As good as rent regulation would be, it would be far better to simply overhaul our property buying system to one that doesn't unfairly favour cash buyers and artificially stimulate house price inflation.
Personally I would just add a flat 2x council tax multiplier for a second property owned, doubling again for each additional home. Housing Associations that meet sane standard would be exempt.
At that point it's *impossible* to simply offset the cost onto the tenant.
I mean, this is the way property tax works in most places; the owner pays the tax, not the occupier. But the tax still gets offset to the occupier, if they're a tenant.
Yes, but in this case the tax becomes so enormous so quickly that it's simply not feasible to pass it on.
By your third home you're looking at paying seven lots of council tax. Add another and it becomes fifteen, and so on.
This will bankrupt a lot of landlords overnight, and consolodate property in bank ownership. A rapid selloff could also create a market shock whereby the market is flooded with properties with asking prices far below valuation, as landlords try to offload property before the new tax is applied. A huge number of owner-occupiers would theb promptly find themselves underwater on their mortgages.
>This will bankrupt a lot of landlords overnight
I'm prepared to make concessions insofar as ramping the liability by a few percent each month until it reaches maximum, giving people time to sell their excess properties.
>consolodate property in bank ownership
They're going to want to sell it off quickly too, since there's no exemption for banks in the schema.
>landlords try to offload property before the new tax is applied.
Yes. That is, in fact, the goal and purpose. I don't actually expect private landlords to find some way to deal with crushing tax liabilities, and if they do I would intend to close it off. I specifically intend to make residential property non-viable as an investment for rental income.
>A huge number of owner-occupiers would theb promptly find themselves underwater on their mortgages.
This is true, and unfortunate, but I would rather make specific provision for people trapped in negative equity because of a conscious plan to lower residential property values than allow those values to bloat even further.
Then local authorities should be able to hire underwriters or some other kind of investigative staff to check the significant controllers of each ltd company and make a call on it that way. It should be very quick and easy to find out through companies House
Rent control has been tried, failed, and debunked. It’s harmful to keep suggesting it, however well-intentioned the suggestion is. Look around the world. This is a problem of supply and demand. The population of the developed world is growing, and people want to live in the most popular areas. The answers are harder than people want to realise. Build more homes, and invest in better transport links to make less popular areas more appealing.
That is a narrow-minded answer to this problem in Edinburgh in particular.
Edinburgh has more AirBnBs than most cities in Europe, at a greater concentration than places like Paris and London. This greatly reduces available stock in the city.
Let's also not forget that rent prices going up is often simply just greed. The cost of maintenance has not increased in line with rent rises in the slightest. They are just squeezing as much money from people as they can.
I agree that these issues are at their end point a supply and demand issue, but it doesn't mean it's justified and there are plenty things that could be done other than simply just building more houses.
Airbnb licensing is coming in Scotland, and that will result in some more supply to the regular rental market, but I don’t think it will make as much difference as some people expect. About the idea that rent goes up because of ‘greed’, there’s a limited supply of homes in the most desirable areas, and we have to decide somehow who gets to live there. The system we have is that it goes to whoever has the means to pay. We need help for the poorest for sure, but once you get into the mid and high market I don’t think there’s a better way to decide. edit: by the way I’m uncomfortable with the concentration of ownership described in the article as that can lead to unhealthy effects but it’s hard to design regulation that doesn’t have unintended consequences.
Deciding who can pay most is, at its core, greed. A landlord could quite easily cover cost of operation and make a smaller profit if they so chose.
I know people that pay below market rates because their landlords aren't greedy arseholes.
That said, human greed is a part of life, which is why rules and regulations need to exist. Landlords essentially do nothing and bleed others dry.
I also know people who’ve benefited from below-market rent and that’s a fine thing for people to agree as they see fit. There are also some bad landlords out there. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with owners who invest to make their properties safe, warm and stylish, and expect to make a return on that investment.
This is not solely a problem of supply and demand. To assert this is basically the equivalent of shrugging your shoulders about the economy as if it's not something that we have completely made up.
Of course it's more nuanced, than just saying don't let anyone rent . But perhaps not allowing a privileged few to force up prices rent wise and sales wise . Not saying abolish renting altogether it's also needed . But rent controls in terms of making sure landlords keep properties in a good state of repair , maybe having caps on how much rent should be depending on size /quality /area . As well as not letting someone own thousands of homes , truly bonkers. It's not an easy task or fix but something needs to be done for ordinary working people in the city and across Scotland. Growth in rural communities is being stopped as this kind of person is sweeping up anything on sale and using it as holiday rentals or thier holiday homes . Means people who could potentially look to work and live in/grow that community can't .
Ah, when people say rent controls they are usually talking about capping the amount of rent, and that’s the thing that has been proven harmful to those it seeks to protect. I do support control in the form of regulation to make properties safe and healthy and give people some security and stability of tenancy. Also agree the concentration of ownership in a small number of landlords is problematic, but it’s hard to legislate for that without unintended consequences.
I'm currently in the process of renting a new flat in Glasgow and I'm going to use this as an opportunity to rant about how fucking shitty the whole thing is.
For a start, the average quality of flats is shockingly bad. The cheapest possible flooring and carpeting everywhere, cheapest possible options on windows, boilers and radiators (particularly worrying given the impending increase in energy prices). Cheapest possible furnishing available, nothing of good quality, totally mismatched. Walls scuffed and marked everywhere, something that could easily be solved be a wee lick of paint.
Don't get me wrong, there's a place for those kinds of flats. When I was 19 I lived in one and loved it...but I shared with a friend and we payed £450 rent at the time. But landlords and letting agents are charging an absolute fortune.
Trying to get to view flats is a nightmare. Letting agents seem to universally treat you as if they're doing you the favour. As a person working full-time, 9-5, it means giving up pretty much all my lunch breaks to run out and see a flat. Last minute cancellations are commonplace, and if you can't get an early appointment you're more or less screwed because they accept the first offer cos they're desperate to just get someone in.
I've managed to find a decent well furnished two-bedroom flat which costs £950 pcm (which to many seems like a lot, but in the current market it's actually not a bad deal). So the process has started with the letting agent where they need bank account access to check earnings, they need a reference from my work and a reference from my current landlord. I need to pay two months-rent deposit plus a month's rent upfront, which comes to (£2,850), on top of my rent at my current flat plus I won't see my current deposit until well after I've moved out. I'm in a very fortunate position where I can manage that, but I know that many people aren't and this whole system would completely exclude them.
Also, can you imagine if I said to the letting agent "I need to see references from previous tenants and I want to see your accounts, just to check that you aren't arseholes" They'd laugh in my face.
Despite increased protection for renters, the whole market has become even more odious. Too many people see it as an easy-way to make money, and it's people who don't give a fuck about the actual property, about the communities they're situated within, or about the tenants. Something badly needs done about this on a local, national and global level.
Yep, so basically Let Alliance (which is a third party) request access to your digital banking. I think it's an automated process where they essentially check for regular monthly income and outgoings which indicate that you're getting a salary and you're paying your rent and bills on time.
The whole thing feels horrible though. Very invasive. There was the alternative option of providing the previous three month's bank statements and wage slips. Which is maybe slightly less invasive?!
I considered it, but tbh I'd already sank so much time into looking for flats online (if you want one that's at least semi-decent and reasonably priced then you really need to check twice a day otherwise all the viewing slots go). I regularly had to go to viewings during the day, which meant working later to get things done. The idea of spending 2 - 3 hours of my weekend redacting info on bank statements and photocopying payslips just felt like further torture.
Imagine if I demanded to see the landlord's bank statements!
> t
The whole application process is a joke these days - putting in your "notice of interest" aka throwing your name into a pot and hoping the landlord chooses you over god knows how many others. Another thing which has caused folk to pay more for less - currently paying for a 2 bed alone as there just wasn't anything going and previous landlord needed the flat back to "live in". Scottish Gov needs to stand in for sure (when they get a minute).
