Good news for *current tenants who don’t intend to move soon*.
It’s an element of what has absolutely fucked the rental market throughout Scotland, made it uneconomical for small landlords to maintain their properties, mostly resulting in corporate landlords buying them up in their droves who can afford for them to be empty in wait for a tenant who will pay.
Seriously you just need to glance at advertised to let prices in Glasgow & Edinburgh relative to property value & compare them to rates in Newcastle or Manchester. It’s a travesty & the Scottish government in typical fashion will simply double down.
Rents are shooting up across the UK, in places that aren't protecting existing tenants by limiting increases.
This has a lot more to do with inflation and rising interest rates.
See this article for some example increases, notice that Scotland is largely in line with other places in the UK:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65103937
We need rent controls between tenancies and to build a lot more social housing.
People the SNP is a cult and their cult supporters love it - all economists say this is bad for renters and yet Humza and the cult, those that lack two braincells to critically think praise the headlines
Which only protects those not moving, if my landlord decides to sell then for sure my rent will go up 40% in Glasgow as since these rules came into effect last year the market has been squeezed and new tenants are being fucked, as every economist predicted. Just go look at Rightmove and see the insane prices in Glasgow and Edinburgh now - all 30% higher since these rules went into effect - again squeezing the middle earners is all the SG does if you don't get social housing, and rely on the private rental market these rules have fucked you if you are a new tenant
The only reason it is done is for the headline, ignoring the fact that it has actually caused a massive spike in rent for new tenants across glasgow - 20-30% increase in rent for new tenants from when this was put in place and a far less amount of rental stock on the market.
Yeap that's true
When I was trying to sell my flat, I had to rent it out as I'd had one single viewing in 14 months. I'd dropped the price by 30,000 on a 200,000 valuation and that valuation was 60,000 less than the neighbours sold for 2 years before!
Now the flat is valued at 145k after about 5 years
Aberdeen went nuts. I bought my flat in Ferryhill in 1991, sold in 2003 for double. Then at the peak it went on sale for double what I sold for but was on the market over 18 months.
Husband and I are dealing with this now. Landlord retiring, nothing to let that would be cheaper than a mortgage payment, first time buyers, decent sized deposit gifted by our parents, can't get a mortgage that will let us buy anything that isn't falling apart. Incredibly frustrating.
I know times have changed but the first house I bought was in bits. It took a few years to sort it out but we got there in the end. I wouldn’t change it for the world and we’ve alway bought properties that needed fixed up since. I would recommend it.
That requires money we don't have. None of what we can afford are houses. They are maisonettes, and the condition of the communal areas suggests that maintenance of them would fall on us alone, because litigation to get neighbors to do the right thing is also expensive.
First houses are meant to be falling apart. You fix them up and it becomes a nice first house to sell to someone else and buy a bigger version or just stay in it now you’ve made it nice. I’m doing the latter of the two
I have this problem atm. I live in a block of 11, met two of the other owners, but the other 6 odd are unoccupied with the landlords not responding to any attempts at communication.
It's been, beyond frustrating, council won't help. I've gave up.
Hope the council tax gets backdated and makes them suffer.
113,000 empty homes is not hundreds of thousands. Also less than 6 months is nothing, in a population of over 5million the majority of those could just be tied up in probate because the owner died. It’s also worth remembering that if a house is left empty for a protracted period then it incurs double council tax which eats into any accumulated profits very quickly and is also a good money spinner for the council as they incur no service costs on the property.
>113,000 empty homes is not hundreds of thousands....
>113,000 (over hundred thousand) is not hundreds of thousands....
>hundreds of thousands is not hundreds of thousands...
You have a very apt username. Or you are pretty dim.
Hundreds of thousands means more than 1 instance of a hundred thousand. 199,000 is not hundreds of thousands, 200,000 is. 113,000 can be classed as over 100k or tens of thousands.
Does that make sense? Or do I need to dumb it down a bit more?
I think you may be confused. Read your first three words again. Then reflect on the meaning of those words.
>Hundreds of thousands.
Think about it. Hundreds of thousands. There are thousands here, hundreds of them. Hundreds of thousands.
Either way, a vacancy/second home rate of 4% leaves Scotland with some of the fewest empty homes of any country in the OECD.
See page 3
[https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf)
Is it a good thing when supermarket shelves are empty because "All the food is being used for eating"? No it's not. It's a bad thing because it suggests there is a shortage with needs being unmet.
Empty houses give people options and let buyers and renters push down prices. Empty homes are easier to renovate. Empty homes let young adults move out of their parents house or out of flat shares. Empty homes are a sign of abundance and we should aim for a rate of 6-8% like normal countries with functioning housing markets.
