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1. This is good news. Unscupulous tenants give landlords in general a bad name. Tenants deserve safe, clean respectable accommodation. From the other point of view it would be nice to also see the councils as keen to make a black list of tenants that trash decent accomodation on offer. The law is weighted in favour of the tenant. It’s very difficult to evict bad tenants.

   Comment by Robin Pearce — 19/7/2008 #

2. I agree the law favours tenants - I suspect this will not help redress the imbalance! (Although no-one takes up “references” on landlords.)

   The problem is and will remain with landlords who operate in a “below the radar” twilight world seemingly unmolested by local authorities and other statutory bodies despite a plethora of legislation already in place to deal with the problem.

   Comment by barry manners — 21/7/2008 #

3. You say “Although no-one takes up “references” on landlords”.
   In my experience references don’t count for much. A tenant that dissapeared owing 3 month’s rent, ticked all the boxes from a reference point of view.
   Whether or not I decide to let to an individual is based largely on my impression of the person when they come to view the property & the overall background to that person & of course salary & level of debt they may have.

   You say “The problem is and will remain with landlords who operate in a “below the radar” twilight world seemingly unmolested by local authorities and other statutory bodies despite a plethora of legislation already in place to deal with the problem.”

   This is a somewhat sweeping statement you could make about any business or trade. Landlords have to comply with gas regulations, electrical regulations, fire regulations & deposit protection schemes. There will always be the odd bad apple who breaks the rules. It’s not the fault of the good landlords if the local authorities are lax in checking property of bad landlords. Or “molesting landlords” as you put it !
   The fact is that landlords with a poor standard of accomodation on offer will have a hard time finding decent tenants.
   Tenants that make a mistake & accept substandard accomodation always have the option to leave a property. Though I’m not saying they should have to, as landlords should comply with regulations.

   However look at it from the other side. It’s very difficult to evict bad tenants. A landlord has to entrust to a prospective tenant who is all but a complete stranger to them, with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property. The cost of replacing damaged kitchens & bathroom etc & redecoration can run into the tens of thousands of pounds. Yet all the landlord has to protect him against rogue tenants is a deposit of a few hundred pounds that dissappears the moment a tenant defaults on just one month’s rent !
   This is a gamble whichever way you look at it. It is one reason many people won’t go into the letting business even though they’ve considered doing so. How many people have you met that say they’d thought about going into the buy to let business but thought there was too much risk of bad tenants. Yet there is no local authority blacklist of rogue tenants in the private sector.

   A frequently held view seems to be, including from liberal looney left wing judges who’ve spent all their lives working in insitutions & are not quite in touch with the real world…. “Tough luck if a landlord loses out, they knew the risks. Besides they are greedy capitalists”

   The fact that there is any clean rental accomodation of a high standard is entirely due to landlords who are prepared to take the gamble. Yet there is virtually no protection for decent landlords providing decent accommodation.

   Comment by Robin Pearce — 22/7/2008 #

4. Agree entirely. On the subject of references on tenants I often find lettings agents/landlords using them as a fig leaf to cover up the inadequacies in a prospective tenant’s status/profile. References can only show that they are who they purport to be. My own view as a landlord is to ask first and foremost what they do for a living - the vetting procedure for an investment banker is likely to be far more onerous than anything an agent or landlord could devise. Not paying an agent a substantial fee in advance but quarterly in advance instead keeps everyone motivated to thoroughly scrutinise the tenant profile. And as for the court system favoring tenants - I couldn’t possibly comment……

   Comment by barry manners — 24/7/2008 #

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