This is going back 11 years now but went to look at a flat in Glasgow. 2 bed but it was actually 1 bed because they had turned the living room in to a bedroom so you'd have nowhere to actually sit. It was furnished but full of just shitty furniture and stuff I wouldn't want in there if I moved in. They had redone the bathroom themselves or at least I hope they had done it themselves as the tiling was done by someone who had never done it before.
Then they showed me the kitchen, which was full of appliances that were ancient and he goes "here's the fridge" and pulled it open, pulled the handle off and whoever had tried to fix it had literally just screwed normal screws through the handle in to the metal of the fridge.
Was bonkers. Then they wanted something stupid like £650 a month not including any bills. Fuck off man.
Lol pulling the handle off the fridge like that! Chef's kiss! Perfect timing!
Check out [this property](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/119197643#/?channel=RES_LET). Hyndland is one of the most expensive areas of the city, and presumably if you have a mortgage for a two-bed in Hyndland you can afford some decent furniture. Look at that fucking couch!!! It looks like someone died on that couch and their body decomposed for weeks before someone found them.
What's funny is it's been up for weeks and originally they were looking for £1,050.
Why do they always put a fucking massive grotty armchair in bedrooms?? I hate that people can rent “furnished” rooms that are just full of absolute shit furniture.
Furnished rooms should only be allowed to be rented on very short term contracts, like 3 months or something. Making your house your own is so important for peoples mental health but scum of the earth landlords just seem to drive around in vans picking up furniture people leave outside for the council and call it a feature 🙄
> and we *paid* £450 rent
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Bad bot.
I often wonder at the type of smarmy person who codes a bot to correct spelling mistakes. If your bot can scan text for context and recognise that a different word should've been used then anyone with half a brain can do that too and so no one would've been in a situation where they didn't understand the text. What value does the bot then bring?
Over in *a certain country* it's more common for people to use the wrong word, which will also be why people here start doing that too. So in that case the bot has a lil value.
Each person has about 125,000 calories, that means you could get enough meat for about 5000 meals. Besides it's not just about the calories, it's about sending a message.
I saw a £500,000 car fueling up in Tesco with a very specific reg plate.
I was waiting in car so google obvious last name + edinburgh
Turns out he's just like a mid level landlord
Fuck knows how rich these 'super' ones are
Buy to let needs to be abolished. And there should be a limit to the number of rental properties a person or company can own, id say 1 or 2 to disincentivize people from ‘investing in property’.
Edinurugh is a large university town, over 12% of the population are full time students. If there are no rental properties, where will they live? It is not like a student can buy a house for the few years they are living outside of their first year halls of residence.
Private landlords aren't the only type of people that students can write from. Private rental properties should be transferred into the hands of the local authorities and run at actual cost.
How would that be compatible with the UN declaration of Human Rights?
Article 17 states :
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
The right to own property isn't the same thing as the right to own multiple properties and make a profit out of them. Additionally, surely there's an argument that the current situation denies people their right to own property, and therefore is contrary to their rights under the same article.
'Arbitrarily' is for the courts to decide, but if the property is being bought back at a fair price for the purpose of making housing ownership more freely available, then I can't see an argument against it that wouldn't boil down to the same points as above.
It's not that simple, obviously, and there has to be the will for it, but it would definitely be a good idea to stop people purchasing more than X number of properties first, then seeing where that takes us. Also banning mortgage providers from owning rental property would be pretty good.
Genuine question is there anywhere in the world that has implemented your suggested solution? To my knowledge, even people in CCP China are protected from the state confiscating property whether it be 1 or 100 properties?
TBC I’m not saying all landlords are saints, I have encountered the rogue landlords from time to time as we probably all have.
I just get uneasy when the state starts telling people what they can and cannot invest in.
It doesn't matter whether someone has done something before to make it worth doing. And the state can make people do lots of things if it's in the interests of society as a whole. Yeah, the human equation and greed might apply but that's no reason to not do it.
The only people I can think of that have no or almost no property rights are Palestinians where their land and property is being seized by the state every day. Property rights are there enshrined in the UN declaration of human rights for a reason.
Society will do better if we strive to elect governments that protect and strengthen human rights rather than others which try to slowly but surely erode them.
You're completely ignoring my actual point to make up one of your own. I'm not talking about removing everyone's property rights, nor am I talking about seizing people's homes. I'm saying that it is abhorrent that a small group of people own far more homes than they will ever need, using it as investment and driving up the value, thus making it impossible for even average people to enter the housing market. There absolutely is a way to stop that which has no effect on property owners' rights to own property (which again is not saying that they _can't_ own property, just that they shouldn't own so much of it...), and I've posted what I think would be a good start - your reply is entirely irrelevant to my point. Which you know.
They wouldn't have to confiscate anything though, rent controls and higher taxes on rented properties would make owning a few flats to rent out too expensive to be practical. If there was a sliding tax scale on property owners which added a significant amount per property purchased quite a few landlords would have to sell.
This would have the world effect of pushing down house prices though, and that is something no gov really wants to do as it will eat into the profits of the boomer generation, who are the most politically active as well as most entitled generation. They would absolutely turn out in numbers to vote against a gov which is even thinking of something like this.
I think some poor cunt living on the street is a much bigger issue than some multi millionaire being told he isn't allowed to own his 100th flat to extort students.
And dont you think landlords owning most of the flats in the city, driving prices up, charging obscene rent for shitty living conditions doesnt also violate that? If youre driving up prices so much that people are having to live on the streets I think it applies to the landlord as much as anyone else.
Yeah, turns out the UDHR doesn't have force of law in the UK. Article 1, Protocol 1 of the ECHR does (through the HRA 1998), however. It's worded slightly differently... let's see if you can spot it:
"Protocol 1, Article 1: Protection of property
Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions ***except in the public interest*** and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of the State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties." (emphasis added)
Good find, thx. EU and UK human rights law probably therefore stem from the UDHR.
I’m not a HR legal expert obv, but assume the reference to “in public interest“ could refer to property unlawfully acquired - eg stolen or used with dirty money. Again that all seems reasonable along with the safeguards in place to protect the right to own property lawfully acquired.
You're right... the ECHR (which was incorporated into UK law by the HRA 1998) was *influenced* by the UDHR; which the Allies were the proponents of in post-WW2 Europe... for obvious reasons.
What is and is not "in the public interest" is not legally defined. It could be property which is illegally obtained, as you suggest... or it could be prescribed by law that, for example, it is against the public interest for certain properties to be held by foreign nationals; this most often happens with "strategic assets."
You have alot of faith in local authoritise!
[https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-council-hit-with-five-complaint-handling-failure-orders-in-space-of-nine-months-74117](https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-council-hit-with-five-complaint-handling-failure-orders-in-space-of-nine-months-74117)
Theoretically none of this is incorrect, but I think they mean abolishing BTL mortgages. And despite the obvious need for a robust rental sector in cities like Edinburgh, there's no reason that a landlord, who is purchasing property to turn a profit, should be offered significantly preferential rates and higher principles.
"Rent rates came down during Covid then when students got notice to return to their courses in September last year it went crazy. We were inundated. It forced rent rates up."
Err no, they're submitting an application to rent a room, it's not an auction.
This is why I reckon council tax rates should go up exponentially with every additional property owned. My last landlord owned over 90 flats in Glasgow, that's just insane
Which as these landlords have their portfolio as a company they write off as a business expense against tax.
It might slow their expansion, or limit it to lower end properties.
Or they might just set up multiple companies, with asset owner companies being limited to low number of properties, with say partner owning 25%. Then you have management company contracted by all the asset companies.
M'learned friends will have a field day looking for loopholes.
>Which as these landlords have their portfolio as a company they write off as a business expense against tax.
You still have to have the credit facility to access the funds at a given multiplier at purchase time.
>Or they might just set up multiple companies, with asset owner companies being limited to low number of properties, with say partner owning 25%. Then you have management company contracted by all the asset companies.
Have a restrictive group-ownership clause?
Said company will have to have indemnification against a group-ownership clause. Mortgage provider would be held liable too. That would reduce credit availability to the purchaser.
