How does Buy to Let END!

[Andersen]

Kier Starmer @ Labour will implement a national LL register "to protect tenants from rouge LL's" (not to protect them from increased rents due to interest rate rises putting LL making it uneconomic to continue without raising rents) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-vows-landlord-register-protect-29848429 

Phil Spencer in discussion with Proprtymark about why LL's are selling up https://youtu.be/kVVD6yVZlcc

VIDEO TIMESTAMPS for above ⏳
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Different types of landlords
02:11 Challenges
04:30 Regulation & enforcement
06:20 Tenants report landlords
10:20 Property redress
13:55 Government & the rental sector
16:50 Why we need a private rental sector
18:50 Landlord repossessions
22:02 Rent control / caps
23:00 Impact of uncertainty
26:00 Diversity of rental
29:00 Cost of EPC upgrades
37:00 Institutional investors
40:00 Impact of change
42:00 A solution for Government

More of the same with Phil https://youtu.be/1nDPBiV7AUQ

Beeb "LLS are selling up" (but no mention of S21 or S24 ) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61392420

LLs are fucked, and when they go under so are the tenants. Be careful what you wish for !

 

 

[spygirl]

https://www.ft.com/content/b6412bea-7b37-4a35-aa60-e4b2dd01bf00

Lex from Jan.

 

[spygirl]

14 hours ago, Andersen said:

Kier Starmer @ Labour will implement a national LL register "to protect tenants from rouge LL's" (not to protect them from increased rents due to interest rate rises putting LL making it uneconomic to continue without raising rents) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-vows-landlord-register-protect-29848429 

Phil Spencer in discussion with Proprtymark about why LL's are selling up https://youtu.be/kVVD6yVZlcc

VIDEO TIMESTAMPS for above ⏳
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Different types of landlords
02:11 Challenges
04:30 Regulation & enforcement
06:20 Tenants report landlords
10:20 Property redress
13:55 Government & the rental sector
16:50 Why we need a private rental sector
18:50 Landlord repossessions
22:02 Rent control / caps
23:00 Impact of uncertainty
26:00 Diversity of rental
29:00 Cost of EPC upgrades
37:00 Institutional investors
40:00 Impact of change
42:00 A solution for Government

More of the same with Phil https://youtu.be/1nDPBiV7AUQ

Beeb "LLS are selling up" (but no mention of S21 or S24 ) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61392420

LLs are fucked, and when they go under so are the tenants. Be careful what you wish for !

 

 

LLs are fucked.

But they're not taking the houses with them, so something will occur.

[JoeDavola]

20 hours ago, Andersen said:

Kier Starmer @ Labour will implement a national LL register "to protect tenants from rouge LL's" (not to protect them from increased rents due to interest rate rises putting LL making it uneconomic to continue without raising rents) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-vows-landlord-register-protect-29848429 

Phil Spencer in discussion with Proprtymark about why LL's are selling up https://youtu.be/kVVD6yVZlcc

VIDEO TIMESTAMPS for above ⏳
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Different types of landlords
02:11 Challenges
04:30 Regulation & enforcement
06:20 Tenants report landlords
10:20 Property redress
13:55 Government & the rental sector
16:50 Why we need a private rental sector
18:50 Landlord repossessions
22:02 Rent control / caps
23:00 Impact of uncertainty
26:00 Diversity of rental
29:00 Cost of EPC upgrades
37:00 Institutional investors
40:00 Impact of change
42:00 A solution for Government

More of the same with Phil https://youtu.be/1nDPBiV7AUQ

Beeb "LLS are selling up" (but no mention of S21 or S24 ) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61392420

LLs are fucked, and when they go under so are the tenants. Be careful what you wish for !

 

 

Interesting realization that money in the bank > landlording...

[Andersen]

6 hours ago, spygirl said:

LLs are fucked.

But they're not taking the houses with them, so something will occur.

Very true, any idea "what" is going to happen?

I can think of very few renters I've known who have savings arranged for a deposit and have a credit rating that will allow them to get a mortgage.

