Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Yeah it's important to remember that renting in the UK, from private landlords at least, is akin to being a peasant "renting" a lord's land. You have very little rights, contracts are short term with even shorter notice periods, and the whole general attitude to it is that you are paying for temporary lodgings in somebody else's property as opposed to renting your home space.

It's not set up for long term rental rights like Germany or the Nordics - but I'm not sure this is really true. The courts tend to be pretty protective of tenants because they recognise the imbalance of power. The big issue is that many tenants don't know and can't enforce their rights.

Legal aid is only available for a few housing issues and not general tenant and landlord - plus many tenants might not qualify for legal aid.

I used to do pro bono at a legal advice clinic normally with real estate lawyers because so many people came in with housing issues. I can't remember a single time when the landlord's position was right legally - it was normally things like refusing to do repairs or issues with the deposit or a contract that tried to pretend it was one type of tenancy when factually (and therefore legally) it was another etc.

There definitely should be more rights for tenants but I think the big problem is most are not able to enforce their existing rights. I saw an article recently by someone who was able to sue (I think using the renters' union) and they and their flatmates won £15k in a settlement. The landlord hadn't done repairs, hadn't protected their deposit and hadn't registered - all of which are legally required. It's more that landlords can get away with a lot rather than that tenants don't have rights.

The other point on right to buy is that social housing isn't the only housing support in the UK there's also housing benefit which is paying rent to a private landlord through the benefit system. This is tied to market rate in each council. There's a fair amount of evidence that right to buy properties have largely recycled back to the private rental market - where it is often being let to people on housing benefit. I think my flat was probably right to buy - I'm in a council block but rent it privately.

I also think the discount on right to buy plus reduction in the assets held by the council have probably had an impact on the ability of councils to build new housing. I think it's a huge problem because my view is that we have a huge supply issue and right to buy kneecapped a major source of housing stock:


The numbers are broadly similar since 2010 too (a little up-tick in council housing and private builds recovered from the financial crisis). But we basically build 1-200,000 fewer homes than we did before right to buy - and we've had faster population growth than we had back then (not least because we were a net emigration country until the 90s).

[garbon]

Yeah it's important to remember that renting in the UK, from private landlords at least, is akin to being a peasant "renting" a lord's land. You have very little rights, contracts are short term with even shorter notice periods, and the whole general attitude to it is that you are paying for temporary lodgings in somebody else's property as opposed to renting your home space.

Not my experience at all in the two rentals I'd had in UK (one directly with owner and one through property management company).

[Josquius]

There's such a broad range of setups for private rents its impossible to describe them with one size fits all. My last place for instance was pretty decent- rented it via a guy by dad knows and though we had official paperwork we just handled everything very informally and trouble free. No random inspections, no pushback about repairs, etc...
However its generally the case that the poorest and most vulnerable in society end up with the shittiest most temporary situations (thus furthering their poorness and vulnerability)

[Gups]

Having worked for local authority housing department in the early 1990s I can tell you that the public sector isn't always or even often a great landlord either. My onw, Lambeth, got a constant stream of actions against it for disrepair while trying to evict tenants for non-payment of rent due to the failure of the Council's own housing benefit department to process payments.

[Josquius]

Having worked for local authority housing department in the early 1990s I can tell you that the public sector isn't always or even often a great landlord either. My onw, Lambeth, got a constant stream of actions against it for disrepair while trying to evict tenants for non-payment of rent due to the failure of the Council's own housing benefit department to process payments.

A bit harder for them to hide than private landlords however, and more chance of the press taking notice when they are failing.

[Sheilbh]

I've been lucky with landlords - only really bad ones I've had were when I was a student/first year in London.

But everyone I know has at least one horror story.

[Sheilbh]

Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
Exclusive:

Boris Johnson will tomorrow announce plans to allow low earners to use benefits to buy a home

He wants to change rules so people can use benefits to pass affordability checks & make monthly mortgage repayments

This seems like a perfectly fine idea - and some lenders already do it. The banks might require some form of government guarantee if they believe they're taking on increased credit risk.