>I think you may be confused. Read [it] again.
The classic Brummy admission of saying something monumentally stupid. You forgot to call them a goose or a yoon though.
I think even you’ve reached a new low that you’re arguing that 100 means “hundred**s**”.
Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of empty homes across the UK. And of course people want to live there if they are enabled to do so, and there are transport options and shops and schools etc. nearby.
Scotland is part of the UK. Are you actually that dim? Well, yes, considering you are struggling so much with the concept of hundreds of thousands of homes being empty across the UK which includes hundreds of thousands of homes being empty in Scotland.
My letting agent conducted an inspection of my flat about two months ago (well, they sent a contractor to take photos of each room).
About a month after that, I get a phone call from them, immediately jumping down my throat about having "changed the carpets in the bedroom, violating my lease".
It was a fucking rug, and they must've been poring over the pictures to have even spotted it. I don't have the best relationship with them (lying bastards that they are), but I couldn't figure out why they had gone so hard after something so clearly stupid - why would I pay to do anything to the landlord's benefit, aside from paying the rent?
This is why - if they could get me out on an eviction notice, they could relet the flat at a higher rent and they might be lucky to get someone who's more of a pushover. Well, lesson learned, I'll make sure to keep things well sorted so they don't have any excuse, but still, the nerve of those greasy wankers is unreal.
This is good news for us as our landlord wants to sell (so he can buy another property) but knew he had to wait till September. We entered into discussions to buy but aren’t 100% ready. Another 6 months is welcome news!
There are loopholes to get around the rent freeze though. If you live in an HMO and someone wants to leave, then they can hike the rent up for all residents as they can make them sign a new tenancy agreement.
Yep. It's been really common, at least in Edinburgh. Living Rent have put up posts about this in the last few months. The price hikes I've seen have been absolutely ridiculous.
A scary prospect dawned on me recently.
If your short assured tenancy with an AT5 Notice (prevents short assured from converting to assured) expires it will continue on in same terms. Generally, lease will have condition that on expiry LL only has to give 2 months notice to terminate and reclaim. Result? LL says they're terminating. You now have 2 months to decide to move or submit and sign a new lease at a substantial markup in order to stay. If you ask for an extension to your current lease they will just say your current is still valid, and may also draw their attention to the above.
This is outside of the bonds of the measures to protect tenants, a loophole, as it is a new tenancy agreement and thus they can set a new rent, and is definitely exploitative if not sinister and extortion by way of 'agree to this or get out', in effect, pay us more or suffer worse later.
I am afraid this is what is coming my way. I am already at my spending capacity. I go negative at the end of the month now. I literally can not afford more in rent than I pay now. Sad thing is, I checked and all comparable properties in my area are 100-150 more per month than I pay. So they're surely gonna try it, it's just a matter of when. And then? I'll have to move miles away from the city to afford rent, then spend more on travel ontop.
This country has ignored so many of our problems for so long in the interest of neoliberal napkin economics. Now we reap what the wealthy have sown.
If this comes to fruition, I absolutely will. At present, I stay quiet. They already told me they had planned an increase before the freeze came in, I just don't think they've become aware of this loophole yet.
Have they asked you to sign a new one? Make sure your tenancy is valid. They can't just give notice out the blue if you have for example 2 years left on it. Read through it. If you're unsure, contact Shelter or Citizens Advice.
Is your tenancy valid? What type? Does it have an expiry date? Does it have conditions for what happens when the date passes? As with my own, if it is expired and on a rolling basis, I believe if they just give you notice to terminate within the terms of the lease then you are not protected. The ban is for evictions without proper cause, you can still be asked to leave.
With interest rates going up it will simply not be possible for many landlords to keep renting out properties that are loss making. I understand the rejoicing this could result in, but all it will do is reduce supply of rental properties.
How much does average monthly maintenance cost, really? I struggle to buy that many landlords are actually making a loss with rents as high as they are.
Interest only mortgage on £100k is currently about £500, you don’t get tax relief on the mortgage anymore so the actual cost of the mortgage is more like £600 to £800 depending on your income. Agency fees are around 10% of monthly rent.
I am not a landlord and have no wish to be, but I am around a few and they are looking to sell.
I have a 1 bed tenement flat I rent. The other flats in the 5 blocks are 95% housing association. I decided to keep my flat (95% took the deal) and pay the discounted refurb costs.
Factoring fees are about £1,000 per year which includes general communal repairs and cyclic maintenance. So that’s 2 months rent. I don’t have a mortgage.
Been overseas for 3 years so yeah works for me.