Square the circle as I can't see any way out apart from a market collapse.
Many LL's are being forced to sell as it's now unprofitable and high risk. Property values are on the way down as a result.
Tennants have no funds / mortgage / desire to buy.
Corporate / big business aren't keen on getting into small-fry markets (high maintenance, no gaurenteed returns)

Anecdotal a lass I've known well for 5 years has been saving for a deposit since I met her. Her savings aren't getting any better but she does manage a few overseas trips every year and splurged a few ££k when she got a windfall payment. I don't see her buying unless prices drop by more than 50%.

Will TPTB be able to stop this downhill spiral? Will they want to ? 

[spygirl]

11 minutes ago, Andersen said:

Very true, any idea "what" is going to happen?

I can think of very few renters I've known who have savings arranged for a deposit and have a credit rating that will allow them to get a mortgage.

Square the circle as I can't see any way out apart from a market collapse.
Many LL's are being forced to sell as it's now unprofitable and high risk. Property values are on the way down as a result.
Tennants have no funds / mortgage / desire to buy.
Corporate / big business aren't keen on getting into small-fry markets (high maintenance, no gaurenteed returns)

Anecdotal a lass I've known well for 5 years has been saving for a deposit since I met her. Her savings aren't getting any better but she does manage a few overseas trips every year and splurged a few ££k when she got a windfall payment. I don't see her buying unless prices drop by more than 50%.

Will TPTB be able to stop this downhill spiral? Will they want to ? 

Well, for one, the houses wont disappear.

It's just a matter if working who going to live in them.

The lass you know is tge market then prices will fall so dhe can clear it.

[spygirl]

Now I dont know if this is a real, rather than fabricated example.

https://www.property118.com/how-we-escaped-the-landlord-tax-trap/

 

Profile incomplete

How We Escaped The Landlord Tax Trap

by Readers Question

10:17 AM, 2nd May 2023, About A day ago 5

Text Size  

On paper my spouse and I were worth £3,000,000 but the reality was that we had no savings, no money whatsoever to live on after paying our tax bills, and this was despite having rental income of £300,000 a year coming in. In fact it was even worse than that, our tax bill exceeded our income by a very significant amount!

These were our numbers before we took action: –

Property portfolio value £6,000,000

Mortgage outstanding £3,000,000

Net equity £3,000,000

Capital gains £3,000,000

Rental income based on 5% rental yield £300,000

Mortgage interest based on 6% interest rate £180,000

Other costs of business £100,000

Profit £20,000

Two years ago our profits were £140,000 because we were only paying 2% interest rates.

We knew this would happen one day but to be honest we spent far too much time with our heads buried in the sand.

Now here’s the craziest thing, our income for tax purposes had not changed due to section 24.

Our taxable income remained the same at £200,000 a year. This was because we could not offset finance costs.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the tax on £200,000 a year is greater than the £20,000 of profits we were left with.

How were we supposed to live?

What could we do?

Our first idea was to sell half the properties and to pay off all the mortgages. We factored in 3% for selling costs and lost rent, so £3,000,000 less 3% would leave us with £2,9010,000.

The problem we didn’t consider at first was Capital Gains Tax at 28%, until we spoke to our Accountant.

He calculated that after factoring in selling costs, the capital gains we would have crystallised by selling 50% of our property rental portfolio would have been £1,410,000.

The tax on the that would have cost us £394,800, so we would have been left with £1,015,200 to reduce our remaining mortgage balances of £1,500,000.

In other words, we could end up with a mortgage of £584,800 which would continue to cost us £35,088 a year (if interest rates had stayed as they were at 6%). As we know, interest rates are still going up.

We would still have had £150,000 of rental income coming in and by selling half of our properties our other costs would have halved too, so we would be looking at around £100,000 of taxable profit before finance costs of £35,088 a year. We felt we were getting somewhere because the outcome of all of this would have been real profits of £64,912 a year and our taxable income would have been calculated at £100,000, but we would still be skint, up to our necks in debt and remain exposed to interest rates going up even further. It was from from a good feeling.

That’s when our Accountant introduced us to the Property118 tax team.