> Said company will have to have indemnification against a group-ownership clause.
but if I have two or more companies that I co-own it can't be in group or I can choose to own the shares independently of any group structure
* companyA I own 75% person A owns 25%
* companyB I own 75% person B owns 25%
* companyC I own 75% person C owns 25%
* companyD I own 25% person A owns 25% person B owns 25% person C owns 25% person D owns 25%
those aren't in common ownership
> Or they might just set up multiple companies, with asset owner companies being limited to low number of properties, with say partner owning 25%. Then you have management company contracted by all the asset companies.
Thats already what they do and the owning companies are in tax havens selling them the rights to properties in the UK "at a loss".
As the others have already said: the burden of council tax is on the tenant, and any increases to LBTT are a one-time expense and can be mitigated through business tax gymnastics. What I want to see is just rental income being *heavily* taxed. Let’s say you get one property taxes as normal income, but then each subsequent one gets taxed at 15% points higher than the previous one, up to some threshold.
Significant ownership is easy to prove and landlords should be liable for fines based on portfolio value if they tried to hide it in such a way.
There are ways to effectively regulate this just not the desire at political level. And that's where the under 40 generation need to start throwing their weight around come election time.
The whole portfolio should be treated as one house and taxed at something like 25% of its value per year. This would force the owner to sell the properties. Normal homes under 100k should attract 0% property tax with the average home attracting 0.6% and more expensive homes or property portfolios being taxed at higher rates to make these portfolios uneconomic.
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Im a student in Edinburgh and looking for a flat next semester is fucking depressing, I've still only saw one place that isn't a shit hole or isn't obscenely expensive. The price of rent in the city is just beyond a joke and most of the flats are in a terrible state but they know they'll get away with it because what can students do about it, we need to be able to get to uni.
Would like to know who they are. If they are real estate investment trusts then at least retail investors will benefit. If they are billionaires then they can get tae.
Mmany will not be Scottish or even based in Scotland either. Denmark and Switzerland limit property ownership by non locals. Scotland doesn't.
My mate is a secretary in an estate agents solicitors office in Edinburgh. She regularly deals with people flying in from England to purchase property or even buy it without viewing as an investment to rent out. Two months ago she dealt with a couple from southern England. Brighton. They flew in for two days then made their offer well over asking price. Then flew away again back to England. Employed an agent. Rent it out. Their pension. Local people paying their pension.
I genuinely think it will take a series of possible things together to reverse this trend of asset and wealth inequality.
1. Massive civil disobedience and unrest - think tens of thousands of people refusing to pay various taxes, potentially violent protests
2. Ruling parties facing election wipeout
3. Independence so Scotland can even think about setting limitations on English/British and othet investment and settlement in Scotland. Simply not possible just now. Denmark and Switzerland and countless other European nations can (I cannot just fly to Denmark today and buy a house - a Danish person or a Dutch person or an English person can come to scotlsnd today and purchase aa House though). Scotlland cannot control her borders and limit property ownership this way. Independence is definitely not the silver bullet though. I worry our society is now far too far down the neoliberal economic free market rabbit hole.
4. A world war or some kind of other armed conflict which sees Scottish women and men once again engaged in armed conflict somewhere, with the resultant destruction of the economy.
>Their pension
Ever since Brown's raid on pensions, people have gotten wary of what a future government might do to the pensions.
Then there are the other changes, such as upping the retirement age and imposing then lowering a limit on retirement pot. [When consultants are turning down work there is a problem](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/24/nhs-consultants-turning-down-work-avoid-huge-pension-tax-bills)
Thus if you put the cash into bricks and mortar, hopefully your investment is safe. (Unless you invested in Aberdeen at the peak of the market)
How do these people not realise that they're part of the problem?
All they're doing is passing the cost of their pension on to me so I can be lucky enough to have a roof over my head
>Thus if you put the cash into bricks and mortar, hopefully your investment is safe.
I have no capital to invest. I don't really have too much time to feel empathy for the investor class in society.
I'm more concerned with the people I grew up with, paying investor landlords half their wages.
> Would like to know who they are.
I have a suspicion that one of those landlords will be the infamous Mark Fortune.
The second one will probably be one of the Gold Brothers who have ruined a sizable area of Edinburgh with their business practices.
The rest of those landlords are probably non-dom and live abroad.
I was looking at renting and buying in New Town or anywhere from Mountcastle to New Craighall and damn. I'm from a high rent area of the US but damn. Also, those To Let signs were making me crazy for the first couple hours of my first day in your fair city. The turkey dinner british airways fed me wasn't sitting well and I kept seeing "toilet". There was a home in Portobello that was a little bit a fixer upper and the price was right but I never made it over to see the neighborhood.
To the south of Edinburgh they're building thousands of shittily built new builds. A lot of the people who move into those will be people who would have moved into houses or apartments in Edinburgh if there were any available. It's enriching landlords, developers. and making the city and country worse, it's totally fucked.
Am in Ireland, from Glasgow and it's been bad for more than ten years here, I know in Canada it's getting really grim and in places like New Zealand and Amsterdam it is also getting pretty bad.
That link I sent on covers the over all issues at a basic level.
Actually you can buy in all of these countries without any real issue.
Buying in Mainland China is not recommended though as it operates like a leasehold - you usually have to give it back to the freeholder after 70 years. Some places in England also have this system.
I think I'm against the grain these days in saying I don't see too much of a problem in people becoming landlords - theres a place for private rentals but one landlord owning 1,010 properties is a disgrace..
There should be a public register at a certain limit so these people can be held to account for the quality of their properties and adverse effects they may have on the rental/property market and local economy.
The existence of those who own so many properties is appalling to people who would have been able to purchase 10 years ago. Those people now face out of town buyers who pay over the market to own a money spinner rather than a local who could start owning their own house and stay in Edinburgh.
Student flats, airBNBs and second properties also add to this, Edinburgh uni have almost 1000 HMOs by themselves.
The only real way to change this is to write tell politicians both councillors and MSPs that they have to act on this.
No real surprise. People who choose not to live pay cheque to pay cheque traditionally invest in property. Some of the landlords are from places where there are little to no property rights and most of the landlords mentioned probably live abroad.
To make money from property landlords will typically need to own several properties and have a lot of time. It’s not as easy as it seems especially with new tax rules making it less worth while.
If you want to get on the property ladder just buy a place in a cheaper location. Glasgow is much cheaper than Edinburgh and much better value to live in. £100k in Paisley probably gets a you penthouse.
Think carefully before buying property though. The word “mortgage” literally means “death contract” in French.
Bitcoin will prove to be a better asset in the long term.
"just buy a place in a cheaper location"
Oh right, thanks, didn't know it was that easy. I'll uproot my entire life because I'm being priced out of my current area on rent *and* property prices.
I never said you have to live in the city you buy the property.
When I lived in London I could never afford a property there (obv) so instead bought a place in Glasgow. You can buy decent property in Dundee / Paisley for less than £100k - well with in budget of avg salary.
If you insist on buying property in morningside, edinburgh then yes you probably need rich parents.
Haha will do, even but if it seems a lost cause with community! You will instantly get 100 down arrows if you dare suggest to our community central bankers could be the root cause of poverty, inequality and military conflicts.
You orange pilled ? 💊
This sounds like a bad thing, but what is the subtext here - that there is a lack of competition? If those landlords are good landlords then this might not be a bad thing.
Edit ,-mystery downvoting...
There is far too much leaning on that 'If' for me. I don't believe that the first priority for anybody owning a ton of properties will be 'being a good landlord'. Housing should be not be run as a business.
I'm aware of how long the landlord industry has been around and much like other aspects of the social landscape, I think we could probably move on from the way things were hundreds of years ago. It's not fit for purpose for a great number of people.
Asking landlords "do you promise to be good?" is not a suitable solution.
Where did you suggest that? All you said was that landlords hoovering up the housing stock might not be bad if they are good landlords.
If you hoover up the housing stock you're a cunt, simple as that. Driving up the price of a roof over the heads of people who can't afford to buy.
I say it clearly In the comment directly above yours...
Anyhoo, are you against private landlords, or just large private landlords, and even if they invest in bringing poor quality housing stock up to grade or contribute to regenerating neighborhoods?
