Ed's rent controls idea

scorza

scorza

scorza

Caporegime
Joined
22 Jun 2004
Posts
26,684
Location
Deep England
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27225421

Is it me, or have they come up with a quite good idea. I mean, this is the system in Germany and from what I hear it works quite well. Basically a maximum rent rise would be set each year and tenants would have more rights including not having to pay fees for signing tenancy agreements.

Of course the Haves will hate it, but isn't it time that something was done to benefit Generation Rent, even though they don't vote.
 
I'm actually for this, the current state of property is unsustainable, and rent control is a nice middle ground between the free-market madness we have now and fully state-owned housing.
 
If they want to drive rent costs down they should be persuing increased market competition by starting a program of social housing building and opening up planning laws to allow more development.
 
Unworkable, what we need is new housing. But not the small amount they're building atm, and not the stupidly priced stuff they are building atm.
They need to rethink construction process and materials.

I would like to see estate agents licensed or controlled though. To many cowboys in the market, they fixed the deposit issue mostly, but estate agents are still a big issue.

Would also like to see opening up of planning law, we should not be forced into debt to live, if I want to build a small strawbale house, shipping container house or any number of other houses at around the 10k mark, I should be able to, assuming I can find a bit of land.
Planning law is far to strict in the UK, which forces people into debt, as you have to build similar looking houses, and anything other than usual construction is hard, as it's not recognised by planning office etc.
If you don't want different houses in cities, then create a road system and infrastructure and sell small cheap plots to individuals, no developers allowed, and make these new estates, far less restrictive on the planning front.

The issue is not rent, it's lack of affordable houses.

The other thing you can do is make stamp duty a fixed expensive percentage on second homes.
 
Last edited:
They really need to cap the rent as well as how much it can increase. Ex-council estate, two-bedroom houses for £1000/pcm are a complete laugh - they probably cost £5000 each to build.

Then let's control estate agents who fleece tenants with administration fees for credit checks, etc. That's without mentioning them withholding bonds for the smallest speck of dirt when doing the final house inspection.
 
Moses said:
They haven't come up with quite a good idea. It's hardly a novel concept. What about the negatives, such as the potential ones mentioned in the article?

Scrapping fees will just lead to them being loaded on in the form of extra commission, so extra rent, no?
Click to expand...

I don't see why it should, in fact how can you pay extra rent if it's controlled? If it's such a bad idea why does it work so well in Germany?

Moses said:
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/420638076168204288

Lolocaust.
Click to expand...

To be fair, on the BBC News at 6 they said that rent controls as abolished by Mrs Thatcher aren't the same thing as what Ed is proposing here. Not sure exactly what the difference is though.
 
darael said:
They really need to cap the rent as well as how much it can increase. Ex-council estate, two-bedroom houses for £1000/pcm are a complete laugh - they probably cost £5000 each to build.

Then let's control estate agents who fleece tenants with administration fees for credit checks, etc. That's without mentioning them withholding bonds for the smallest speck of dirt when doing the final house inspection.
Click to expand...

All that is going to do is move the scum out of London to cheaper areas spoiling those areas.
 
Threads like this are great to show how bias people may be, in that they hate anything labour say regardless as to if it's a reasonable suggestion.

While you may not agree with the methods he's only proposing changes to make it closer to a system which works in Germany.

The proposal is hardly outlandish.

Personally, I think house building (House being the key word, not flat) needs to be greatly expanded to meet demand with the government opening up loads of brown sites & incentivising new builds/ensuring they are only sold as live in homes, not as buy to let.
 
elmarko said:
Personally, I think house building (House being the key word, not flat) needs to be greatly expanded to meet demand with the government opening up loads of brown sites & incentivising new builds/ensuring they are only sold as live in homes, not as buy to let.
Click to expand...

I think our challenge for the 21st century is to go back to high-rise and make it work this time. Even then though, things are bleak for the young - we label them Generation Rent but increasing numbers of young people can't even afford to rent and are forced to continue living with their parents into their 30s. Then we have the recent changes to annuities i.e. you don't have to buy one when you retire, which I predict will further put pressure on the housing supply as retired folk buy-to-let for their retirement income.

We've got to do something to make buy-to-let less attractive. If people want to be landlords then fine, but it can't be a get rich quick scheme.
 
Moving to a standard three year tenancy with limited S21 powers will just make the vetting harder and severely restrict housing options for tenants who aren't ideal. It happens in other countries with a similar model.

Capped rent rises are likely to result in long term tenants receiving more regular rises, rather than staying the same for a long period of time. Landlords will not want to fall too far behind inflation.

Removing letting agent fees, well that just lets England catch up with Scotland.

scorza said:
We've got to do something to make buy-to-let less attractive.
Click to expand...

Reduce apparent demand by increasing supply.

What labour don't seem to want is stricter standards of housing quality (e.g. repair standards, white goods obligations, etc), better enforcement or increased regulation of landlords and agents.

This is just a quick, headline grabbing idea. Not a terribly useful one. Changes need to be made but these aren't the changes you are looking for...
 
Last edited:
elmarko said:
Threads like this are great to show how bias people may be, in that they hate anything labour say regardless as to if it's a reasonable suggestion.
Click to expand...

Germany is very different to this half parsed proposal. the main issue UK has is shortages. Germany doesn't have anything like the issue we have.

Don't they also have "social rent"
Places built with government subsidies, can only be rented by people struggling who have obtained a license. And isn't a right to live for ever. And get chucked out when there license expires. In the UK we have a tendency once you're in a building government won't kick you out.
 
Moses said:
http://londonist.com/2014/01/how-rent-controls-work-in-other-countries.php

How are those rent controls going to work if our planning situation is different? What about other differences in Germany? Can you tell me about their system and why it works, or have you just heard something vague about rent controls in Germany working okay, as everyone has?
Click to expand...

Isn't a constrained supply all the more justification for price controls? In any case, aren't moves afoot to liberalise the planning system in the UK?
 
I think that what they're trying to achieve is great, but I really don't have any confidence that the Labour party could manage it. Surely it's not a good idea to regulate markets like that?!
 
either way they need to build more houses, otherwise the prices keep rising and rising no matter what, the problem is all the parasite BTL landlords. Most other EU countries have a huge culture of renting, for some reason we are obsessed with owning
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom