UK Landlord Forum / Life

For the ground that says;
"Serious rent arrears,             

The tenant must be in at least 2months of rent arrears at the time that notice is served and at the time of the court hearing"

So the tenant can "Pay Down" i.e. the day before the court case he can reduce the rent owing to below 2 months and then the court case gets dismissed. 

This could happen a few times, causing me a £398.00 court bill each time the tenant pays down.
It's also a waste of the courts time and mine.

Also I have to give 4 weeks notice, so I'm straight away into 3 months rent arrears plus the time it takes to go to court, which is about 12 or 15 months. That totals the time taken to at least 15 months or more of rent arrears.

Each time I will use this ground, the stress levels will be through the roof.

On the Rental Reform bill White Paper it says;
"A Fairer private rented sector"

How can anybody in their right mind say that this ground is fair?

The remedy is to do away with the pay down.

This will make the ground that says Repeated Arrears, obsolete.


Repeated arrears,         
The tenant must have been in at least 2 months of rent arrears at least three times in the past 3years.

It's an insult to me to say 3 times.

It's an insult to me to say 3 years.

I can't work with The Rental Reform Bill so I will sell my 20 properties which will be lost to the rental market forever.

The shortage of rental properties is a crisis now. If Landlords sell up and there is no investment in the property market, it will turn the rental property crisis into a catastrophe.
This will affect the most vulnerable like housing benefit tenants and young people.
_________________________

They are saying that Landlords cannot discriminate against Housing Benefit Tenants.

If two types of tenant want a flat and one of them is professional earning very good money and the other is a housing benefit tenant, which tenant do THEY THINK a Landlord will take?

In other words, Rental Reform bill = housing benefit tenants can't get accommodation and the same for young people.

So I have to accept pets?

The tenant will not even bother to take out insurance. They will simply just get a pet.

There is no ground for getting a tenant out that has not paid for pet Insurance. And if there is a ground it will be too late. The damage will have been done.

They have reduced the deposit to 5 weeks which is nowhere near enough deposit to cover pet damage.

If a tenant does get Insurance, it will not cover the cost of damage a pet will cause.

I had to renew floor boards and underlay and carpet and a fire door and redecorate and fumigate because a tenant brought in a dog without permission.

I will sell all my properties if The Rental Reform Bill keeps the Pay Down and I'm made to accept pets.[/size][/size][/size][/font]

Criminal behaviour & severe anti-social behaviour
Mandatory ground

It reads;
"The tenant must have been convicted of one of the of the following: a serious criminal offence as set out in Schedule 2A of the Housing Act 1985; breached an IPNA; a closure order has been served on the property; breached a criminal behaviour order; convicted of causing a noise nuisance"

So I have to wait for the courts to convict the tenant. That could take a year plus the time it takes to get possession of the flat and meanwhile he is frightening the other tenants in the 6 flats in the block. Making their lives a misery. Causing me serious stress.

Who on earth comes up with these proposals so I'll say again;

"A Fairer private rented sector"

How can anybody in their right mind say that this ground is fair?

Criminal behaviour & severe anti-social behaviour
This ground, on The Rental Reform Bill, is more serious than I originally thought.

If a tenant is causing anti-social behaviour towards another tenant, it would be very difficult to prove in court.

I've had serious confrontations break out between tenants in the same block of flats. Usually the fault of one of the tenants.

I remember one case in particular when a tenant of mine was racist against an eastern European couple. All hell broke loose.
The couple, with a young child couldn't stand it anymore, they were frightened and vacated.
What I should have done was to evict The Racist Tenant. But with The Rental Reform Bill I would not have that choice. Please do not say I would have the choice because as I have already mentioned in the above post;

"That could take a year plus the time it takes to get possession"

Just reading this post might not have an impact on you. But what I ask you to do is this,

Imagine an event that has happened to you, similar to this one. And then say to yourself;
"I won't be able to do anything about it"
Then despair will set in followed by anger towards The Government and all the other organisations that will have pushed this bill through parliament.

You will probably sell up and then you will say to yourself;

"I should have fought The Rental Reform Bill"

It's basically just a rehashed Section 8. It probably won't trigger a stampede out of the market, just a steady drip, drip of smaller landlords selling up as and when their properties become vacant, and no corresponding influx of new landlords to top up the market. Those that remain will price in the extra cost of doing business and we may ultimately end up with a market dominated by landlords with 30+ properties, enough to average out the risk.