accommodation. If tenants diligently seek alternative accommodation, they will find something within 2 months. Allow even a year, and some will still not have found what they want/believe they deserve!
Where we are failing tenants (as a nation), is the fact that we are not being truthful with them. As a landlord, I want tenants to stay in my properties, as does every landlord, so why would I want a tenant to leave? There is only one reason – if they are costing me money by not paying their rent, or causing other tenants to leave because of their ASB. @Polly and @Tom, please wake up and smell the roses! This is why 80 – 90% of landlords will evict tenants WHETHER they use a s8 or s21 procedure.
As to rent increases, telling a tenant their rent won’t /shouldn’t go up is stupid. If they owned their own home, wouldn’t they be paying more due to higher interest rates? Are you not paying more?? Be honest with tenants and stop rabble rousing to get more news coverage. I have a mortgage that is going up by £500+ pcm (ignoring the arrangement fee), and I am only passing on £200 of it to the tenant. Guess what will happen in that kind of scenario we have rent increase controls? Just simply guess…. Btw, my rental business is to provide for me in my old age, it is my pension. I cashed in my other pensions and put the money into property.
My husband was already a qualified barrister when he lost an employed job and took on a night security officer job – to earn anything to help us pay some of our bills during the early 90s recession. Young tenants these days can’t afford rent, but go on foreign holidays, eat out/have deliveries regularly. Do that with a mortgage, and what will happen? @Tom @Polly please think about the lives that you are damaging because your rhetoric is scaring landlords out of the market. Landlords and tenants should not be at loggerheads, and you guys stoking the flames of enmity isn’t productive, decent or useful. I (with other landlords – I’m a member of a few groups) will be happy to sit down with either or both of your groups if you want to get to know how landlords think – as only then can you begin to help the people you profess to want to help. Please reach out if you want to take me up on my offer.
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Whilst I agree with much that you say, do not be fooled into thinking Ms Neate has any motive other than to keep funding going into her so-called charity. They backed S24 orignally saying that Shelter supported the tax change as most people want to own their own homes, thus completely ignoring the people you might expect them to support – people that can’t afford their own homes and need to rent. That statement came from their previous CEO but it appears that he did not pass the message on to his policy team who stated their support was due to not many landlords being affected but at the same time suggested that enough extra tax could be raised to make a difference to housing benefit/ LHA. They made no argument as to why they thought the Government would use the extra tax for this. They admitted that S24 could lead to higher rents which of course is further throwing tenants under a bus and you might ask why they would do this. Well… at the time Shelter was getting corporate sponsorship from L&G and in their annual report even stated that L&G collaborate with them on policy! Note that S24 does not affect corporate landlords and L&G (one of the biggest B2R companies in the UK) would do very well from reduced competition and higher rents.
I could go on about the ‘coincidences’ involving a Treasury Mandarin that shortly after S24 was announced went on to become the L&G Group Chairman (and by doing so more than doubled his salary) as well as Mr Osborne who got a one-day-a-week job for an annual salary of £650k with Blackstone who are probably the biggest corporate landlord worldwide. Then of course there was the L&G senior manager that took a ‘sabbatical’ to run the policy unit at No 10 before returning to L&G but this post is about Shelter so I’ll not dig deeply into any of that.
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Shelter and GR will never debate with landlords because they know their argument is flawed and easily dismissed.
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One of my tenants once told me they could not afford the rent this month because she had spent it on some very expensive shoes that were in a sale instead, Can’t see that going down a storm with my mortgage company if I tried telling them that was the reason I could not afford to pay this month’s mortgage payment. There is good and bad both sides, but if your mortgage goes up you are going to want to pass that cost on. BTL landlords are not in the charity sector…………… despite what Shelter seem to think. Keep pushing and people will keep leaving, there are safer ways these days to make money on your savings without all the hassle involved with renting out property. A lot of the BTL small landlords like you cashed in their pensions to buy in. They want certainty, not the current chaos and certainly not anything that makes it difficult to access the cash tied up in their assets if they need it.
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I’d suggest that landlords quitting is exactly what Ms Neate wants.
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She is getting her wish.
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Undoubtedly any drop in the number of properties that comes at a time when more housing is needed is going to feed the surge in rent rises. Simple supply and demand. I’ve had a desperate potential tenant offer £50 more than advertised rent, then £100 more to try and secure the property. He wasn’t the right tenant for me, and I don’t play that game. But it shows how desperate they are already. Even a tiny change in the numbers can have a big impact.
The only figure we dont have is how many new landlords are entering the market. We do know the number of renters is rising every year.
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If they want to know who to blame for landlords selling up, Polly Bleat and the two Bens just need to look in the nearest mirror.
As for Bungling Boy Beadle and his “responsible landlords”, a phrase he is now addicted to using, does he think that affects his dwindling members or the anti-landlord brigade?
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The more help that campaigners think Renters Reform will be for tenants, the Opposite will be found, to their detriment.
Be careful what you wish for, as they say.
Coming to a town near you.
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