Tory mayor candidate Zac Goldsmith has launched his housing manifesto for London – with letting agents firmly targeted.
In fact, wealthy MP Goldsmith seems to want them to disappear altogether.
A manifesto commitment reads as follows:
“I will work with London’s tech community to develop rental apps that cut out the need for expensive middlemen.
“In the US, apps like Cozy.co or Zumper allow tenants and landlords to safely connect, providing background checks, references, rating schemes and independent payment facilities.
“This means both parties know exactly what they are gettingfrom the outset, at a fraction of the cost of traditional lettings agencies.
“In the UK, new apps like RentSquare are beginning to follow the same path.
“So I will back these exciting technologies.”
Goldsmith says he will do this rather than create a London-wide letting agency that is in the manifesto of the Labour mayoral candidate.
Goldsmith says would cost London taxpayers £30m a year to run.
Goldsmith will also seek powers to make the voluntary London Rental Standard mandatory for letting agents.
Goldsmith says in his manifesto for London that he will also strengthen the Standard so that tenants must be offered three to five year tenancies, with any rent increases agreed at the start of the tenancy.
Goldsmith will also “target the high tenant fees charged by some letting agents. The average total lettings fee for a tenancy is now £337.
“Yet these charges are often opaque and unpredictable, with charges varying wildly by hundreds of pounds.
“So I will ensure all fees are charged upfront and, for specific services like credit checks are cost reflective.”
Goldsmith says in his manifesto that he will also support build-to-rent and introduce a new Mayor’s Mortgage to help first-time buyers buy off-plan.
Comments (8)
At this rate the Tories plan on destroying the Estate Agency industry altogether.
How long until Dave, Gideon and Zack-Attack release a joint statement:
“We don’t like estate agents. We hate them, in fact, so nobody is allowed to be an estate agent anymore. And if you are an estate agent, we will tax ONE MILLION PER CENT of your turnover and then eat your children! Bahahaha!!! Then everyone will be squatters and everyone will own every house and nobody will own any house – except us Tories of course!!!! Mwahaha!! Boris, get your muzzle off. Time to chase the landlords out of town.”
Cut out the middle man and rent directly. This was featured in the Telegraph recently.
‘A landlord who conned would-be tenants out of more than £6,000 by advertising on the Gumtree listings website in a “highly sophisticated scam” has been jailed for two years’.
There is also a list of ways to cut out the middleman here.
http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/blog/rental-scams-tenants-should-be-aware-of/
How will Zac’s plans square with Right to Rent etc where the only person to police it is the landlord benefiting? What effect will it have on revenue for HMRC? The effect will be to undo all the regulations which have been brought in – not that they are really being policed.
I cannot believe naivety of Mr Goldsmith
(1) most tenants do not want longer tenancies we would love to secure 2/3 year agreements for our clients
(2) As everyone knows except Mr Goldsmith 3/5 year agreements would be licenses not AST’s and would need drafting by his public school cronies Solicitors, thus adding extra cost and time to a simple transaction again pushing rents up.
The politicians need to consult with the very people they are looking to alienate ARLA And the agents community.
I think Zac Goldsmith needs to talk to David Cox from ARLA for research into the housing crisis and actually what is causing it before he starts making comments on a situation he clearly knows very little about.
If you revert to online agents only you will lose the professional advise from ARLA registered agents on the high street and we will become a nation of lower class agents with no regulation at all – a recipe for disaster in the current climate particularly.
How about Zac Goldsmith takes the trouble to understand the whole landscape and history of the industry before making such statements. It will not be the London tech community that resolves issues created by Yvette Cooper in the spring of 2007 and problems reinforced by incompetence in 3 government departments; CLG, HMRC & DWP.
A solution was developed to problems he is trying to resolve 12 years ago and it is simply staggering that Mr Goldsmith is displaying such an incredible naivety of the subject. This story alone announces he his wholly unprepared for the role he is attempting to secure and that he is taking advice from the wrong people.
Shame he does not target the Rip Off council licensing schemes – oh no I forgot he is part of the system that introduced it!!
“Yet these charges are often opaque and unpredictable, with charges varying wildly by hundreds of pounds. So I will ensure all fees are charged upfront and, for specific services like credit checks are cost reflective.”
Or you could enforce the rules that already exist?
Clearly part of the bigger plan by the Tory party to totally mess up the housing industry in the UK. Nuts!