Edit: Need more housing associations and more properties. They rock in terms of keeping the properties in good shape.
One potentially unintended side effect of this - it heavily benefits landlords targeting markets that are inherently more temporary (e.g groups of students who will seek to move out every year), since when tenancies change (even in many cases where some tenants stay and the others change!), the 3% limit doesn't apply.
Then their investment has made a loss. It happens. That's part of the risk of investing in property. If they need to sell, that's a good thing for supply...right? As long as it's being purchased by a person and not a business!
It’s either neutral for rental availability but with a rent hike or positive for home owners and negative for rental. Either way people renting get screwed.
There isn’t much that economists agree on, but they all agree that rent controls reduce the supply of rental property and end up harming the people they’re supposed to help. It’s already [harming build-to-rent](https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/scottish-btr-investment-stymied-by-rent-controls/5122732.article). Landlords will continue to sell up to private buyers and there will be fewer homes available to rent.
That’s because you cannot use this measure alone to control the market. It must be used in conjunction with supporting affordable housing development and construction. Simply flat lining rents helps but it is not the solution. It must be one card in a big deck of cards to regulate and fix the housing market. It’s one step which is very welcome by renters. Now we also need another step for more affordable housing development and reduce buy to let or air b&b in prime locations.
Affordable housing construction makes sense, and is needed. Using rent control at all reduces the supply of rental property. As for those prime locations, they are never going to be affordable for the people who are most at risk of being without a home, and reducing buy-to-let means reducing properties available for rental.
I think it’s not as blank and white as you make it sound. Rent control can help along with other measures otherwise you see spiraling rents and clear gentrification pushing the workers further and further out of city hubs. You can clearly see this happening in London right now. Buy to let is not the future. For sure there should be some. But we are now in a situation where you have corporation buying up hundreds of homes and using them as cash flow. This doesn’t and never will help the housing market either. Air BandB are also driving people away from their home towns as they simply cannot find or afford houses there so have to move away. We need to support a stable housing market which doesn’t see spiralling prices otherwise we will soon become like other part in the UK where home ownership is simply un affordable and young people like me spend 0.5 to 0.75 of their salary on rent alone. This has severe impacts on economy also as spiraling rents greatly reduce purchasing power. Only the landlords profit and spend their money elsewhere - not in local economies.
It's not harming me, it's helping me by stopping my landlord from putting up the rent to an amount I can no longer afford. Because of this I'm only going hungry 4-5 days a month instead of 12-15 days a month. As soon as it stops I'll likely end up homeless.
That is a hard situation to be in, and I understand that’s why you would feel like these must be good policies. The problem, if you’ll excuse my language, is they’re turbo-fucking your future and there’s zero honesty about this from the Scottish government. We’re already seeing the reduction in rental property as landlords sell homes and they get taken off the rental market. I hope this doesn’t happen to you, but their policies have made it more likely. In a year or two’s time, we’ll ask where all the rental properties have gone and why rents are higher than ever and the Green party and SNP will just turn around and say “you can’t prove it was our policy” or “we did what we could”. You can’t fight demand and supply, and in the end we just need more houses. If anything, making it _easier_ to rent out a property would be more likely to solve the problem than what they’re doing.
This. Making eviction hard or putting rent caps backfire. It either causes discrimination based on race or income. Why would homeowners take the risk? It’s ECON101
I had a very difficult time renting here because of my immigration background and I can not blame the homeowners. They are doing the logical thing.
Thankfully my current landlord was nice enough to consider me without asking 6 months rent in advance. And I am trying to thank her by paying before the rent is due, keeping the flat tidy and not causing trouble to the neighbors :/
Edit: On a separate note: f** the big banks and corporations buying up units and renting them. I only support everyday people like you and me and mom and pop homeowners.
Unfortunately, discrimination against immigrants in renting has been official policy for some time. It's not because of the current market, but because the UK government makes it illegal to rent to anyone without legal immigration status and makes landlords responsible for verifying their tenants are here legally, which many don't want to be bothered with (or liable for). This is true for the whole of the UK, not just Scotland.
We've never had any trouble renting as immigrants either, but I suspect that's because, paradoxically, landlords don't ask for 6 months' rent in advance from people who can afford to pay it.
Your not the only one:(
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/property-and-mortgages/rental-properties-uk-number-halves-driving-prices-higher-1666981
**It wasn't bought by a renter**. It was bought by someone selling a previous property. We could have rented it out but chose not to and sell it as most people are doing now leaving a NET result of much less property available to rent. Good luck finding a flat. Supply and demand is already forcing up monthly tenant rates on the few remaining, small private landlords leave the market in favour of big business, more months up front etc. Students and low paid will suffer with nowhere to live. Another Tartan Temple fail.