Step one of their recommendation was to form a Limited Company and then sell our entire rental property business to that company at the full market value of £6,000,000.

The consideration for tax purposes was £3,000,000 of shares and a further £3,000,000 indemnity for the debt.

No refinancing was required and we didn’t need to pay Capital Gains Tax or SDLT because we are a business Partnership by de-facto.

Property118’s fees for this were £6,000 and we had a further £13,000 of legal fees to pay. We borrowed the money from Tesco Finance to pay those costs.

The capital gains still existed, but instead of being attached to our properties they were now attached to our shares and we had no plans to sell those.

We went on to sell just over 60% of our properties and didn’t have any CGT to pay whatsoever, because the values had not increased beyond what the company paid us for the properties. This meant that we had enough money left over to pay off all our mortgages and the Tesco Finance loan and still keep a chunk aside for a rainy day.

We are now completely mortgage free and I cannot begin to tell you how liberating that feels.

We are now making a reasonable profit, we pay ourselves a small salary to use up our personal allowances and that salary is deducted from our company profit for tax purposes. We also decided to pay our children a salary for the same purposes. They both go to University but will help us to redecorate our student let properties in the Summer holidays. In the fullness of time we are hopeful they will take over the business fully.

Here’s what our business looks like now: – 

Property values £2,400,000

Mortgage £nil

Cash at bank £450,000 (further peace of mind we didn’t previously have)

Rental income £120,000

Salaries £12,570 a year each X 4 (tax free)

Other business costs at 33% of rental income £40,000

Profits retained annually in the business which are taxed at 19% = £30,000

The ability to do some extra work on the side if we choose to do , without being pushed back into that horrible position of being higher rate tax payers affected by Section 24 tax ever again!

Our longer term plans are to go and live abroad somewhere. At that point we will no longer be UK tax resident, so we will not need to worry about CGT on our shares if we decide to sell them to our boys at that point. We will probably loan them the money to buy us out, which in reality will be a paper exercise. The company will pay us for those shares out of its future profits. We may well charge interest on that loan too, because that could reduce the profits for the business and HMRC will not tax us on that interest as non-residents. We will take further professional advice from Property118 if and when we do go down that route, but at the moment the prospects of moving to Cyprus or Portugal and becoming increasingly luring.

That said, if rents continue to go up, property values continue to go down and financing becomes viable again we might just be persuaded to dive back in again, leverage up our business and build our portfolio back up. Or perhaps that’s what the boys will do? Choices, choices, choices!

The bottom line is this, if you’re feeling trapped we highly recommend you book a tax planning consultation with the Property118 team. There expertise and advice has quite literally been life changing for us.

 

 

[spygirl]

I am a jot a lawyer or accountant.

I'd assume if they go down the 'de facto partnership ' route then they need to pay back taxes.

This is quite an elaborate, untested scheme, one Id not trust a regional law outfit to work out, legally.

Property118’s fees for this were £6,000 and we had a further £13,000 of legal fees to pay. We borrowed the money from Tesco Finance to pay those costs

What great value - 3m of assets for only 6k of legal dpend, which they borrowed from Tesco.....

I think I'd prefer the 'Freeman of the land's approach to get out of a credit agreement.

 

 

[BurntBread]

I don't see how converting equity in a house into a share doesn't crystalise a capital gain. I know almost nothing about tax law, but this reads like a scheme whose only purpose is to wriggle out of CGT, and I suspect therefore that HMRC won't like it, and won't be held back by complex legal theories when the intent is clear.

[spygirl]

22 minutes ago, BurntBread said:

I don't see how converting equity in a house into a share doesn't crystalise a capital gain. I know almost nothing about tax law, but this reads like a scheme whose only purpose is to wriggle out of CGT, and I suspect therefore that HMRC won't like it, and won't be held back by complex legal theories when the intent is clear.

Tax law is somrhting you need to approach very very carefully.

Unless you are doign somethign at scale - and a ~6m 'portfolio' for a coule who dont appear to have a pot to piss in is scale - then you need to be lookign at spendign a lot - several 100k on advice and be preapred to fight it in court.

