“The tenants have just phoned. They want to know if it’s okay that they cut a firebreak around the house.”
No, I have never let my house. Being in a profession where transfers do not happen, there has never been any need to. But these are not the only reasons.
How can I assess the merits of letting one’s house without having had the experience, you might ask. Do I have to taste poison to know it’s dangerous? Observation and a listening ear can outsmart experience. How many good stories of letting a property have you heard? Without venturing near the internet, I know that horror stories dominate, but even if you don’t believe everything you read there, they can’t all be made up. It’s not that I am too house-proud or obsessed to allow someone I don’t know to sleep under its roof. Our home is regularly dog- and house-sat (in that order of priority). But there’s a difference here: we pay the individual; tenants pay you.
And that, dear homeowners, is an appreciable difference. People do not like paying money for apparently little return. However comfortable, well-appointed and equipped your home may be, the tenant seldom has grateful thoughts for the good fortune of renting so handsome a property. If I’m going to be paying this much, thinks he, let’s make sure we get the maximum use out of it, except for the garden, of course, which won’t be touched for the duration of occupancy. But bathrooms and kitchens will tell a different story: you might need an oxyacetylene torch to cut the grease – and that’s the bath we’re talking about! This mercenary response of a tenant springs from the galling awareness that all his good money is going into your bond – he’s not getting a cent out of it. Sure, a roof overhead for now, but after that final month’s rent is paid, where does he stand?
Dissatisfaction in the departing tenant; disbelief for the returning homeowner. Had he driven down the street during the tenancy he may have been a bit better prepared: the jungle garden, weed-infested verge, oiled driveway. Perhaps, though, it was wiser to keep away and not let what was happening to his property gnaw at his mind.
It’s the smell which stays. If only you could have smelt it when you met your prospective tenants. It’s not that they smoked – you made sure not to have any of that – it’s either that they had animals or had animal in them. Wall-to-wall carpets means wall-to-wall whiff – and that’s without even noting the new pattern in the design, if spillages can be called that. It’s odd, too, how limited the imagination is when it comes to anticipating possible harms. Packing away all kitchenware, bedding and ornaments seemed enough damage limitation, but was that mould creeping down the bathroom wall there when you left – it certainly hadn’t moved from the en-suite into the bedroom. Did they run a sauna business? There was also no time or space to store the curtains, and they seemed safe enough – you didn’t realise they serve as convenient napkins. Even if you could prove that the wooden flooring was really shiny when you left, it’s not worth going to court about how it looks now, especially as they’re no longer in town. Be thankful though that you have wooden flooring. Carpets have a way of speaking from beyond the grave.
Wasn’t the agent meant to be overseeing this? Isn’t no news, good news? Before you let the house you thought that : now you know that the reason they never got hold of her about the tiles which some storm shifted and accounts for that mess of mould in the lounge ceiling is that they didn’t want her to see what else was going wrong.
Letting one’s house is a serious business. In fact, unless it is a serious business you’re advised not to. Those who manage to do so successfully work like this: find a rundown property, buy it, renovate it themselves, then let it. Because they have the building skills to fix up dilapidated houses, if the tenants do mess it up somewhat, it’s not a problem for them to do repairs and continue to make money on their investment. They never cultivate any personal attachment to the property: it is simply a business.
Then there’s the more amateur business method: move into cheap accommodation for a month of the summer holiday season (camping in a caravan park for the really serious ones) and let your house to some tourists. Of course, you have to have a house which can meet a tourist’s hopes, but there’s still useful money to be made. This method is risky and can come with a price. Even if a month is not enough time to inflict much damage, people generally have the attitude that, if I’m paying so much money to stay in this place I am going to get my pound’s flesh. Looking at the electricity and water bills, you wonder just how many were staying here – how did they all fit in? Did they ever leave the premises? Judging from the sag in the beds and couches, it appears not. And the lengths you went in packing away so much from possible depredation – it just doesn’t seem worth it.
Many have no option but to let, being transferred temporarily. How good a judge of character are you? Never will this question be as important as now. That couple across the table seem so decent and reasonable, but why did they not bring their three children with them? Did they say they were boys? That saying of your mother’s which frustrated you entirely, ‘When in doubt, don’t’, has just made an unexpected return to your ear. Perhaps she does have a point.
And there’s the problem of getting shot of lousy tenants, if you happen to make the wrong choice. Not so easy. There’s the period of notice to be served and who knows what nasty things they will choose to sweep under the carpet as a payback for being seen as unwelcome and unsavoury.
Property is a valuable commodity, foundational not just financially but also in establishing a good space for the growth of one’s family and values. Unless you have yourself been a tenant of a property and know the territory, think twice before letting your own.