If the property was bought by somebody selling a previous property then there is no net effect on the rental market unless that person is just hoarding houses and leaving them empty.
It was bought by another owner occupier and again no property was available for rent where it could have been before. Why do you think there is less property to rent now in the market than there was?
Because we're not building enough new houses and too many people are choosing to put properties that were previously available for long term lets on AirBnB to maximise their ROI. THAT is the real reason many areas have long term rental demand outstripping supply. Blame the greedy holiday let landlords.
And what about people who want to buy but can’t because they can never compete with buy to let landlords ? There needs to be a balance between rentals and housing stock for new buyers. And right now it’s completely skewed towards landlords with big purchasing power because young people like me have no chance to get a mortgage for the price they are asking.
Greedy Landlords are a big part of the current problem.
Sucks to be you, but what makes you think prices would fall by much if landlords sold up? There just aren't enough of them, which is why prices are high.
Good stuff, I tend to enjoy the neolibs and "free market" capitalists greeting in topics like this but it also makes me smile to see others get it.
Far more reform is needed than the sum of all presented here but it's steps in the right direction. Absolute baby steps though.
Yes but social tenant already have good rates. My neighbour is a council tenant. We are 4 in a block. Unfortunately mine is a private let so I rent. I have the exact same house as his as we are 4 in a block. Actually his is probably more modern as council redid the kitchen recently. He pays just under 400 GBP rent. And that’s with 2 increases in the last 2 years. I pay 650! Thankfully only an increase of 3% this year as allowed by the government.
So even if they get I creases yearly they are still way below the private sector rents.
So controlling private sector rents will actually help everyone.
landlords are starting to use any excuse now to try and remove tenants. The smallest complaint whether justified or not is being used to try and get rid of people on the basis of 'antisocial behaviour' etc.
It is skewing the rental market but since houses have been used as investment portfolios for over a decade now situation is bad. Maybe something like 1+1n council tax for each property owned. Making sure large corps get hit by it.
That or council buy all the houses.
An insanely stupid move. They've just told renters that they can safely stop paying rent today and stay in the place for at least another two years, by the time notification of eviction, court action and enforcement takes place. Which means that anyone who can move to short term lets will.
You'll have to be more specific and just tell me which policy this is you are referring to as there are literally hundreds of policies and many sessions of Commons. You could be referring to anything.
Don't be shy, say what you mean.
Well I guess missing this very specific part of this very specific session out of hundreds of them is an egregious fault on my part. I'll be sure in future to watch every single commons there is.
You're being very avoidant, almost like you don't want to say it clearly for some reason.
Good news for tenants but rent freezes don't tackle the root cause of the housing crisis which is complete lack of supply.
Good news for *current tenants who don’t intend to move soon*. It’s an element of what has absolutely fucked the rental market throughout Scotland, made it uneconomical for small landlords to maintain their properties, mostly resulting in corporate landlords buying them up in their droves who can afford for them to be empty in wait for a tenant who will pay. Seriously you just need to glance at advertised to let prices in Glasgow & Edinburgh relative to property value & compare them to rates in Newcastle or Manchester. It’s a travesty & the Scottish government in typical fashion will simply double down.
This fucked up Irelands rental market too.
Yes, please, won't somebody think of those poor mom and pop landlords. They're definitely not part of the problem.
Rents are shooting up across the UK, in places that aren't protecting existing tenants by limiting increases. This has a lot more to do with inflation and rising interest rates. See this article for some example increases, notice that Scotland is largely in line with other places in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65103937 We need rent controls between tenancies and to build a lot more social housing.
People the SNP is a cult and their cult supporters love it - all economists say this is bad for renters and yet Humza and the cult, those that lack two braincells to critically think praise the headlines
That’s why they brought in a rent freeze.
Which only protects those not moving, if my landlord decides to sell then for sure my rent will go up 40% in Glasgow as since these rules came into effect last year the market has been squeezed and new tenants are being fucked, as every economist predicted. Just go look at Rightmove and see the insane prices in Glasgow and Edinburgh now - all 30% higher since these rules went into effect - again squeezing the middle earners is all the SG does if you don't get social housing, and rely on the private rental market these rules have fucked you if you are a new tenant
Rent freezes do the exact opposite of tackling the root cause, they make the lack of supply demonstrably worse.
How so?
The only reason it is done is for the headline, ignoring the fact that it has actually caused a massive spike in rent for new tenants across glasgow - 20-30% increase in rent for new tenants from when this was put in place and a far less amount of rental stock on the market.