This is why most orgs and people tend to stick to current udnertanding and rules. And even then it goes wrong.

They are embarking on a journey of fuckwitted up turning the current tax guidelines, all for the princecy sum of 6k  from a hill billy law firm....

Brave.

Of course, Cotwolds may be some hard charging, superhuman attention to detail and law fighters who just happen to be in Cleetus ville.

All Is dotted All Ts crossed

You never know.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/fake-lawyer-michael-cremins-dark-past-revealed-/5062724.article

 

 

 

[spygirl]

15 hours ago, JoeDavola said:

Interesting realization that money in the bank > landlording...

Thats nother that thinks that S21 was some magical law.

Its a polite Gnetlemanly request to go.

Post 2002, when PRS was mainly single workign people then youd not have a problem wiht tenants lleaving in 2 months.

Once you start housing fmailies and people on bennies, which BTL ended up doing as thers only a v finite of working tenants, then you are dealign with a very differnt game.

Fuckwits.

 

 

[eek]

2 hours ago, BurntBread said:

I don't see how converting equity in a house into a share doesn't crystalise a capital gain. I know almost nothing about tax law, but this reads like a scheme whose only purpose is to wriggle out of CGT, and I suspect therefore that HMRC won't like it, and won't be held back by complex legal theories when the intent is clear.

The thing to remember is that HMRC are busy and don't rush into things.

So the first time you discover HMRC dislike your 2019/20 tax return will be in late March 2024

Which means that while everything looks lovely at the moment there may well be a nasty surprise well down the line...

[Andersen]

MSE article about "Mortgage prisoners" *

Not sure if you're a mortgage prisoner? Two questions to ask
1. Did you purchase your home, or remortgage it before the introduction of the stricter affordability rules in 2014?
2. Have you been told in the past you can't switch to a more competitive, cheaper deal?
If the answer to both of these questions is 'yes', you're likely to be a mortgage prisoner.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-prisoners/

* MSE estimate there "could be up to 200k mortage prisoners". Focus on estimate and up to

From FSA Mortgage prisoner review https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/mortgage-prisoner-review

Of the 195,000 borrowers who have mortgages in closed books with inactive firms, we estimate that there are:
66,000 who may be able to switch. Where borrowers have not yet tried to switch, consumer organisations or a mortgage intermediary may be able to help them assess whether they can save money, or otherwise benefit, by switching. We have put together some case studies that may help.
30,000 who can’t switch but are unlikely to benefit from switching. They are up to date with payments but can’t switch because of their loan and/or borrower characteristics. However, the interest rate they’re on means they’d be unlikely to save money from switching- so they aren’t mortgage prisoners.
47,000 who are mortgage prisoners. Despite being up to date with payments, they cannot switch when it might benefit them to do , because they have loan and/or borrower characteristics that are outside current lender appetite.
34,000 who are in payment shortfall, and 18,000 who are near term. These borrowers wouldn’t be able to switch to a new deal, even if they were with an active lender.

Interesting that the 200k in the MSE report drops to 47k when reported to parliament? 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Andersen

[sancho panza]

17 hours ago, spygirl said:

Now I dont know if this is a real, rather than fabricated example.

https://www.property118.com/how-we-escaped-the-landlord-tax-trap/

 

Profile incomplete

How We Escaped The Landlord Tax Trap

by Readers Question

10:17 AM, 2nd May 2023, About A day ago 5

Text Size  

On paper my spouse and I were worth £3,000,000 but the reality was that we had no savings, no money whatsoever to live on after paying our tax bills, and this was despite having rental income of £300,000 a year coming in. In fact it was even worse than that, our tax bill exceeded our income by a very significant amount!

These were our numbers before we took action: –

Property portfolio value £6,000,000

Mortgage outstanding £3,000,000

Net equity £3,000,000

Capital gains £3,000,000

Rental income based on 5% rental yield £300,000

Mortgage interest based on 6% interest rate £180,000

Other costs of business £100,000

Profit £20,000

Two years ago our profits were £140,000 because we were only paying 2% interest rates.

We knew this would happen one day but to be honest we spent far too much time with our heads buried in the sand.