But it's getting the problem wrong, I think. The issue most renters have isn't mortgage affordability or the ability to make monthly repayments (though - as a renter maybe buying it really annoys me that many years of paying rent that is more than the cost of a mortgage is not sufficient evidence that I can afford the mortgage ) - it's saving a deposit while renting:


The reason deposits have increased so much is less linked to LTV calculations, affordability and bank stress tests than how much house prices are increasing. And the really perverse thing is that you can't get certain benefits if you have more than £16,000 of savings (as a household).

But again - as with right to buy, with stamp duty freezes etc rather than do anything to address the lack of supply we will, once again, subsidise demand instead

[Tamas]

It's a Johnson thing so any of it becoming real is miniscule at best, but, you can tell the housing market IS cooling off because the government is brainstorming a bunch of ideas of prop-up demand, like easing mortgage requirements, spending rent benefits on help to buy schemes instead, and such great ideas:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/08/boris-johnson-lancashire-speech-housing-economic

EDIT: Sheilbhed

[Tamas]

But again - as with right to buy, with stamp duty freezes etc rather than do anything to address the lack of supply we will, once again, subsidise demand instead

yes but I think this is completely by design as opposed to some incompetence.

[Sheilbh]

yes but I think this is completely by design as opposed to some incompetence.

I actually saw it phrased that way in a meme from some Californian where there are similar issues. The same is true in Ireland, I think it's true in other states in the US (just really extreme in parts of California) and in Canada too.

I think it's a choice more than anything - building and increasing supply requires spending political capital and fighting for groups who don't have much capital and are less likely to vote, and the people who oppose any increased supply have capital (social, political and economic) and vote.

And it's cross-party. Just today I saw the Lib Dem MP who won the Chesham and Amersham by election popping up to talk about cost of living - which is fine, but I find a little rich when the average cost of a one bed flat in her constituency is £1,800 and she's just led a successful campaign to block the construction of 350 houses (including 150 on social rent) on the site of a disused golf course because the green belt

[Admiral Yi]

In the short term its fine in theory. Guy who has been living  in his council home for 40 years becomes an owner. Good feelings all round.
In the long term a lot of these houses fall into the hands of private landlords, which means they're for rent, albeit for a significantly higher price and under a messy patchwork of owners. This turn-around is really becoming clear in recent years now the original buyers are largely gone (not necessarily from this world).

That sounds like WAD to me.  Someone buys their council house, they build up equity, then at some point they sell off and move to nicer digs.

[Josquius]

In the short term its fine in theory. Guy who has been living  in his council home for 40 years becomes an owner. Good feelings all round.
In the long term a lot of these houses fall into the hands of private landlords, which means they're for rent, albeit for a significantly higher price and under a messy patchwork of owners. This turn-around is really becoming clear in recent years now the original buyers are largely gone (not necessarily from this world).

That sounds like WAD to me.  Someone buys their council house, they build up equity, then at some point they sell off and move to nicer digs.

Yes.
Which is a problem.
It obviously works well for the individuals that get to benefit - and makes them more inclined to vote tory.
But this short term gain where nobody looses out is offset by the longer term negative effects to society and the economy.

[Sheilbh]

I don't have an issue with right to buy as long as there's a good replacement policy on the other side. The problem is that basically for the reason Jos mentioned both sides disagree with one wing or other of that: Tories dislike social housing so much they can't make the leap to see a role for it; much of the left is instinctively anti-right to buy because of the fear it creates Tory voters.

Having said that the Tories should probably look at social housing from a purely political perspective because polling is that social housing residents are far more likely to vote Tory than people who are renting privately. Private renting is absolute kryptonite for the Tory vote - it produces Labour voters and increasingly radical Labour voters because the market is dysfunctional.

But I think right to buy plus a one-in/one-out level of replacement building is something I think would be a good mix.

[Josquius]

I don't think it creates tories in the sense of being a home owner making you more Conservative. Rather because it's a direct bribe. Vote tory and get this thing.

The trouble with the idea of right to buy even if there's a one in one out rule is not all housing is the same. It basically just gives us a pretty similar situation to what we do have where social housing becomes worse and worse over time as all the good examples get bought up leaving behind just shit.

Land is finite and if you sell off a social estate in the middle of London there's no way that Borough could possibly replace it.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I guess the question is: if you sell all the social housing in London, where will the next generation of people who can't afford market rent live? On the street? Or just not in London?

And if you sell off all the social housing in the UK, where will those people live? On the street? Or not in the UK?