UKC

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/01/right-to-rent-scheme-ruled-...

Be nice to think our stupid, cruel government would now abandon this stupid, cruel policy introduced by a stupid, cruel Home Secretary who is now our Prime Minister, but do you know, somehow I suspect that they won’t.

jcm

Yay, sanity rules (or at least it would be nice if it did, and thankfully it's ruled this BS, let's hope it's the first of many)

Not saying I agree with this policy but I would be interested to know what view you take on the similar requirement on employers to check right to work? I appreciate that having a  roof over your head is a more fundamental and pressing concern than working, but surely the same issues are relevant?

As an employer how exactly am I supposed to do that? 

Employers are far better set up to check on a right to work than private landlords are for housing; you need an NI number, which can only be issued by the government, and there will be records for HMRC when doing monthly PAYE submissions. 

There are no such niceties for a private landlord, who wont necessarily have all the systems in place, and might not know what to look for. I'm surprised the figure is as low as 25%; Threatening private landlords with unlimited fines and possible prison sentences because they cant carry out immigration checks on the governments behalf is ridiculous, and I can clearly see the problems it causes. 

Oh  - I can see that, but I thought that the objections were more from the point of view of the prospective tenant / employee rather than the landlord / employer

https://www.gov.uk/employee-immigration-employment-status

They should ban private landlords...

They undoubtedly are. However, the employer / landlord have been put right in the firing line, and i agree wholeheartedly with the comments from the Landlords association spokesperson. speaking personally as a small private landlord, the risk is just too great to even contemplate.

How and why?

The 'why' could be because having somewhere to live is essential, which might make it seem immoral to some that profits can be made out of something which is vital?

It's not a view I share (with how people can need to move around, or might want to rent out their home while travelling etc), it'll never happen but I think some kind of psychological profiling of landlords mightn't be a bad idea, to weed out the nutters and the more callous people, the amount of power they have over somebody else's life is pretty large.

I've had two friends recently have their lives made pretty hellish by their landlords.

Why?

I've had two friends recently have their lives made pretty hellish by their landlords.

yeah and iv'e had 2 tennents f*ck off after trashing the place and not paying the last two months rent. costing me about £5000 and 2 months works.  I don't ovecharge the tennants in fact i fix the rent at lower than the average so its attractive to the tennent and gets the place occupied quickly.  they took the piss though scumbags.  in regard to private landlords there are bad ones like everything in life, just don't tar me with that brush.

An alternative ? There have always been private landlords; the problem is that when you have such a free market with so little regulation, the sharks find easy pickings.

Indeed. There should be much more regulation; As a private landlord myself, I would be more than happy to have an inspection and registration scheme implemented to ensure that properties are maintained properly, and are decent places to live. Most are, but there are some real hellholes. Unfortunately it is aleays difficult to weed out the psycho's. They are already operating outside the (lax anyway) laws, and will just think "yeah, whatever".

Much sympathy for them. I can understand how bad it is - i've had one family look at one of my houses and ask "whats the catch" as their two previous landlords were utter tw*ts. And there is no need to be.

Blimey it appears that Big Brother is alove and kicking

Is there anything else that you think this intrusive practice should be applied to?

Personally think that it should be local authorities and housing associations only who are landlords. Shouldn't be for profit. Property bubble needs to burst badly. People should be able to have access to decent housing at a reasonable cost.

Classic piece of bureaucracy - how would I know to even start that process? 

Nobody was tarring you. Chill dude.

One friend who I have in mind has had their landlord and his mum turning up without notice and attempting entry until they've found the police have been being called, and they've been making threats to her about what they're going to do with her things and about changing the locks when she's been out*, and when she hired some removal guys, they commented on having had difficulties with this pair of people, and other ex tenants of theirs have found themselves to be hounded after moving on to somewhere new.

*Said friend ended up in hospital with panic attacks as a result

You can call it Big Brother if you like, or one could call it 'tenant safeguarding', but it's not going to happen anyway.

I rented out my house for several years while I was working abroad, would you have insisted I sold it or that it stood empty ?

Like so many things in life you cannot impose draconian measures on everyone because of the actions of a tiny minority.

True enough. I guess the definition of what is draconian might depend on who one speaks to. 

https://www.housingrights.org.uk/news/research-finds-almost-half-tenants-wh...

When almost half of tenants who complain end up being served with eviction notices, I'm wondering how disproportionate it would actually be as a measure to take towards protecting tenants? Maybe changing the laws would be the way forward instead, but 'something' needs to be done.