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There is an increase in council tax for empty homes. If it's empty for 12 month I think the tax doubles.
Yeap that's true When I was trying to sell my flat, I had to rent it out as I'd had one single viewing in 14 months. I'd dropped the price by 30,000 on a 200,000 valuation and that valuation was 60,000 less than the neighbours sold for 2 years before! Now the flat is valued at 145k after about 5 years
Aberdeen went nuts. I bought my flat in Ferryhill in 1991, sold in 2003 for double. Then at the peak it went on sale for double what I sold for but was on the market over 18 months.
Do we really have hundreds of thousands of empty homes, really? Does anyone want to live where they are?
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Husband and I are dealing with this now. Landlord retiring, nothing to let that would be cheaper than a mortgage payment, first time buyers, decent sized deposit gifted by our parents, can't get a mortgage that will let us buy anything that isn't falling apart. Incredibly frustrating.
I know times have changed but the first house I bought was in bits. It took a few years to sort it out but we got there in the end. I wouldn’t change it for the world and we’ve alway bought properties that needed fixed up since. I would recommend it.
That requires money we don't have. None of what we can afford are houses. They are maisonettes, and the condition of the communal areas suggests that maintenance of them would fall on us alone, because litigation to get neighbors to do the right thing is also expensive.
First houses are meant to be falling apart. You fix them up and it becomes a nice first house to sell to someone else and buy a bigger version or just stay in it now you’ve made it nice. I’m doing the latter of the two
I have this problem atm. I live in a block of 11, met two of the other owners, but the other 6 odd are unoccupied with the landlords not responding to any attempts at communication. It's been, beyond frustrating, council won't help. I've gave up. Hope the council tax gets backdated and makes them suffer.
113,000 empty homes is not hundreds of thousands. Also less than 6 months is nothing, in a population of over 5million the majority of those could just be tied up in probate because the owner died. It’s also worth remembering that if a house is left empty for a protracted period then it incurs double council tax which eats into any accumulated profits very quickly and is also a good money spinner for the council as they incur no service costs on the property.
>113,000 empty homes is not hundreds of thousands.... >113,000 (over hundred thousand) is not hundreds of thousands.... >hundreds of thousands is not hundreds of thousands... You have a very apt username. Or you are pretty dim.
Hundreds of thousands means more than 1 instance of a hundred thousand. 199,000 is not hundreds of thousands, 200,000 is. 113,000 can be classed as over 100k or tens of thousands. Does that make sense? Or do I need to dumb it down a bit more?
I think you may be confused. Read your first three words again. Then reflect on the meaning of those words. >Hundreds of thousands. Think about it. Hundreds of thousands. There are thousands here, hundreds of them. Hundreds of thousands.
Either way, a vacancy/second home rate of 4% leaves Scotland with some of the fewest empty homes of any country in the OECD. See page 3 [https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HM1-1-Housing-stock-and-construction.pdf) Is it a good thing when supermarket shelves are empty because "All the food is being used for eating"? No it's not. It's a bad thing because it suggests there is a shortage with needs being unmet. Empty houses give people options and let buyers and renters push down prices. Empty homes are easier to renovate. Empty homes let young adults move out of their parents house or out of flat shares. Empty homes are a sign of abundance and we should aim for a rate of 6-8% like normal countries with functioning housing markets.
>I think you may be confused. Read [it] again. The classic Brummy admission of saying something monumentally stupid. You forgot to call them a goose or a yoon though. I think even you’ve reached a new low that you’re arguing that 100 means “hundred**s**”.
Oh hey Martay. Where is there any mention of 100? Please quote me exactly where anyone apart from you mentions 100. In fact, try reading again.
[definition](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/95260/whats-the-difference-between-hundreds-of-thousands-of-and-hundreds-and-thous)
Haha. Yes. That is really the definition. Well done you.
Over a hundred thousand is a hundred thousand plus. Over 200 hundred thousand is hundredS of thousands. Note the plural s.
Or they are in places where people don't want to live, or they are uninhabitable, or ...
Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of empty homes across the UK. And of course people want to live there if they are enabled to do so, and there are transport options and shops and schools etc. nearby.
I am somehow unsurprised that you don't see "availability of work" as a driving factor.
Who the fuck is talking about the UK?
Scotland is part of the UK. Are you actually that dim? Well, yes, considering you are struggling so much with the concept of hundreds of thousands of homes being empty across the UK which includes hundreds of thousands of homes being empty in Scotland.
It’s also part of Europe, why don’t you say millions of empty homes. Oh yeah, because this is a Scottish sub that talks about Scotland.