Now here’s the craziest thing, our income for tax purposes had not changed due to section 24.

Our taxable income remained the same at £200,000 a year. This was because we could not offset finance costs.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the tax on £200,000 a year is greater than the £20,000 of profits we were left with.

How were we supposed to live?

What could we do?

Our first idea was to sell half the properties and to pay off all the mortgages. We factored in 3% for selling costs and lost rent, so £3,000,000 less 3% would leave us with £2,9010,000.

The problem we didn’t consider at first was Capital Gains Tax at 28%, until we spoke to our Accountant.

He calculated that after factoring in selling costs, the capital gains we would have crystallised by selling 50% of our property rental portfolio would have been £1,410,000.

The tax on the that would have cost us £394,800, so we would have been left with £1,015,200 to reduce our remaining mortgage balances of £1,500,000.

In other words, we could end up with a mortgage of £584,800 which would continue to cost us £35,088 a year (if interest rates had stayed as they were at 6%). As we know, interest rates are still going up.

We would still have had £150,000 of rental income coming in and by selling half of our properties our other costs would have halved too, so we would be looking at around £100,000 of taxable profit before finance costs of £35,088 a year. We felt we were getting somewhere because the outcome of all of this would have been real profits of £64,912 a year and our taxable income would have been calculated at £100,000, but we would still be skint, up to our necks in debt and remain exposed to interest rates going up even further. It was from from a good feeling.

That’s when our Accountant introduced us to the Property118 tax team.

Step one of their recommendation was to form a Limited Company and then sell our entire rental property business to that company at the full market value of £6,000,000.

The consideration for tax purposes was £3,000,000 of shares and a further £3,000,000 indemnity for the debt.

No refinancing was required and we didn’t need to pay Capital Gains Tax or SDLT because we are a business Partnership by de-facto.

Property118’s fees for this were £6,000 and we had a further £13,000 of legal fees to pay. We borrowed the money from Tesco Finance to pay those costs.

The capital gains still existed, but instead of being attached to our properties they were now attached to our shares and we had no plans to sell those.

We went on to sell just over 60% of our properties and didn’t have any CGT to pay whatsoever, because the values had not increased beyond what the company paid us for the properties. This meant that we had enough money left over to pay off all our mortgages and the Tesco Finance loan and still keep a chunk aside for a rainy day.

We are now completely mortgage free and I cannot begin to tell you how liberating that feels.

We are now making a reasonable profit, we pay ourselves a small salary to use up our personal allowances and that salary is deducted from our company profit for tax purposes. We also decided to pay our children a salary for the same purposes. They both go to University but will help us to redecorate our student let properties in the Summer holidays. In the fullness of time we are hopeful they will take over the business fully.

Here’s what our business looks like now: – 

Property values £2,400,000

Mortgage £nil

Cash at bank £450,000 (further peace of mind we didn’t previously have)

Rental income £120,000

Salaries £12,570 a year each X 4 (tax free)

Other business costs at 33% of rental income £40,000

Profits retained annually in the business which are taxed at 19% = £30,000

The ability to do some extra work on the side if we choose to do , without being pushed back into that horrible position of being higher rate tax payers affected by Section 24 tax ever again!

Our longer term plans are to go and live abroad somewhere. At that point we will no longer be UK tax resident, so we will not need to worry about CGT on our shares if we decide to sell them to our boys at that point. We will probably loan them the money to buy us out, which in reality will be a paper exercise. The company will pay us for those shares out of its future profits. We may well charge interest on that loan too, because that could reduce the profits for the business and HMRC will not tax us on that interest as non-residents. We will take further professional advice from Property118 if and when we do go down that route, but at the moment the prospects of moving to Cyprus or Portugal and becoming increasingly luring.

That said, if rents continue to go up, property values continue to go down and financing becomes viable again we might just be persuaded to dive back in again, leverage up our business and build our portfolio back up. Or perhaps that’s what the boys will do? Choices, choices, choices!

The bottom line is this, if you’re feeling trapped we highly recommend you book a tax planning consultation with the Property118 team. There expertise and advice has quite literally been life changing for us.

