Want lower rent? Give landlords, not renters more power

Renting. Apparently, everyone’s into it. In fact, it is so normal to rent a house these days that the government has been advised to put plans in place to develop more renter’s rights, and has also been warned that as people enter retirement age, stop working and consequently don’t have the same means to pay their rent, the UK’s economy could take a significant hit which would affect generations to come.

The whole problem really stems from the fact that people are reluctant, or unable, to save any measurable amount of money towards a deposit for a mortgage.

A lot of the time it comes down to mindset. People these days don’t have the drive, the ambition or the will power to save up for a deposit to buy their own home. They’d much rather spend what they earn and bemoan how skint they are at a later date. We could go on about the state of people’s attitudes to money these days, but we want to take this article in a different direction.

As already mentioned, renting property is now the norm in this country and looks set to overtake home ownership in terms of numbers within the next few years. Or does it?

It may yet swing the other way as more and more people feel the rental game is leaving them behind too.

On average, rent is going up at around 3 per cent every year and people are finding that they are being priced out on even the smallest properties.

Because of this scenario, people automatically assume that the landlords are being greedy. They feel that the government needs to step up and take hold of the situation before people have nowhere to go. They believe that if people can’t save up for a deposit and can’t afford rent, then there will be nowhere left to turn, and people will end up living with their parents far longer than they should do.

Unfortunately for these people, however, they’ve completely got the wrong end of the stick.

The rental market isn’t as straight forward as people think. Whilst there may still be some greedy landlords out there, you’d be surprised to hear that because there are so many rental properties available and competition is fierce between landlords, they are actually having to bring their rates down to competitive levels, meaning people are actually getting good rental deals. Or at least they should be…

Some people bemoan the fact that they are paying over the odds on their property when they know that it should be cheaper. We agree. The reason that some people are still paying higher rent than they should be, however, is not because of landlords being greedy – far from it.

The problem is rogue tenants.

Let’s explain. Tenants have a lot of rights to protect them. But these rights, in the wrong hands, are damaging the rental industry and the landlords that are involved.

Most people assume that if a tenant fails to pay their rent money on time, they will be thrown out of the property and will have to find somewhere else to live. And that is what should happen to be fair. But this is Liberal Britain and everyone and their dog has ‘rights’.

Instead what we are seeing is that a small number of tenants are making excuse after excuse when they are late paying their rent.

You’d think property owners would throw the tenants out immediately, but there are rules in place which says they can’t do this and they have to give them ‘x’ amount of time to pay up. Landlords then face a shortfall and take a hit because people can’t be grown up enough to manage their finances and pay their rent when it is due. The rights that incompetent tenants have are the reason why many landlords are having to put a premium on their rental prices. As always, the rest of us have to pay for the minority.

Yet again, genuinely hard-working people intent on paying rent at the date that it is due are having to pay for the incompetent minority who fail to pay their rent on time and abuse the rights that they have as tenants to ensure they can’t be removed from the property.

It stinks. People are directing their anger and frustration at the wrong people. As previously said, we appreciate that rents need to be lower, but rent money isn’t lining the pockets of the landlords like people assume. They are having to put rents up slightly in order to financially prepare should they have rogue tenants elsewhere that are failing to pay their money on time.

The system is wrong and until someone stands up and makes a change, the good people of the country will be left hard done to, yet again, because of the minority scumbags getting to do whatever they please.

Laws need to change. There should be a strike system whereby if rent is late more than three times, that’s it, they’re out. Instead they’re given chance after chance and decent landlords and the decent people of the country are paying for the dregs of our society.

People who feel aggrieved shouldn’t take it out on landlords, instead the government needs pressing and lobbying to make necessary changes.

We appreciate that tenants need rights. It’s swings and roundabouts as wherever there are troublesome tenants, there will also be exploitative landlords who also need keeping in check.

Without tenants’ rights landlords would be able to charge whatever they wanted, wouldn’t need to give people notice if they wanted them to leave and could potentially shirk any responsibilities that they have if there was a problem with the property.

But there must be a balance. The rights that are currently in place are ridiculously one sided and the landlords, in all honesty, don’t stand a chance if a tenant decides that they can’t pay. Legal costs also mean landlords put up with a lot more than they should from rogue tenants.

Ultimately, we should blame the ‘something for nothing’ mindset that our country has adopted in recent years but to be frank it’s the government’s fault for allowing these ludicrous tenancy laws to ever come to fruition. Let’s tackle the government on this and only then will we probably see rent prices come down.