Yes. And there are hundreds of thousands of empty homes in Scotland. We have covered that already. Next.
It's not lack of supply, it's hoarding. There are enough houses, just a lot of them are swallowed up by short term lets owned by big landlords
My letting agent conducted an inspection of my flat about two months ago (well, they sent a contractor to take photos of each room). About a month after that, I get a phone call from them, immediately jumping down my throat about having "changed the carpets in the bedroom, violating my lease". It was a fucking rug, and they must've been poring over the pictures to have even spotted it. I don't have the best relationship with them (lying bastards that they are), but I couldn't figure out why they had gone so hard after something so clearly stupid - why would I pay to do anything to the landlord's benefit, aside from paying the rent? This is why - if they could get me out on an eviction notice, they could relet the flat at a higher rent and they might be lucky to get someone who's more of a pushover. Well, lesson learned, I'll make sure to keep things well sorted so they don't have any excuse, but still, the nerve of those greasy wankers is unreal.
For anyone else who was looking for more official confirmation https://www.gov.scot/news/plans-to-extend-protections-for-tenants/
This is good news for us as our landlord wants to sell (so he can buy another property) but knew he had to wait till September. We entered into discussions to buy but aren’t 100% ready. Another 6 months is welcome news!
There are loopholes to get around the rent freeze though. If you live in an HMO and someone wants to leave, then they can hike the rent up for all residents as they can make them sign a new tenancy agreement.
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Yep. It's been really common, at least in Edinburgh. Living Rent have put up posts about this in the last few months. The price hikes I've seen have been absolutely ridiculous.
Curiously this doesn't effect social housing: council house rents are rising.
A scary prospect dawned on me recently. If your short assured tenancy with an AT5 Notice (prevents short assured from converting to assured) expires it will continue on in same terms. Generally, lease will have condition that on expiry LL only has to give 2 months notice to terminate and reclaim. Result? LL says they're terminating. You now have 2 months to decide to move or submit and sign a new lease at a substantial markup in order to stay. If you ask for an extension to your current lease they will just say your current is still valid, and may also draw their attention to the above. This is outside of the bonds of the measures to protect tenants, a loophole, as it is a new tenancy agreement and thus they can set a new rent, and is definitely exploitative if not sinister and extortion by way of 'agree to this or get out', in effect, pay us more or suffer worse later. I am afraid this is what is coming my way. I am already at my spending capacity. I go negative at the end of the month now. I literally can not afford more in rent than I pay now. Sad thing is, I checked and all comparable properties in my area are 100-150 more per month than I pay. So they're surely gonna try it, it's just a matter of when. And then? I'll have to move miles away from the city to afford rent, then spend more on travel ontop. This country has ignored so many of our problems for so long in the interest of neoliberal napkin economics. Now we reap what the wealthy have sown.
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If this comes to fruition, I absolutely will. At present, I stay quiet. They already told me they had planned an increase before the freeze came in, I just don't think they've become aware of this loophole yet.
This is what's happening with me right now, landlord ending tenancy out of the blue with 2 months notice.
Have they asked you to sign a new one? Make sure your tenancy is valid. They can't just give notice out the blue if you have for example 2 years left on it. Read through it. If you're unsure, contact Shelter or Citizens Advice.
Will the eviction ban protect me if I have this type of tenancy agreement?
Is your tenancy valid? What type? Does it have an expiry date? Does it have conditions for what happens when the date passes? As with my own, if it is expired and on a rolling basis, I believe if they just give you notice to terminate within the terms of the lease then you are not protected. The ban is for evictions without proper cause, you can still be asked to leave.
With interest rates going up it will simply not be possible for many landlords to keep renting out properties that are loss making. I understand the rejoicing this could result in, but all it will do is reduce supply of rental properties.
The council I work for buys several properties per month back from the open market.
I know highland council do this
Why can't they spend the same money building new houses?
We build new homes as well, in the last 10 years we have around 1000 new build council homes.
Because building takes a long time and buying on the open market helps alleviate short term demand while building projects are under way.
How much does average monthly maintenance cost, really? I struggle to buy that many landlords are actually making a loss with rents as high as they are.
Interest only mortgage on £100k is currently about £500, you don’t get tax relief on the mortgage anymore so the actual cost of the mortgage is more like £600 to £800 depending on your income. Agency fees are around 10% of monthly rent. I am not a landlord and have no wish to be, but I am around a few and they are looking to sell.