 

 

Im not a a tax advsuier looks like theyre going for S162

Dont klnow how many eyars youd need to be abroad for the hsed the CGT liability

https://chacc.co.uk/tax-blog/transferring-property-to-limited-company/

 

https://www.gov.uk/incorporation-relief

Incorporation Relief

You may be able to delay paying Capital Gains Tax if you transfer your business to a company in return for shares.

Incorporation Relief means you will not pay any tax until you sell (or ‘dispose of’) the shares.

Eligibility

To qualify for Incorporation Relief, you must:

• be a sole trader or in a business partnership
• transfer the business and all its assets (except cash) in return for shares in the company

How to claim

You do not have to claim Incorporation Relief - you’ll get it automatically if you’re eligible.

To work out the amount you need to pay Capital Gains Tax on, deduct the gain you made when selling your business from the market value of the shares you received.

[eek]

1 hour ago, sancho panza said:

Im not a a tax advsuier looks like theyre going for S162

Dont klnow how many eyars youd need to be abroad for the hsed the CGT liability

https://chacc.co.uk/tax-blog/transferring-property-to-limited-company/

 

https://www.gov.uk/incorporation-relief

Incorporation Relief

You may be able to delay paying Capital Gains Tax if you transfer your business to a company in return for shares.

Incorporation Relief means you will not pay any tax until you sell (or ‘dispose of’) the shares.

Eligibility

To qualify for Incorporation Relief, you must:

• be a sole trader or in a business partnership
• transfer the business and all its assets (except cash) in return for shares in the company

How to claim

You do not have to claim Incorporation Relief - you’ll get it automatically if you’re eligible.

To work out the amount you need to pay Capital Gains Tax on, deduct the gain you made when selling your business from the market value of the shares you received.

And I look at that (with my 15 years  experience of looking (and laughing) at crap tax schemes sold to contractors)  and think hmm there is a lot of nuance missing here. And HMRC are going to look at £3 million of lost capital gains and think - hmm worth investigating everyone using this type of scheme.

And there is a hell of a lot of nuance here.

Edit to add Firstly the CGT is due on the whole value of the property but because mortgages are involved only half (possibly even less) of the equity was transferred into shares...

Edited May 4, 2023 by eek

[sancho panza]

https://propertyindustryeye.com/renters-reform-bill-set-to-arrive-next-week-michael-gove-confirms/

The long-awaited legislation to improve renters’ rights is set to finally be published next week – more than four years after the government pledged to abolish Section 21 evictions.

In 2019, the then prime minister, Theresa May, promised to scrap Section 21 evictions, and later that year Boris Johnson vowed in the Conservative party general election manifesto “a better deal for renters”, including the eviction ban.

Ministers published a rental reform white paper in summer 2022, but with six different housing ministers since 2021, draft legislation has yet to go before parliament for debate.

The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove, has announced that the draft bill will be published next week and would “change the way the relationship between landlords and tenants works, providing tenants with new protection, which should ensure they are better protected against arbitrary rent increases”.

Edited May 5, 2023 by sancho panza

[sancho panza]

https://propertyindustryeye.com/mps-could-be-earning-as-much-as-2-2m-a-year-from-renting-out-homes/

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and the home secretary, Suella Braverman, are among five cabinet ministers who earn at least £10,000 a year renting out property, a new snapshot of parliament’s landlords has revealed.

The study, carried out by campaign group 38 Degrees, counted 87 MP landlords – more than 13% of the Commons – of whom 53 claimed rental income from one home and 34 from two or more properties.

Hunt has declared he operates seven flats in Southampton, while Braverman, Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, and Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, all declared one rental property in the latest House of Commons members’ register of financial interests.

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, declared a flat in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, and a share in a cottage in Gloucestershire, both producing more than £10,000 a year in income.

On the Labour frontbench, David Lammy, Emily, Lady Nugee and Lucy Powell are all landlords.

Overall, MPs could be earning as much as £2.2m a year from renting out homes, the research found.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

https://propertyindustryeye.com/renters-reform-bill-set-to-arrive-next-week-michael-gove-confirms/

The long-awaited legislation to improve renters’ rights is set to finally be published next week – more than four years after the government pledged to abolish Section 21 evictions.

