Landlords have warned the government that getting buy-to-let landlords to pay for cladding removal is a mistake.
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), has urged ministers to rectify the “injustice” of these landlords potentially having to pay for remedial works on their buildings.
It comes as Beadle prepares to speak to MPs on the issue at the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee on later today.
He argues that the government’s plans are not treating all leaseholders equally. In the process they also risk delaying remedial work on dangerous cladding as the government seeks to understand who may be an accidental or buy-to-let landlord.
Earlier this month the housing secretary, Michael Gove, announced plans to force developers to pay for remedial action to tackle dangerous cladding on buildings between 11 and 18 metres high.
In the same announcement he argued that leaseholders should not be expected to foot the bill. However, ministers have now admitted that they have yet to decide if buy-to-let landlords will be included within the scheme.
In a parliamentary answer the housing minister has confirmed that those who sublet properties because they cannot sell them due to dangerous cladding will be included in the government’s scheme. But he also stated that a decision about extending it to buy-to-let landlords has yet to be taken.
Speaking ahead of his appearance before the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee this afternoon, Beadle said: “It makes no sense to be treating leaseholders who are landlords so differently to owner-occupiers. Both groups have faced the same problems, and both should be treated equally. We are calling on the government to rectify this injustice as a matter of urgency.”
The owners of properties affected by the cladding scandal be they owner occupiers or landlords all bought in good faith from massively rich developers. Any compensation due should be paid out irrespective of the owner’s status. Not compensating landlords is another example of the general anti-landlord bias that abounds. The implication is that all private landlords have gotten rich off of the backs of their tenants so unlike owner occupiers they have accrued loads of illegal or immoral gains in the form of rent and can well afford to pay for their own cladding repairs or rent arrears due to Covid.
I don’t know where this apparent state approved whipping up of anti-PRS feeling is leading. There must be some agenda behind it. The PRS is growing due to lack of new affordable housing brought on by failure of Governments to regulate the house building industry who are big lobbyists and party donors who seek to maximise house prices for profit. They are the real bogey men here not the private landlord.
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