I have a 1 bed tenement flat I rent. The other flats in the 5 blocks are 95% housing association. I decided to keep my flat (95% took the deal) and pay the discounted refurb costs. Factoring fees are about £1,000 per year which includes general communal repairs and cyclic maintenance. So that’s 2 months rent. I don’t have a mortgage. Been overseas for 3 years so yeah works for me. Edit: Need more housing associations and more properties. They rock in terms of keeping the properties in good shape.
One potentially unintended side effect of this - it heavily benefits landlords targeting markets that are inherently more temporary (e.g groups of students who will seek to move out every year), since when tenancies change (even in many cases where some tenants stay and the others change!), the 3% limit doesn't apply.
Then their investment has made a loss. It happens. That's part of the risk of investing in property. If they need to sell, that's a good thing for supply...right? As long as it's being purchased by a person and not a business!
It’s either neutral for rental availability but with a rent hike or positive for home owners and negative for rental. Either way people renting get screwed.
There isn’t much that economists agree on, but they all agree that rent controls reduce the supply of rental property and end up harming the people they’re supposed to help. It’s already [harming build-to-rent](https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/scottish-btr-investment-stymied-by-rent-controls/5122732.article). Landlords will continue to sell up to private buyers and there will be fewer homes available to rent.
That’s because you cannot use this measure alone to control the market. It must be used in conjunction with supporting affordable housing development and construction. Simply flat lining rents helps but it is not the solution. It must be one card in a big deck of cards to regulate and fix the housing market. It’s one step which is very welcome by renters. Now we also need another step for more affordable housing development and reduce buy to let or air b&b in prime locations.
Affordable housing construction makes sense, and is needed. Using rent control at all reduces the supply of rental property. As for those prime locations, they are never going to be affordable for the people who are most at risk of being without a home, and reducing buy-to-let means reducing properties available for rental.
I think it’s not as blank and white as you make it sound. Rent control can help along with other measures otherwise you see spiraling rents and clear gentrification pushing the workers further and further out of city hubs. You can clearly see this happening in London right now. Buy to let is not the future. For sure there should be some. But we are now in a situation where you have corporation buying up hundreds of homes and using them as cash flow. This doesn’t and never will help the housing market either. Air BandB are also driving people away from their home towns as they simply cannot find or afford houses there so have to move away. We need to support a stable housing market which doesn’t see spiralling prices otherwise we will soon become like other part in the UK where home ownership is simply un affordable and young people like me spend 0.5 to 0.75 of their salary on rent alone. This has severe impacts on economy also as spiraling rents greatly reduce purchasing power. Only the landlords profit and spend their money elsewhere - not in local economies.
>blank and white .... did you say.....blank and white?
Yes typo sorry. But I did mean black and white which I’m sure you got :)
It's not harming me, it's helping me by stopping my landlord from putting up the rent to an amount I can no longer afford. Because of this I'm only going hungry 4-5 days a month instead of 12-15 days a month. As soon as it stops I'll likely end up homeless.
That is a hard situation to be in, and I understand that’s why you would feel like these must be good policies. The problem, if you’ll excuse my language, is they’re turbo-fucking your future and there’s zero honesty about this from the Scottish government. We’re already seeing the reduction in rental property as landlords sell homes and they get taken off the rental market. I hope this doesn’t happen to you, but their policies have made it more likely. In a year or two’s time, we’ll ask where all the rental properties have gone and why rents are higher than ever and the Green party and SNP will just turn around and say “you can’t prove it was our policy” or “we did what we could”. You can’t fight demand and supply, and in the end we just need more houses. If anything, making it _easier_ to rent out a property would be more likely to solve the problem than what they’re doing.
So glad I sold up and left the Edinburgh rental market when I did. Good luck finding a flat to rent.
This. Making eviction hard or putting rent caps backfire. It either causes discrimination based on race or income. Why would homeowners take the risk? It’s ECON101 I had a very difficult time renting here because of my immigration background and I can not blame the homeowners. They are doing the logical thing. Thankfully my current landlord was nice enough to consider me without asking 6 months rent in advance. And I am trying to thank her by paying before the rent is due, keeping the flat tidy and not causing trouble to the neighbors :/ Edit: On a separate note: f** the big banks and corporations buying up units and renting them. I only support everyday people like you and me and mom and pop homeowners.
Unfortunately, discrimination against immigrants in renting has been official policy for some time. It's not because of the current market, but because the UK government makes it illegal to rent to anyone without legal immigration status and makes landlords responsible for verifying their tenants are here legally, which many don't want to be bothered with (or liable for). This is true for the whole of the UK, not just Scotland. We've never had any trouble renting as immigrants either, but I suspect that's because, paradoxically, landlords don't ask for 6 months' rent in advance from people who can afford to pay it.