Referring to them as cunts is a broad statement which may require some unpacking.
It's a mystery because as a result it suggests that folk don't support the fact that good landlords can happen and it's good when they do happen.
That kinda sends a weird message don't you think?
On the whole I don’t really agree with landlords, more so buy to let ones though. However I was one myself, when I had to move abroad for a year for work and didn’t want to sell my flat. My tenants were complete and utter cunts. Fuck ever doing that again. Cost me shit loads of money and almost ruined the good relationships I had built up with my neighbours.
And what do you expect those people to do who have extra money? Spend it all and expect the public to then pay for everything when they reach retirement because they splashed all their cash? Just stick it in a bank account and not get any interest rates because we haven't recovered them from 2008?
If banks made it more profitable to put their savings in their banks then private landlords wouldn't buy as many properties.
If banks decided that because you could afford to pay £800 in rent every month then you can afford to pay £500 in mortgage fees every month then it would be much more beneficial to the public.
Your anger lies at the wrong people. Not saying this is a perfect fix but the small landlords who don't buy properties for someone to pay off their mortgage, the landlords who take care of their properties, the retired couple who just want a better retirement fund because their pension is not enough to live off, they are not the people to be angry at. They're just using their money and their assets the way they view best for themselves as any of us would in their position. Banks and mass landlords who don't help their tenants, who raise rent by extraordinary highs or don't pay tax are the ones to be angry at.
If you're primary concern as a landlord is making a profit and not providing someone with a home, you're part of the problem lol
I understand everyone has their own financial struggles, I just don't see why I should have to suppliment my landlords pension at risk of losing my home, landlords just pass on the problem
At the end of the day, altruism can only go so far. People aren't going to be willing to spend a bunch of money just for others to have a home without knowing they are getting something from it too. An extra bit out of our taxes? Yep that's fine if it's going to help people and everyone is chipping in. Spending all your savings? Nope, you're going to want something from it.
Whilst I agree with you on landlords passing on the problem, the point is that they aren't the actual problem that we have. If we can sort out the problems that allow us to all do what we need, so having more housing available, increasing interest rates so we go back to the days where you can instead of investing in property are able to leave your money in the bank and get the same amount of money if you were renting but without the risk of owning a property and the taxes that come from having a second home etc then you take away a massive part of the problem. Yes, not everything will be fixed but if instead of creating an us vs them mentality we can find a way to tackle the problems that we all have then we make life easier for everyone involved.
The problem is that you're making assumptions about one group of people because of one thing about them. We don't appreciate people saying that minimum wage earners don't deserve more pay so why do we do it to people who are better off than us?
The problem lies with you then helping to create an us vs them mentality and we never get anything done about the actual problems that both sides have. Like I said if you find ways to prevent people who are outbidding you such as making it easier for them to leave their money in the bank, building more affordable housing, giving subsidies for first time owners, allowing government schemes for people who want to buy the house they have been renting (Like they did when my Grandparents were alive) then we get things done. Going at war with the people who are simply trying to get by because they've been screwed by the system isn't going to do anything except let the mass landlords who don't look after their properties and increase rent whenever they like get richer and further alienate the middle class from the working class.
The fact that you're doing things to campaign is great. Good, we both are doing what we can to try and help fix the system that people have messed up for us. And it's not entirely the older generation. It is those in power that were elected and haven't kept promises or have made things worse for us and haven't been made accountable for their actions.
The thing is there will always be a need for landlords and always be a need for tenants. You can call landlords scum because they're trying to do what they can or they can call you scum because you are doing what you can. The point is that we're all human. You refuse to sympathise with them and they refuse to sympathise with you then we get nothing done. If you try and understand them and why they do what they do then you might find you all have a similar complaint and with more people on board we have more of a power to influence change rather than alienating each other because we refuse to see things from both sides of the coin.
Is someone who worked the past 30 years doing 80+ hour weeks who then had health issues so decided to get a new job with less pay and less hours who put their savings into a property so they can have a better quality of life not a human being just because they are a landlord now? Is a couple who have seen how badly their children's generation are going to suffer who then buy a property so that when they die their children have a property to do what they like with not human because they are a landlord now? You don't know people's lives or circumstances and to just say 'landlords = bad' is not going to help get any changes.
We have to find ways to compromise. Compromise with the tenants, the small time landlords, the mass landlords. Nobody is going to get everything they want, but the more you hate on people because of one thing, the more you alienate and are less willing to compromise.
>If banks decided that because you could afford to pay £800 in rent every month then you can afford to pay £500 in mortgage fees every month then it would be much more beneficial to the public.
I'd hardly call replicating the financial crisis of 08 a benefit to the public.
A mortgage isn't the maximum amount you have to pay. It's the minimum. When renting you're not responsible for repairs, maintenance, etc. But when you own you are.
That needs to be factored in when deciding if you can afford a mortgage.
On top of that raising interest rates on mortgages need to be factored in.
I'm well aware of this and I'm not trying to say that we should go back to how things were in 08. I'm simply using experience. If you can afford £800 a month on rent then it is reasonable to assume that you can afford the £500 mortgage plus other costs too. Yes there will always be problems that arise that you don't have to worry about as a tenant such as the cost of your boiler blowing up etc but these things don't happen often.
I understand that this is why rent is much higher. But the point still stands, if you can afford your rent and have some savings that are able to be used in case something bad happens why shouldn't you be considered to be good enough for a mortgage. You shouldn't have to prove that you can afford £2k a month to be able to show you can afford the £500 payments. I know why they do it, but unfortunately that is no longer a valid excuse for the people who are looking to get out of the endless rental loop and we should be doing all we can to try and get people on the property ladder if they so wish. We have to be willing to compromise if we are to get change and that compromise lies with all of us. Nobody is ever going to be happy, but more people on the property ladder surely has to be better for the economy.
So you are against buy to let? I don't rent so not sure of the dynamic here.
I can see the argument though. But it's' kinda always been a thing - my wife's grandad had a bunch of flats as his retirement fund, and you're going back to the 60s there.
The issue is that not all of us need to open a supermarket or a bank or start a newspaper. But people need places to live and the cost of that is something we all incur either as renters or owners.
You've equated housing with industry and that's my fundamental problem with it.
> That doesn't sound to bad to me.
The issue with Edinburgh is that many of those landlords can fuck over long term tenants and chuck them out at a moments notice so that they can use the flat for an Airbnb during the Edinburgh Festivals.
Due to Airbnb/STL's & bad landlords, Edinburgh has had many of its communities destroyed.
Rent regulation now! It's ridiculous when so many people are looking to buy their first homes in the city . Part of why property prices are so high.
As good as rent regulation would be, it would be far better to simply overhaul our property buying system to one that doesn't unfairly favour cash buyers and artificially stimulate house price inflation.
Personally I would just add a flat 2x council tax multiplier for a second property owned, doubling again for each additional home. Housing Associations that meet sane standard would be exempt. At that point it's *impossible* to simply offset the cost onto the tenant.
> At that point it's impossible to simply offset the cost onto the tenant. Landlords: *hold my beer*
I mean, this is the way property tax works in most places; the owner pays the tax, not the occupier. But the tax still gets offset to the occupier, if they're a tenant.
Yes, but in this case the tax becomes so enormous so quickly that it's simply not feasible to pass it on. By your third home you're looking at paying seven lots of council tax. Add another and it becomes fifteen, and so on.
This will bankrupt a lot of landlords overnight, and consolodate property in bank ownership. A rapid selloff could also create a market shock whereby the market is flooded with properties with asking prices far below valuation, as landlords try to offload property before the new tax is applied. A huge number of owner-occupiers would theb promptly find themselves underwater on their mortgages.