''Citizens Advice found that, compared to those who had not complained about their landlord, those tenants in England who had received a section 21 notice were:

More than twice as likely to have complained to their landlord in the previous six months. Five times more likely to have complained to their local authority prior to their notice being issued; and eight times more likely to have complained to an independent redress scheme.

Only 10 per cent of Environmental Health Officers have reported a reduction in the number of retaliatory evictions since the introduction of the Deregulation Act 2015, which was introduced with the aim of ending retaliatory evictions. Local authorities rarely serve the notices required to protect tenants due to a lack of resources and a preference for informal negotiation; and the threshold for protection is unreasonably high and the process to obtain protection is lengthy and complicated.

In light of their findings, Citizens Advice has raised concerns that the Deregulation Act 2015 has not been effective and has called for laws around tenant security to be significantly strengthened.''

Having rented out a house once I would never do so again it is a pain in the arse. Last tennent I had trashed the place and complained about ants in the kitchen. Gave up on getting the deposit back.

how about this lot!

https://www.rla.org.uk/forums/category.shtml?cat=6

I might be missing something here but, aren't they meant to pay the deposit to you not the other way round...

The deposit must be held in a TDS (Tenancy Deposit Scheme). This is fine if all goes swimmingly and the tenant gets the deposit back at the end of the rental period. However if there is a dispute it is held in the scheme until the dispute is settled. If the tenant is unco-operative then things drag on and the money sits in limbo with neather party getting it. So when my last tenant trashed the house and I refused to say that the TDS could return the deposit it sat in limbo. In the end it was more hassle than it was worth to recover the deposit so it still sits in limbo to this day. We didn't get it neither did the tenant

Not only they won't abandon it, but they'll seek to repeal the human rights laws that underpins these kind of rulings at the earliest opportunity.

Gosh.  I'm a bit flummoxed.  I think I may have misunderstood this whole shebang.

Is the objection that we should house people irrespective of whether they are here legally, or that it's unreasonable to get landlords to be part of the machinery that checks this?

If the former, then why?  If someone has entered the country illegally or is outwith their visa terms, then should we be using a scarce resource, housing, for them?  Or is the concern that that refugees will be denied what they genuinely need?  And if they are refugees, then formal recognition of that provides right to rent anyway?

If the latter, then why? I thought the ask was for landlords to see passport or immigration documents that indicate right to rent, and that in doubt they could request a home office check (48 hour turnaround).  This is what Shelter says on their website.  Is that onerous for them?

As I say, I'm simply curious as I hadn't realised how offensive it was and I suspect that's because I don't know what it actually entails!

Thats not how the TDS scheme works.   So I'm not sure who or where the deposit is sat.  Have you been had by dodgy letting agents?

I think the point being made is that by putting the regulatory burden on private individuals means that they simply won't bother to let their property to the sector that requires the additional investigation. Meaning that certain eligible individuals will find it impossible to find housing.

Cutting red tape, and light touch regulation from government generally results in the burden simply being passed on.

It's a bit like going to a self checkout in a supermarket. Eventually you get so pissed off with them you just don't bother anymore

Eh?  You don't bother checking out? Or you don't bother with supermarkets? or what?  and what's that got to do with rental?

As opposed to being a tenant, leaving and leaving things in the same condition you found them. Nothing to make the landlord reply and say all okay and you get your deposit back. It took 6 months and a letter from a solicitors to get my deposit back because the landlord wouldn't reply to letters. It works both ways 

it required signatures from both and the tenant wouldn't sign

exactly

Point is if you are a landlord and you have the choice between a foreigner here legally, and a native, why would you bother renting to the foreigner given that it will include an extra risk and extra work ?

Checking someone immigration status is not easy, and in many cases, someone can be in the country completely legally but have no easy way to prove it. It’s also not permanent, meaning that if you get a tenant who is a foreigner the landlords will have to re-check their status frequently.

With Brexit looming, it’s worse, since millions of EU citizens will have the right to stay in the country, but no way to prove it, at least until the government is done registering all of them (good luck with that). No doubt they will find it a lot harder to rent.

the evidence is clear, all the polls of landlords showed that they say they are less likely to rent to foreigners as a result of the rules. And blind testing has shown this to be the case as well.

if you push immigration controls to civil society, of course the result you get is discrimination, even more so in a country with no mandatory ID.

Windrush has shown that even the government is not able to check whether someone is legally is the country or not reliably, how on earth then do we expect landlords with no knowledge of immigration law to do the same ?

It was just an analogy, The Num Nums normally like to by-pass the checkout altogether.

If you make the process more difficult, more irritating (which self checkouts usually are) Then folk just won't bother using them

Agree with you there