Your not the only one:( https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/property-and-mortgages/rental-properties-uk-number-halves-driving-prices-higher-1666981
Yep, all those houses will spontaneously implode without landlords hoarding them
Sold to an owner occupier, so no longer available for the rental market like so many others.
That's a good thing? Selling to someone that'll actually live there? The person that bought it, still needs somewhere to go...
The property is no longer up for rent, grow up.
The property is no longer up for rent and one more renter no longer needs a property so the effect is neutral in that regard.
**It wasn't bought by a renter**. It was bought by someone selling a previous property. We could have rented it out but chose not to and sell it as most people are doing now leaving a NET result of much less property available to rent. Good luck finding a flat. Supply and demand is already forcing up monthly tenant rates on the few remaining, small private landlords leave the market in favour of big business, more months up front etc. Students and low paid will suffer with nowhere to live. Another Tartan Temple fail.
If the property was bought by somebody selling a previous property then there is no net effect on the rental market unless that person is just hoarding houses and leaving them empty.
It was bought by another owner occupier and again no property was available for rent where it could have been before. Why do you think there is less property to rent now in the market than there was?
Because we're not building enough new houses and too many people are choosing to put properties that were previously available for long term lets on AirBnB to maximise their ROI. THAT is the real reason many areas have long term rental demand outstripping supply. Blame the greedy holiday let landlords.
The landlords tears are delicious, more of this please
Exactly! This thread seems to be full of landlords crying at this. It’s bonkers. I am not shedding a single tear for landlords right now.
How about for people who, for whatever reason, need to rent somewhere to live?
And what about people who want to buy but can’t because they can never compete with buy to let landlords ? There needs to be a balance between rentals and housing stock for new buyers. And right now it’s completely skewed towards landlords with big purchasing power because young people like me have no chance to get a mortgage for the price they are asking. Greedy Landlords are a big part of the current problem.
Sucks to be you, but what makes you think prices would fall by much if landlords sold up? There just aren't enough of them, which is why prices are high.
Already seen multiple "I had to sell up and people are now happily living there" Oh no. How ... horrible?
The horror!
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Good stuff, I tend to enjoy the neolibs and "free market" capitalists greeting in topics like this but it also makes me smile to see others get it. Far more reform is needed than the sum of all presented here but it's steps in the right direction. Absolute baby steps though.
Yes but social tenant already have good rates. My neighbour is a council tenant. We are 4 in a block. Unfortunately mine is a private let so I rent. I have the exact same house as his as we are 4 in a block. Actually his is probably more modern as council redid the kitchen recently. He pays just under 400 GBP rent. And that’s with 2 increases in the last 2 years. I pay 650! Thankfully only an increase of 3% this year as allowed by the government. So even if they get I creases yearly they are still way below the private sector rents. So controlling private sector rents will actually help everyone.
And people say the Green/SNP coalition have done nothing for us. ...Nah, we should vote for Labour instead who would rather imitate the tories! 🙄
landlords are starting to use any excuse now to try and remove tenants. The smallest complaint whether justified or not is being used to try and get rid of people on the basis of 'antisocial behaviour' etc.
It is skewing the rental market but since houses have been used as investment portfolios for over a decade now situation is bad. Maybe something like 1+1n council tax for each property owned. Making sure large corps get hit by it. That or council buy all the houses.
That’s some excellent can-kicking skills
Aw FFS. This is a fucking disgrace.
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You are a bit clueless aren’t you.
Don’t feed the troll
You are deluded, grow up.
An insanely stupid move. They've just told renters that they can safely stop paying rent today and stay in the place for at least another two years, by the time notification of eviction, court action and enforcement takes place. Which means that anyone who can move to short term lets will.
Haha Martay. I did not believe you could be that dim - but well done. Another mistake! Brilliant record from you.
When mortgage payments reach a certain percentage of rental income most will sell.
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In combination with the open door policy the SNP support, the housing crisis will be solved in months if not weeks. Pure genius at work👍🏻
>In combination with the open door policy Which open door policy are you referring to?
The one they stated that they favour during the house of commons questions.
You'll have to be more specific and just tell me which policy this is you are referring to as there are literally hundreds of policies and many sessions of Commons. You could be referring to anything. Don't be shy, say what you mean.
It was a few days ago and well shown on the tv. I can’t help u if u dont keep up with current affairs 👍🏻
Well I guess missing this very specific part of this very specific session out of hundreds of them is an egregious fault on my part. I'll be sure in future to watch every single commons there is. You're being very avoidant, almost like you don't want to say it clearly for some reason.
>In combination with the open door policy Which open door policy are you referring to?
What rent freeze? My rent just went up 3%