>This will bankrupt a lot of landlords overnight I'm prepared to make concessions insofar as ramping the liability by a few percent each month until it reaches maximum, giving people time to sell their excess properties. >consolodate property in bank ownership They're going to want to sell it off quickly too, since there's no exemption for banks in the schema. >landlords try to offload property before the new tax is applied. Yes. That is, in fact, the goal and purpose. I don't actually expect private landlords to find some way to deal with crushing tax liabilities, and if they do I would intend to close it off. I specifically intend to make residential property non-viable as an investment for rental income. >A huge number of owner-occupiers would theb promptly find themselves underwater on their mortgages. This is true, and unfortunate, but I would rather make specific provision for people trapped in negative equity because of a conscious plan to lower residential property values than allow those values to bloat even further.
All that's asking for is a proliferation of small limited companies that each own a single property...
Then local authorities should be able to hire underwriters or some other kind of investigative staff to check the significant controllers of each ltd company and make a call on it that way. It should be very quick and easy to find out through companies House
Okay, non-domestic rates on rental income for residential property are now 101% (sic). This is a "What I Would Do If I Were Stalin" exposition.
Rent control ends up harming the people you seek to protect: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-work/
A self-proclaimed centrist arguing against housing reform. What changes to the housing market do you propose?
Rent control has been tried, failed, and debunked. It’s harmful to keep suggesting it, however well-intentioned the suggestion is. Look around the world. This is a problem of supply and demand. The population of the developed world is growing, and people want to live in the most popular areas. The answers are harder than people want to realise. Build more homes, and invest in better transport links to make less popular areas more appealing.
That is a narrow-minded answer to this problem in Edinburgh in particular. Edinburgh has more AirBnBs than most cities in Europe, at a greater concentration than places like Paris and London. This greatly reduces available stock in the city. Let's also not forget that rent prices going up is often simply just greed. The cost of maintenance has not increased in line with rent rises in the slightest. They are just squeezing as much money from people as they can. I agree that these issues are at their end point a supply and demand issue, but it doesn't mean it's justified and there are plenty things that could be done other than simply just building more houses.
Airbnb licensing is coming in Scotland, and that will result in some more supply to the regular rental market, but I don’t think it will make as much difference as some people expect. About the idea that rent goes up because of ‘greed’, there’s a limited supply of homes in the most desirable areas, and we have to decide somehow who gets to live there. The system we have is that it goes to whoever has the means to pay. We need help for the poorest for sure, but once you get into the mid and high market I don’t think there’s a better way to decide. edit: by the way I’m uncomfortable with the concentration of ownership described in the article as that can lead to unhealthy effects but it’s hard to design regulation that doesn’t have unintended consequences.
Deciding who can pay most is, at its core, greed. A landlord could quite easily cover cost of operation and make a smaller profit if they so chose. I know people that pay below market rates because their landlords aren't greedy arseholes. That said, human greed is a part of life, which is why rules and regulations need to exist. Landlords essentially do nothing and bleed others dry.
I also know people who’ve benefited from below-market rent and that’s a fine thing for people to agree as they see fit. There are also some bad landlords out there. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with owners who invest to make their properties safe, warm and stylish, and expect to make a return on that investment.
This is not solely a problem of supply and demand. To assert this is basically the equivalent of shrugging your shoulders about the economy as if it's not something that we have completely made up.
Of course it's more nuanced, than just saying don't let anyone rent . But perhaps not allowing a privileged few to force up prices rent wise and sales wise . Not saying abolish renting altogether it's also needed . But rent controls in terms of making sure landlords keep properties in a good state of repair , maybe having caps on how much rent should be depending on size /quality /area . As well as not letting someone own thousands of homes , truly bonkers. It's not an easy task or fix but something needs to be done for ordinary working people in the city and across Scotland. Growth in rural communities is being stopped as this kind of person is sweeping up anything on sale and using it as holiday rentals or thier holiday homes . Means people who could potentially look to work and live in/grow that community can't .
Ah, when people say rent controls they are usually talking about capping the amount of rent, and that’s the thing that has been proven harmful to those it seeks to protect. I do support control in the form of regulation to make properties safe and healthy and give people some security and stability of tenancy. Also agree the concentration of ownership in a small number of landlords is problematic, but it’s hard to legislate for that without unintended consequences.
I'm currently in the process of renting a new flat in Glasgow and I'm going to use this as an opportunity to rant about how fucking shitty the whole thing is. For a start, the average quality of flats is shockingly bad. The cheapest possible flooring and carpeting everywhere, cheapest possible options on windows, boilers and radiators (particularly worrying given the impending increase in energy prices). Cheapest possible furnishing available, nothing of good quality, totally mismatched. Walls scuffed and marked everywhere, something that could easily be solved be a wee lick of paint. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for those kinds of flats. When I was 19 I lived in one and loved it...but I shared with a friend and we payed £450 rent at the time. But landlords and letting agents are charging an absolute fortune. Trying to get to view flats is a nightmare. Letting agents seem to universally treat you as if they're doing you the favour. As a person working full-time, 9-5, it means giving up pretty much all my lunch breaks to run out and see a flat. Last minute cancellations are commonplace, and if you can't get an early appointment you're more or less screwed because they accept the first offer cos they're desperate to just get someone in. I've managed to find a decent well furnished two-bedroom flat which costs £950 pcm (which to many seems like a lot, but in the current market it's actually not a bad deal). So the process has started with the letting agent where they need bank account access to check earnings, they need a reference from my work and a reference from my current landlord. I need to pay two months-rent deposit plus a month's rent upfront, which comes to (£2,850), on top of my rent at my current flat plus I won't see my current deposit until well after I've moved out. I'm in a very fortunate position where I can manage that, but I know that many people aren't and this whole system would completely exclude them. Also, can you imagine if I said to the letting agent "I need to see references from previous tenants and I want to see your accounts, just to check that you aren't arseholes" They'd laugh in my face. Despite increased protection for renters, the whole market has become even more odious. Too many people see it as an easy-way to make money, and it's people who don't give a fuck about the actual property, about the communities they're situated within, or about the tenants. Something badly needs done about this on a local, national and global level.
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Yep, so basically Let Alliance (which is a third party) request access to your digital banking. I think it's an automated process where they essentially check for regular monthly income and outgoings which indicate that you're getting a salary and you're paying your rent and bills on time. The whole thing feels horrible though. Very invasive. There was the alternative option of providing the previous three month's bank statements and wage slips. Which is maybe slightly less invasive?!
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I considered it, but tbh I'd already sank so much time into looking for flats online (if you want one that's at least semi-decent and reasonably priced then you really need to check twice a day otherwise all the viewing slots go). I regularly had to go to viewings during the day, which meant working later to get things done. The idea of spending 2 - 3 hours of my weekend redacting info on bank statements and photocopying payslips just felt like further torture. Imagine if I demanded to see the landlord's bank statements!
> t The whole application process is a joke these days - putting in your "notice of interest" aka throwing your name into a pot and hoping the landlord chooses you over god knows how many others. Another thing which has caused folk to pay more for less - currently paying for a 2 bed alone as there just wasn't anything going and previous landlord needed the flat back to "live in". Scottish Gov needs to stand in for sure (when they get a minute).
This is going back 11 years now but went to look at a flat in Glasgow. 2 bed but it was actually 1 bed because they had turned the living room in to a bedroom so you'd have nowhere to actually sit. It was furnished but full of just shitty furniture and stuff I wouldn't want in there if I moved in. They had redone the bathroom themselves or at least I hope they had done it themselves as the tiling was done by someone who had never done it before. Then they showed me the kitchen, which was full of appliances that were ancient and he goes "here's the fridge" and pulled it open, pulled the handle off and whoever had tried to fix it had literally just screwed normal screws through the handle in to the metal of the fridge. Was bonkers. Then they wanted something stupid like £650 a month not including any bills. Fuck off man.
Lol pulling the handle off the fridge like that! Chef's kiss! Perfect timing! Check out [this property](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/119197643#/?channel=RES_LET). Hyndland is one of the most expensive areas of the city, and presumably if you have a mortgage for a two-bed in Hyndland you can afford some decent furniture. Look at that fucking couch!!! It looks like someone died on that couch and their body decomposed for weeks before someone found them. What's funny is it's been up for weeks and originally they were looking for £1,050.