The British have perfected an economy in which the rich rob the poor of every last penny the poor possess. It is a rip-off economy par excellence.
Central to this mechanism is the shortage of affordable homes (and central to this shortage is the alienation by successive Tory governments of existing council housing stock; of flogging council houses to private investors).
A growing shortage of affordable homes means that the number of people forced to rent from private landlords is rising year on year: many are paying three quarters or more of their income in rent to landlords who wax rich on their tenants’ poverty.
Indeed, the Tory party exists to secure and promote the advantages the rich possess, and to transfer wealth from the poorest to the richest. Tory governments pass legislation which favours the private landlord (hardly surprising: many MPs are themselves landlords), and penalises the tenant. In Britain, private tenants have no security of tenure. No-cause evictions with a mere one month’s notice are permissable in law.
Time was when Britain possessed a large stock of council houses, and tenants paid a reasonable rent to the council in return for security of tenure. Those days are gone. Most of this once council housing is now in the hands of private owners – many of whom let these properties out to desperate home makers at three, or four times the rent their parents paid the council.
As long as Tory governments in Britain see their duty to the rich and not to the poor, so the availability of cheap housing will be kept purposefully low; no new council houses will be built: the Tories have a duty to the rentier class. Rental returns will be carefully maintained at an artificially high level through the shortage of affordable housing.
Nothing so radicalises a person in Britain as having to rent his home from a private landlord.
Was it the Tory view that, with the houses being owned by the State, tenants were not disposed to look after or value them, leading, in short, to the deterioration of the property and value generally? Does not private ownership secure the value more?
There were always some tenants who failed to care for their homes, but essential care (upkeep, such as maintaining the plumbing and wiring, painting the walls, repairing roofs, along with fundamental structural care) was, anyway, the responsibility of the landlord, ie, the local council, so even a careless tenant could not cause his rented home too much lasting damage.
A great many council tenants, assured of security of tenure, spent money on their homes, improving them, and reflecting the pride they felt in their homes. One could see this if one drove through a council house estate: there was evidence of much pride on the part of a great many tenants in their council homes.
I read recently (in the Guardian) that studies have shown that even private tenants (who have no security of tenure) will often spend money on maintaining and improving the homes they rent from private landlords: it is a very Human instinct, surely, to feel pride in one’s home, and to wish to keep it in good condition, and sometimes to improve it. The private landlord of course is the long term beneficiary of these improvements.
The Tories commenced alienating council houses in the early 1980s because they saw an opportunity for enriching their primary constituency – ie, the well off. And they understood that by limiting and reducing the availability of affordable homes to rent, rental returns would be kept artificially high – an important part of enriching the rentier class, which, almost to a man (and a woman) votes Tory.
No, my friend: the wish to maintain properties in good condition plays no part in Tory thinking; it was and is all about guarding the interests of the rentier class, and enriching the well off.
The property market in Britain is in crisis: there is a desperate shortage of affordable homes to rent. In Britain it is possible to be both in full time employment – and homeless. Such a property market requires fundamental reform. But so long as the Conservative governments see their first duty to the rentier class, such reform will not take place. Insecurity of tenure is the cause of major social problems in Britain: if a family cannot be assured that they will still be living in their home in five years’ time, how can they make long term plans; how can they bring up settled, stable families, or develop a sense of community with their neighbours? Social alienation – a consequence of insecurity of tenure – is at the root of so much antisocial and criminal behaviour in Britain.
I (and many others) propose a two-part solution to Britain’s housing crisis: (1) increase the number of council houses available to rent (often called ‘social housing’ in Britain); (2) establish long term security of tenure for private tenants (In 2017 in Scotland, the SNP semi-autonomous government made important reforms to the rental market, resulting in far greater security of tenure for private tenants than before, but these reforms were not made in England or Wales).
However, if the number of council houses was hugely increased as I propose, then the high rents that private landlords charge tenants for their homes would necessarily fall, as pressure on housing was eased. Such a move poses a direct threat to the financial interests of the largely Tory-voting rentier class. Likewise, private landlords do not wish their power to summarily eject tenants to be threatened.
The shortage of affordable homes to rent in the UK, and the lack of security of tenure that so many 100s of 1000s of tenants experience, is a cause of political radicalisation and social problems in Britain. For most young people, property ownership remains a dream, unless their parents can underwrite their mortgage. The way to property ownership for the lucky few in Britain is via the Bank of Mum and Dad, or via inheritance. And hugely inflated residential property prices are a direct consequence of the alienation of council housing stock to private buyers.
Britain’s housing crisis will cause enormous social and political problems in the long term.