Social landlords need regulatory – legal – insistences because they are not subject to competitive pressures. As people deliberately offering below market rate product they’ll not be, will they?
Campaigners have called for private housing landlords to be held to new standards set out after the death of Awaab Ishak, as research indicated that 1.6 million children live in privately rented homes with damp, mould or excessive cold.
The government this month announced a new “Awaab’s law” that will set deadlines for social landlords in England and Wales to tackle reported hazards. Two-year-old Awaab was killed by mould in a social housing flat in Rochdale in 2020.
However, the legislation does not extend to private landlords and there are concerns that children in those properties could suffer the same fate.
People subject to competitive and market pressures don;t require the same sort of legal insistence do they? Because they’re already subject to those competitive pressures.
Why do landlords want to stamp out the natural, self-evident right of sleeping outside on commons? Why is the Lockean Proviso so blatantly violated, yet you lot still pretend crapitalism has some sort of moral authority?
The obvious solution is to immediately evict all tenants living in accommodation that is too cold, mouldy or damp, and only allow the landlords, ‘social’ or private, to rent it out after careful and prolonged inspection makes certain it meets Meghan’s and Harry’s standards.
Meanwhile they can all sleep on the footpath as rsm recommends.
Of course those tenants who have demonstrated the ability and willingness to keep their accommodation in proper order can be given an exemption from this regulation.
There is no difference between landlords and any other type of business, except that the failure of ann economist known as Marx had a visceral hatred of them (due, of course, to his preternatural ability to get things wrong).
This is why, a hundred and fifty years later, they are still persecuted as a class.
I don’t see the problem.
If British people can’t find suitable private accommodation there are loads and loads of empty hotel rooms all over the country. Hell, there’s so many we already use them to house thousands of completely genuine refugees from the hideous war zone of France.
There was a thread here quite recently about rented accommodation with mould due to inadequate ventilation and the collective view semed to suggest that tenants were in large measure responsible for the problem by not opening windows.
The law seems to be built around the notion that landlords are evil and that tenants have no more agency or impact on their environment than an inanimate husk. As things are now the provisions of an assured shorthold tenancy that supposedly favour the landlord are countermanded by general legislation that protects the tenant.
Lots of modern apartment buildings are now insulated up to the hilt. Without a means of circulating the air, there is nowhere for moisture to go. Combined with many tenants who are in possesion of a rice-cooker (Chinese, Indian etc.) this is a recipe for disaster.
The wife works in property management and there are a vast number of tenants who are as thick as p*gsh*t, don’t read (or understand) their tenancy agreement nor the instructions on how to maintain their property.
John,
And the NATO ally of Albania!
I like the use of the term ‘social landlords’. Masks the fact that it wasn’t run by Peter Rachman type evil capitalists, but a ‘partnership’ between lovely, fluffy liberals and the tenants. A bit like Grenfell Tower. They have some nice values though….: https://www.rbh.org.uk/about-us/
John @ 9.35,
the MSM over here in the UK have been surprisingly quiet about reporting the Irish
people who want to protect their culture /Irishnessracists showing their displeasure at being forced to accomodate thousands of foreignasylumwelfare seekers.@M.Bison.
Assured Shorthold and Section 21 were brought in thirty years ago to protect the landlords from the tenants. That is the main reason why the present rental sector has existed, up to now.
@TMB
If is this is the case I think it was, the nature of the cooking equipment seen in photos of the kitchen gave serious grounds to believe there was some sort of commercial culinary enterprise going on there. One stewpot capable of holding 7-8 litres maybe. But at least two of them? They’re not cheap items to buy. Especially considering their reported circumstances. And a great deal can be deduced from knowing about Africans & African cuisine. My guess was they were feeding more than one couple & a child or even doing outcooking. You do that sort of thing, particularly with the cuisine* suggested, with poor ventilation, inevitably the place will be wringing wet with condensation.
*The basic cuisine from that part of the world is various stews take lengthy periods of cooking.
Hugh, indeed so but subsequent legislation has rendered much of it void. The tenancy agreement will stipulate for instance that the tenant must grant the landlord access to the premises to address mainenance issues but the tenant can merrily ignore such requests with impunity with the full protection of the law.
Or again, check-in/-out procedures were paid for by landlord at commencement and by tenant on termination. This meant that the check-in clerk was manifestly impartial. Now the landlord pays for both inventory checks, the check-in clerk is no longer “impartial” and so any dispute about dilapidations will go the tenant’s way. Etc. etc. etc.
BiS – I don’t have a particular case in mind but you contributed to the previous thread with your own experience of buildings and how they can be abused. I’m amazed that private landlords with relatively “accessible” (in terms of £££) property don’t bale out of the market. Perhaps the buyers aren’t there?
From what I understand – a lot of landlords are now moving into the short-term letting market.
But yes, the balance of legislation has shifted firmly in favour of the tenant and the effects are still working through the system.
Any law named after a person is bound to be a bad law. Since it a) attempts to get the law passed due to sentiment and b) the name of the law says nothing about its purpose.
Adolff,
the MSM over here in the UK have been surprisingly quiet about reporting the Irish people who want to protect their culture /Irishness racists showing their displeasure at being forced to accomodate thousands of foreign asylum welfare seekers.
Our MSM are also ignoring Germany’s Greens, or at least a very powerful part of the party, who have also noticed that something is not right:
BiS is correct regarding African cooking, or any other cooking for that matter. The mould evident in the photographs taken in that flat could never have formed to the extent that it did without being helped by a complete lack of ventilation. Either open the windows or buy a decent dehumidifier if you’re going to do ANY sort of cooking in a small space, let alone stews taking hours to cook. Anyone here will know that if you fry just a bit of bacon, the windows will steam up. Where does that condensation moisture end up if it’s not ventilated? Not only that, but the obscene amounts of mould shown had clearly been allowed to build up. Did no-one in the flat ever think to clean it off with mildew cleaner, long before it had got anywhere near the stage it had?
We don’t need another *******’s Law, just some bloody common sense applied to everyday matters. The tenants in this flat appear to have lacked any such.
You can’t blame the Africans. They were obeying government orders to seal the flat to stop the covid virus coming in from outside.
BiND – “mandatory residence zones”
Fairly sure the Boche have tried this one before.
I don’t think it is so much of a problem in the private sector TMB. OK there are some bad landlords get away with renting out dreadful places. But mostly, they’ve an asset they’ve an interest in preserving. And they’re in a position to & do keep a keen interest on how their tenants are using the places. Unless they’re stupid enough to let to the council, that is.
Public sector? The people running it have little interest at all. They’re more concerned with their own careers than the properties they’re managing.