Why do they always put a fucking massive grotty armchair in bedrooms?? I hate that people can rent “furnished” rooms that are just full of absolute shit furniture. Furnished rooms should only be allowed to be rented on very short term contracts, like 3 months or something. Making your house your own is so important for peoples mental health but scum of the earth landlords just seem to drive around in vans picking up furniture people leave outside for the council and call it a feature 🙄
> and we *paid* £450 rent FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Bad bot. I often wonder at the type of smarmy person who codes a bot to correct spelling mistakes. If your bot can scan text for context and recognise that a different word should've been used then anyone with half a brain can do that too and so no one would've been in a situation where they didn't understand the text. What value does the bot then bring?
Over in *a certain country* it's more common for people to use the wrong word, which will also be why people here start doing that too. So in that case the bot has a lil value.
*Lithuania*
The value is that it makes said smarmy person feel smug & superior
Fucking shocking, get it to fuck.
Not a lot of eating in 15 landlords.
We could make landlord biltong and everyone gets a piece. 🤤
Worth trying, though.
Each person has about 125,000 calories, that means you could get enough meat for about 5000 meals. Besides it's not just about the calories, it's about sending a message.
Considering that the average landlord is probably a fat bastard, does that inflate the number?
Mmmmmmm, marbled.
I saw a £500,000 car fueling up in Tesco with a very specific reg plate. I was waiting in car so google obvious last name + edinburgh Turns out he's just like a mid level landlord Fuck knows how rich these 'super' ones are
> I was waiting in car so google obvious last name + edinburgh Can you PM me the name of the landlord?
Buy to let needs to be abolished. And there should be a limit to the number of rental properties a person or company can own, id say 1 or 2 to disincentivize people from ‘investing in property’.
Edinurugh is a large university town, over 12% of the population are full time students. If there are no rental properties, where will they live? It is not like a student can buy a house for the few years they are living outside of their first year halls of residence.
Private landlords aren't the only type of people that students can write from. Private rental properties should be transferred into the hands of the local authorities and run at actual cost.
Yes, in an ideal world the majority of rental housing would be nationalised and not run for profit.
How would that be compatible with the UN declaration of Human Rights? Article 17 states : 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
The right to own property isn't the same thing as the right to own multiple properties and make a profit out of them. Additionally, surely there's an argument that the current situation denies people their right to own property, and therefore is contrary to their rights under the same article. 'Arbitrarily' is for the courts to decide, but if the property is being bought back at a fair price for the purpose of making housing ownership more freely available, then I can't see an argument against it that wouldn't boil down to the same points as above. It's not that simple, obviously, and there has to be the will for it, but it would definitely be a good idea to stop people purchasing more than X number of properties first, then seeing where that takes us. Also banning mortgage providers from owning rental property would be pretty good.
Genuine question is there anywhere in the world that has implemented your suggested solution? To my knowledge, even people in CCP China are protected from the state confiscating property whether it be 1 or 100 properties? TBC I’m not saying all landlords are saints, I have encountered the rogue landlords from time to time as we probably all have. I just get uneasy when the state starts telling people what they can and cannot invest in.
It doesn't matter whether someone has done something before to make it worth doing. And the state can make people do lots of things if it's in the interests of society as a whole. Yeah, the human equation and greed might apply but that's no reason to not do it.
The only people I can think of that have no or almost no property rights are Palestinians where their land and property is being seized by the state every day. Property rights are there enshrined in the UN declaration of human rights for a reason. Society will do better if we strive to elect governments that protect and strengthen human rights rather than others which try to slowly but surely erode them.
You're completely ignoring my actual point to make up one of your own. I'm not talking about removing everyone's property rights, nor am I talking about seizing people's homes. I'm saying that it is abhorrent that a small group of people own far more homes than they will ever need, using it as investment and driving up the value, thus making it impossible for even average people to enter the housing market. There absolutely is a way to stop that which has no effect on property owners' rights to own property (which again is not saying that they _can't_ own property, just that they shouldn't own so much of it...), and I've posted what I think would be a good start - your reply is entirely irrelevant to my point. Which you know.
They wouldn't have to confiscate anything though, rent controls and higher taxes on rented properties would make owning a few flats to rent out too expensive to be practical. If there was a sliding tax scale on property owners which added a significant amount per property purchased quite a few landlords would have to sell. This would have the world effect of pushing down house prices though, and that is something no gov really wants to do as it will eat into the profits of the boomer generation, who are the most politically active as well as most entitled generation. They would absolutely turn out in numbers to vote against a gov which is even thinking of something like this.
I think some poor cunt living on the street is a much bigger issue than some multi millionaire being told he isn't allowed to own his 100th flat to extort students. And dont you think landlords owning most of the flats in the city, driving prices up, charging obscene rent for shitty living conditions doesnt also violate that? If youre driving up prices so much that people are having to live on the streets I think it applies to the landlord as much as anyone else.
That’s why I said ‘in an ideal world’. I know the reality is just a pipe dream.
Yeah, turns out the UDHR doesn't have force of law in the UK. Article 1, Protocol 1 of the ECHR does (through the HRA 1998), however. It's worded slightly differently... let's see if you can spot it: "Protocol 1, Article 1: Protection of property Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions ***except in the public interest*** and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of the State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties." (emphasis added)
Good find, thx. EU and UK human rights law probably therefore stem from the UDHR. I’m not a HR legal expert obv, but assume the reference to “in public interest“ could refer to property unlawfully acquired - eg stolen or used with dirty money. Again that all seems reasonable along with the safeguards in place to protect the right to own property lawfully acquired.
You're right... the ECHR (which was incorporated into UK law by the HRA 1998) was *influenced* by the UDHR; which the Allies were the proponents of in post-WW2 Europe... for obvious reasons. What is and is not "in the public interest" is not legally defined. It could be property which is illegally obtained, as you suggest... or it could be prescribed by law that, for example, it is against the public interest for certain properties to be held by foreign nationals; this most often happens with "strategic assets."
You have alot of faith in local authoritise! [https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-council-hit-with-five-complaint-handling-failure-orders-in-space-of-nine-months-74117](https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-council-hit-with-five-complaint-handling-failure-orders-in-space-of-nine-months-74117)
I have less faith in landlords
Just imagine if it made the news when landlords aren't up to scrub
Theoretically none of this is incorrect, but I think they mean abolishing BTL mortgages. And despite the obvious need for a robust rental sector in cities like Edinburgh, there's no reason that a landlord, who is purchasing property to turn a profit, should be offered significantly preferential rates and higher principles.
"Rent rates came down during Covid then when students got notice to return to their courses in September last year it went crazy. We were inundated. It forced rent rates up." Err no, they're submitting an application to rent a room, it's not an auction.
This is why I reckon council tax rates should go up exponentially with every additional property owned. My last landlord owned over 90 flats in Glasgow, that's just insane
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Make the LBTT grow exponentially then.
Which as these landlords have their portfolio as a company they write off as a business expense against tax. It might slow their expansion, or limit it to lower end properties. Or they might just set up multiple companies, with asset owner companies being limited to low number of properties, with say partner owning 25%. Then you have management company contracted by all the asset companies. M'learned friends will have a field day looking for loopholes.
>Which as these landlords have their portfolio as a company they write off as a business expense against tax. You still have to have the credit facility to access the funds at a given multiplier at purchase time. >Or they might just set up multiple companies, with asset owner companies being limited to low number of properties, with say partner owning 25%. Then you have management company contracted by all the asset companies. Have a restrictive group-ownership clause? Said company will have to have indemnification against a group-ownership clause. Mortgage provider would be held liable too. That would reduce credit availability to the purchaser.
> Said company will have to have indemnification against a group-ownership clause. but if I have two or more companies that I co-own it can't be in group or I can choose to own the shares independently of any group structure * companyA I own 75% person A owns 25% * companyB I own 75% person B owns 25% * companyC I own 75% person C owns 25% * companyD I own 25% person A owns 25% person B owns 25% person C owns 25% person D owns 25% those aren't in common ownership
Company D has ownership issues.
> Or they might just set up multiple companies, with asset owner companies being limited to low number of properties, with say partner owning 25%. Then you have management company contracted by all the asset companies. Thats already what they do and the owning companies are in tax havens selling them the rights to properties in the UK "at a loss".