In 2019, the then prime minister, Theresa May, promised to scrap Section 21 evictions, and later that year Boris Johnson vowed in the Conservative party general election manifesto “a better deal for renters”, including the eviction ban.

Ministers published a rental reform white paper in summer 2022, but with six different housing ministers since 2021, draft legislation has yet to go before parliament for debate.

The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove, has announced that the draft bill will be published next week and would “change the way the relationship between landlords and tenants works, providing tenants with new protection, which should ensure they are better protected against arbitrary rent increases”.

I suspect backbench Tory MPs with property portfolios are going to drag their feet so much on this bill that it won't pass before the general election.

[Wight Flight]

7 hours ago, Darude said:

I suspect backbench Tory MPs with property portfolios are going to drag their feet so much on this bill that it won't pass before the general election.

It isn't even a bill that i think renters want.

just give us back the six month notice period we had during lockdown. No sensible landlord would object to that.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Wight Flight said:

It isn't even a bill that i think renters want.

just give us back the six month notice period we had during lockdown. No sensible landlord would object to that.

Yes. 6 month no fault notice periods from landlords but still 2 months from tenants so they can adapt when life changes would be a big improvement on the current system. Maybe limit rent increases to once a year as in Scotland so tenants have some stability on the financial side too.

[Wight Flight]

43 minutes ago, Darude said:

Yes. 6 month no fault notice periods from landlords but still 2 months from tenants so they can adapt when life changes would be a big improvement on the current system. Maybe limit rent increases to once a year as in Scotland so tenants have some stability on the financial side too.

Yes. Having them the same in a tight market almost guarantees trouble.

A tenant gives notice, landlord bungs property up for rent with an 'available in two months' date and it goes the same day.

So for a tenant given two months notice he only really has a day or so to secure the next place or he will have a gap between his moving out date and getting the keys to his next place.

The best option currently is to make sure you don't end up on a rolling contract and negotiate renewals well in advance.

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

Yes. Having them the same in a tight market almost guarantees trouble.

A tenant gives notice, landlord bungs property up for rent with an 'available in two months' date and it goes the same day.

So for a tenant given two months notice he only really has a day or so to secure the next place or he will have a gap between his moving out date and getting the keys to his next place.

The best option currently is to make sure you don't end up on a rolling contract and negotiate renewals well in advance.

Yes, I agree with this, 2 months is not long enough to reliably complete a property search and actually move.

The date of expiry of the S21 notice is not a 'moving out date', the tenant is perfectly entitled by law to keep paying rent and stay on past the end of the S21 notice with all the same rights and protections but many/most tenants+landlords+agents don't know this and it will cause a lot of stress and aggravation and probably illegal eviction attempts, sometimes aided by local police officers who also don't know the law.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Guest

[Wight Flight]

33 minutes ago, Darude said:

Yes, I agree with this, 2 months is not long enough to reliably complete a property search and actually move.

The date of expiry of the S21 notice is not a 'moving out date', the tenant is perfectly entitled by law to keep paying rent and stay on past the end of the S21 notice with all the same rights and protections but many/most tenants+landlords+agents don't know this and it will cause a lot of stress and aggravation and probably illegal eviction attempts, sometimes aided by local police officers who also don't know the law.

True. But you can kiss your good reference goodbye.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

True. But you can kiss your good reference goodbye.

If the landlord has any sense they will be telling every reference requester that this person is the best tenant I ever had just to get them out. Unfortunately it is always risky in life to rely on another person having any sense.

[Joxer]

1 hour ago, Wight Flight said:

True. But you can kiss your good reference goodbye.

I think I said this before but a landlord trash talking a tenant in situ is a very bad idea . What has the tenant got to lose if the landlord is not willing to help them with a reference. 

A tenant with nothing to lose is the mostly costly type of eviction for a landlord. Easily over £5k for the courts, lawyer and bailiffs, that's before counting the cost of any damage the tenant does in spite.