Housing charity calls for changes to private renting

Shelter is calling for the introduction of a new renting contract to give greater stability to the growing numbers of people who rent their homes from a private landlord.

The housing charity calls for a new kind of tenancy called the Stable Rental Contract to become the norm across the rental market in England. The contract would give renters more stability to put down roots, and landlords more certainty of a good return on their investment. The charity says the new Stable Rental Contract would:

* Last for five years, giving renters the chance to put down roots
* Increase rents in line with inflation each year, giving landlords predictable incomes and renters predictable outgoings
* Give landlords confidence that they can easily evict genuinely bad tenants
* Allow landlords to end the tenancy if they sell the property
* Give renters flexibility, allowing them to give two months notice to leave.

Over the last fifteen years, the number of people who rent their home from a landlord has almost doubled to 8.5 million people, and nearly a third of renters are families with children. At the same time, Shelter’s research shows that 35% of renting families worry about their landlord ending their contract before they’re ready to move out. More than one in four renters (28%) don’t think a rented home is a suitable place to bring up children.

Two thirds say they’d like the option of staying in their home long-term, but the current average stay in a rented home is 20 months.

The charity’s report also draws on research by property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle showing that the Stable Rental Contract could increase landlords’ return on their property investments. Compared to the irregular way that some landlords currently increase rents on their properties, their returns would actually be increased with longer-term tenancies and predictable rent rises in line with inflation.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “With a generation priced out of home ownership, renting is the only choice for growing numbers of people. But with the possibility of eviction with just two months’ notice, and constant worries about when the next rent rise will hit, the current rental market isn’t giving people – particularly families – the stability they need to put down roots.

“Turning rented houses into homes should be a priority for everyone who cares about the wellbeing of families in this country, and government must now show the political will to make renting better for millions of people desperate for a stable home they can rely on.”

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• hoinarylup

  It’s quite possible that 35% of renting families do indeed worry about their landlord ending their contract before they’re ready to move out. It is also possible that about the same proportion of landlords, or perhaps even more, worry about their tenants failing to pay the rent, sub-letting, trashing the place, using every trick in the book to resist eviction (which can get them six months rent-free easily), or running up huge bills with Council tax, water, gas electricity and telephone then doing a flit. This can cause a landlord huge grief, even though the bills aren’t in their name, because many bailiffs and collection agencies are quite unscrupulous, legally unregulated, and make it very difficult to pursue them if they remove stuff they shouldn’t.

  The whole rental area is a minefield. In instances where it works well, it does so not because of the law, but because a tenant who is an innately decent person gets lucky and finds a landlord who is one too. Luckily most people are pretty decent. Unfortunately, it’s often the sociopaths who prosper enough to get into positions where they own a lot of rental property.

  Market relationships make no allowance for ideas like “innate decency”. In a market relationship, every person involved is supposed to be a rationally self-interested actor out to get as much as they can out of the exchange. If a landlord can make more money by squeezing his tenants until the pips squeak; if he can save money by making promises instead of doing repairs, If a tenant can save money by being late with the rent, or finding plausible excuses for non-payment, they have a market incentive to do so.

  Ideas like decency and restraint are based in some kind of shared social code. A pure, unregulated, market economy is corrosive of such ideas. If we translate the economists’ jargon into plain English, “a rationally self-interested actor out to get as much as they can out of the exchange.” is pretty close to “a person who is motivated by naked greed”.

  In other words, our dominant social values legitimise and encourage sociopathic behaviour. A sociopath is a person who does not acknowledge any social restraints on their behaviour. That notorious phrase “strictly speaking, there is no such thing as society” describes their attitudes perfectly.

  Unfortunately, for the last thirty years, we have been forced to listen to the mantra “markets good, regulation bad” all day every day. The idea that we should all act like sociopaths has become respectable orthodoxy. It is a tribute to human nature that so many people do not. It is also the only thing that keeps life even halfway tolerable.

  Shelter’s proposals probably are a good idea for both landlords and tenants. But without a major shift in the values our society is based on, they will just be a new set of rules for the more unscrupulous types of both landlord and tenant to skirmish around.

• http://www.property118.com/ Mark Alexander

  WARNING TO LANDLORDS – If you have a buy to let mortgage and use Shelters proposed agreement there is a very good chance that you will be in breach of your mortgage condition. Some lenders MUST reduce their loan books (Mortgage Express for example) and I wouldn’t put it past them to call in your mortgages if you breach mortgages conditions in this way. Shelters plan is well intentioned but flawed for this reason. I have shared the solution with them but they are blanking me – a landlord helping Shelter – God forbid! If you would like to know more about my solution please Google “The GOOD Landlords Campaign”

• snotcricket

  Might I suggest that most landlords would be only too pleased to find a long term tenant for property. This guarantees continuity of income & usually means a tenat who resepects the property they live in thus reducing maintenance costs etc.

• clouty

  Shelter are talking absolute sense. Their proposals sound very like what is already in place and working well in many other European countries. The current UK system is bad for both Landlords and Tenants.