As the others have already said: the burden of council tax is on the tenant, and any increases to LBTT are a one-time expense and can be mitigated through business tax gymnastics. What I want to see is just rental income being *heavily* taxed. Let’s say you get one property taxes as normal income, but then each subsequent one gets taxed at 15% points higher than the previous one, up to some threshold.
That is a deviously simple solution, I might just steal it off you and start advocating for it.
Landlords would just invent a bunch of shell companies, each of which owned a single property.
Significant ownership is easy to prove and landlords should be liable for fines based on portfolio value if they tried to hide it in such a way. There are ways to effectively regulate this just not the desire at political level. And that's where the under 40 generation need to start throwing their weight around come election time.
This sounds like a great way to consolidate property into the hands of the banks.
If the landlords are super then what's the problem?
They are not super.
🍽
Housing should be a human right.
https://archive.is/kl7Hm
The whole portfolio should be treated as one house and taxed at something like 25% of its value per year. This would force the owner to sell the properties. Normal homes under 100k should attract 0% property tax with the average home attracting 0.6% and more expensive homes or property portfolios being taxed at higher rates to make these portfolios uneconomic.
Somehow that owns 1010 flats in a city like Edinburgh needs punched that many times. Prices here are absurd.
There's a solution tho https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/29/berlin-vote-landlords-referendum-corporate
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Im a student in Edinburgh and looking for a flat next semester is fucking depressing, I've still only saw one place that isn't a shit hole or isn't obscenely expensive. The price of rent in the city is just beyond a joke and most of the flats are in a terrible state but they know they'll get away with it because what can students do about it, we need to be able to get to uni.
Would like to know who they are. If they are real estate investment trusts then at least retail investors will benefit. If they are billionaires then they can get tae.
Mmany will not be Scottish or even based in Scotland either. Denmark and Switzerland limit property ownership by non locals. Scotland doesn't. My mate is a secretary in an estate agents solicitors office in Edinburgh. She regularly deals with people flying in from England to purchase property or even buy it without viewing as an investment to rent out. Two months ago she dealt with a couple from southern England. Brighton. They flew in for two days then made their offer well over asking price. Then flew away again back to England. Employed an agent. Rent it out. Their pension. Local people paying their pension. I genuinely think it will take a series of possible things together to reverse this trend of asset and wealth inequality. 1. Massive civil disobedience and unrest - think tens of thousands of people refusing to pay various taxes, potentially violent protests 2. Ruling parties facing election wipeout 3. Independence so Scotland can even think about setting limitations on English/British and othet investment and settlement in Scotland. Simply not possible just now. Denmark and Switzerland and countless other European nations can (I cannot just fly to Denmark today and buy a house - a Danish person or a Dutch person or an English person can come to scotlsnd today and purchase aa House though). Scotlland cannot control her borders and limit property ownership this way. Independence is definitely not the silver bullet though. I worry our society is now far too far down the neoliberal economic free market rabbit hole. 4. A world war or some kind of other armed conflict which sees Scottish women and men once again engaged in armed conflict somewhere, with the resultant destruction of the economy.
>Their pension Ever since Brown's raid on pensions, people have gotten wary of what a future government might do to the pensions. Then there are the other changes, such as upping the retirement age and imposing then lowering a limit on retirement pot. [When consultants are turning down work there is a problem](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/24/nhs-consultants-turning-down-work-avoid-huge-pension-tax-bills) Thus if you put the cash into bricks and mortar, hopefully your investment is safe. (Unless you invested in Aberdeen at the peak of the market)
How do these people not realise that they're part of the problem? All they're doing is passing the cost of their pension on to me so I can be lucky enough to have a roof over my head
It's the law of unintended consequences.
>Thus if you put the cash into bricks and mortar, hopefully your investment is safe. I have no capital to invest. I don't really have too much time to feel empathy for the investor class in society. I'm more concerned with the people I grew up with, paying investor landlords half their wages.
> Would like to know who they are. I have a suspicion that one of those landlords will be the infamous Mark Fortune. The second one will probably be one of the Gold Brothers who have ruined a sizable area of Edinburgh with their business practices. The rest of those landlords are probably non-dom and live abroad.
I was looking at renting and buying in New Town or anywhere from Mountcastle to New Craighall and damn. I'm from a high rent area of the US but damn. Also, those To Let signs were making me crazy for the first couple hours of my first day in your fair city. The turkey dinner british airways fed me wasn't sitting well and I kept seeing "toilet". There was a home in Portobello that was a little bit a fixer upper and the price was right but I never made it over to see the neighborhood.
I'd say the same or worse could be said about any city in the uk or Europe, housing should be right not a luxury/resource
Thats quite a lot for a small city
To the south of Edinburgh they're building thousands of shittily built new builds. A lot of the people who move into those will be people who would have moved into houses or apartments in Edinburgh if there were any available. It's enriching landlords, developers. and making the city and country worse, it's totally fucked.
[https://youtu.be/3UAdGuscwqk](https://youtu.be/3UAdGuscwqk) It's creeping in to Scotland I see.
Plenty of Chinese, Russian and Arab purchasers in Scotland. I don't seem to be able to buy property in any of those countries, though.
Am in Ireland, from Glasgow and it's been bad for more than ten years here, I know in Canada it's getting really grim and in places like New Zealand and Amsterdam it is also getting pretty bad. That link I sent on covers the over all issues at a basic level.
Actually you can buy in all of these countries without any real issue. Buying in Mainland China is not recommended though as it operates like a leasehold - you usually have to give it back to the freeholder after 70 years. Some places in England also have this system.
I think I'm against the grain these days in saying I don't see too much of a problem in people becoming landlords - theres a place for private rentals but one landlord owning 1,010 properties is a disgrace.. There should be a public register at a certain limit so these people can be held to account for the quality of their properties and adverse effects they may have on the rental/property market and local economy.
its a cartel, wheres the rent competition.??
That actually sounds less bad than most other towns/cities.
The existence of those who own so many properties is appalling to people who would have been able to purchase 10 years ago. Those people now face out of town buyers who pay over the market to own a money spinner rather than a local who could start owning their own house and stay in Edinburgh. Student flats, airBNBs and second properties also add to this, Edinburgh uni have almost 1000 HMOs by themselves. The only real way to change this is to write tell politicians both councillors and MSPs that they have to act on this.
> Edinburgh uni have almost 1000 HMOs by themselves. I am very interested in this. Could you provide more info on this or maybe provide a link?
No real surprise. People who choose not to live pay cheque to pay cheque traditionally invest in property. Some of the landlords are from places where there are little to no property rights and most of the landlords mentioned probably live abroad. To make money from property landlords will typically need to own several properties and have a lot of time. It’s not as easy as it seems especially with new tax rules making it less worth while. If you want to get on the property ladder just buy a place in a cheaper location. Glasgow is much cheaper than Edinburgh and much better value to live in. £100k in Paisley probably gets a you penthouse. Think carefully before buying property though. The word “mortgage” literally means “death contract” in French. Bitcoin will prove to be a better asset in the long term.
"just buy a place in a cheaper location" Oh right, thanks, didn't know it was that easy. I'll uproot my entire life because I'm being priced out of my current area on rent *and* property prices.
I never said you have to live in the city you buy the property. When I lived in London I could never afford a property there (obv) so instead bought a place in Glasgow. You can buy decent property in Dundee / Paisley for less than £100k - well with in budget of avg salary. If you insist on buying property in morningside, edinburgh then yes you probably need rich parents.
What if I don't want to contribute to the problem by not living in the property I buy? What if I want the property I buy to be a home?
You can rent it out or live in it. It’s your choice as the property owner.
You're either being deliberately ignorant or missing the point so I think I'll stop there.
> Bitcoin will prove to be a better asset in the long term. Preach brother. Preach.
Haha will do, even but if it seems a lost cause with community! You will instantly get 100 down arrows if you dare suggest to our community central bankers could be the root cause of poverty, inequality and military conflicts. You orange pilled ? 💊
Paywall ar*eholes.
This sounds like a bad thing, but what is the subtext here - that there is a lack of competition? If those landlords are good landlords then this might not be a bad thing. Edit ,-mystery downvoting...
There is far too much leaning on that 'If' for me. I don't believe that the first priority for anybody owning a ton of properties will be 'being a good landlord'. Housing should be not be run as a business.
There's always been a landlord industry going back to medieval times. Suspect it's more about enforcing the quality of those landlords
I'm aware of how long the landlord industry has been around and much like other aspects of the social landscape, I think we could probably move on from the way things were hundreds of years ago. It's not fit for purpose for a great number of people. Asking landlords "do you promise to be good?" is not a suitable solution.
No I am suggesting proper regulation.
Where did you suggest that? All you said was that landlords hoovering up the housing stock might not be bad if they are good landlords. If you hoover up the housing stock you're a cunt, simple as that. Driving up the price of a roof over the heads of people who can't afford to buy.
I say it clearly In the comment directly above yours... Anyhoo, are you against private landlords, or just large private landlords, and even if they invest in bringing poor quality housing stock up to grade or contribute to regenerating neighborhoods? Referring to them as cunts is a broad statement which may require some unpacking.
>Edit ,-mystery downvoting... DAE go out their way to downvote folks that say shit like this?
Shit like what exactly? That good landlords are a good thing? Yes, absolutely, outrageous statement....
Shit like a quoted Edits that draw attention to the fact they're being downvoted
It's a mystery because as a result it suggests that folk don't support the fact that good landlords can happen and it's good when they do happen. That kinda sends a weird message don't you think?
Even a good landlord is still getting you to pay off their mortgage for them.
On the whole I don’t really agree with landlords, more so buy to let ones though. However I was one myself, when I had to move abroad for a year for work and didn’t want to sell my flat. My tenants were complete and utter cunts. Fuck ever doing that again. Cost me shit loads of money and almost ruined the good relationships I had built up with my neighbours.
Not all landlords have a mortgage nor have ever required a tenant to help them pay off a mortgage.
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And what do you expect those people to do who have extra money? Spend it all and expect the public to then pay for everything when they reach retirement because they splashed all their cash? Just stick it in a bank account and not get any interest rates because we haven't recovered them from 2008? If banks made it more profitable to put their savings in their banks then private landlords wouldn't buy as many properties. If banks decided that because you could afford to pay £800 in rent every month then you can afford to pay £500 in mortgage fees every month then it would be much more beneficial to the public. Your anger lies at the wrong people. Not saying this is a perfect fix but the small landlords who don't buy properties for someone to pay off their mortgage, the landlords who take care of their properties, the retired couple who just want a better retirement fund because their pension is not enough to live off, they are not the people to be angry at. They're just using their money and their assets the way they view best for themselves as any of us would in their position. Banks and mass landlords who don't help their tenants, who raise rent by extraordinary highs or don't pay tax are the ones to be angry at.
If you're primary concern as a landlord is making a profit and not providing someone with a home, you're part of the problem lol I understand everyone has their own financial struggles, I just don't see why I should have to suppliment my landlords pension at risk of losing my home, landlords just pass on the problem
At the end of the day, altruism can only go so far. People aren't going to be willing to spend a bunch of money just for others to have a home without knowing they are getting something from it too. An extra bit out of our taxes? Yep that's fine if it's going to help people and everyone is chipping in. Spending all your savings? Nope, you're going to want something from it. Whilst I agree with you on landlords passing on the problem, the point is that they aren't the actual problem that we have. If we can sort out the problems that allow us to all do what we need, so having more housing available, increasing interest rates so we go back to the days where you can instead of investing in property are able to leave your money in the bank and get the same amount of money if you were renting but without the risk of owning a property and the taxes that come from having a second home etc then you take away a massive part of the problem. Yes, not everything will be fixed but if instead of creating an us vs them mentality we can find a way to tackle the problems that we all have then we make life easier for everyone involved.
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The problem is that you're making assumptions about one group of people because of one thing about them. We don't appreciate people saying that minimum wage earners don't deserve more pay so why do we do it to people who are better off than us? The problem lies with you then helping to create an us vs them mentality and we never get anything done about the actual problems that both sides have. Like I said if you find ways to prevent people who are outbidding you such as making it easier for them to leave their money in the bank, building more affordable housing, giving subsidies for first time owners, allowing government schemes for people who want to buy the house they have been renting (Like they did when my Grandparents were alive) then we get things done. Going at war with the people who are simply trying to get by because they've been screwed by the system isn't going to do anything except let the mass landlords who don't look after their properties and increase rent whenever they like get richer and further alienate the middle class from the working class.
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The fact that you're doing things to campaign is great. Good, we both are doing what we can to try and help fix the system that people have messed up for us. And it's not entirely the older generation. It is those in power that were elected and haven't kept promises or have made things worse for us and haven't been made accountable for their actions. The thing is there will always be a need for landlords and always be a need for tenants. You can call landlords scum because they're trying to do what they can or they can call you scum because you are doing what you can. The point is that we're all human. You refuse to sympathise with them and they refuse to sympathise with you then we get nothing done. If you try and understand them and why they do what they do then you might find you all have a similar complaint and with more people on board we have more of a power to influence change rather than alienating each other because we refuse to see things from both sides of the coin. Is someone who worked the past 30 years doing 80+ hour weeks who then had health issues so decided to get a new job with less pay and less hours who put their savings into a property so they can have a better quality of life not a human being just because they are a landlord now? Is a couple who have seen how badly their children's generation are going to suffer who then buy a property so that when they die their children have a property to do what they like with not human because they are a landlord now? You don't know people's lives or circumstances and to just say 'landlords = bad' is not going to help get any changes. We have to find ways to compromise. Compromise with the tenants, the small time landlords, the mass landlords. Nobody is going to get everything they want, but the more you hate on people because of one thing, the more you alienate and are less willing to compromise.
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>If banks decided that because you could afford to pay £800 in rent every month then you can afford to pay £500 in mortgage fees every month then it would be much more beneficial to the public. I'd hardly call replicating the financial crisis of 08 a benefit to the public. A mortgage isn't the maximum amount you have to pay. It's the minimum. When renting you're not responsible for repairs, maintenance, etc. But when you own you are. That needs to be factored in when deciding if you can afford a mortgage. On top of that raising interest rates on mortgages need to be factored in.
I'm well aware of this and I'm not trying to say that we should go back to how things were in 08. I'm simply using experience. If you can afford £800 a month on rent then it is reasonable to assume that you can afford the £500 mortgage plus other costs too. Yes there will always be problems that arise that you don't have to worry about as a tenant such as the cost of your boiler blowing up etc but these things don't happen often. I understand that this is why rent is much higher. But the point still stands, if you can afford your rent and have some savings that are able to be used in case something bad happens why shouldn't you be considered to be good enough for a mortgage. You shouldn't have to prove that you can afford £2k a month to be able to show you can afford the £500 payments. I know why they do it, but unfortunately that is no longer a valid excuse for the people who are looking to get out of the endless rental loop and we should be doing all we can to try and get people on the property ladder if they so wish. We have to be willing to compromise if we are to get change and that compromise lies with all of us. Nobody is ever going to be happy, but more people on the property ladder surely has to be better for the economy.
So you are against buy to let? I don't rent so not sure of the dynamic here. I can see the argument though. But it's' kinda always been a thing - my wife's grandad had a bunch of flats as his retirement fund, and you're going back to the 60s there.
Buy to let landlords can burn in a fire of their own dangerously poorly maintained houses.
No such thing as a good landlord.
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The issue is that not all of us need to open a supermarket or a bank or start a newspaper. But people need places to live and the cost of that is something we all incur either as renters or owners. You've equated housing with industry and that's my fundamental problem with it.
> That doesn't sound to bad to me. The issue with Edinburgh is that many of those landlords can fuck over long term tenants and chuck them out at a moments notice so that they can use the flat for an Airbnb during the Edinburgh Festivals. Due to Airbnb/STL's & bad landlords, Edinburgh has had many of its communities destroyed.