Government admits not knowing number of quitting landlords
Matthew Pennycook says his Government department does not hold information about how many landlords are leaving the sector.
The Government has admitted that it doesn’t know the number of landlords who have left the industry since the beginning of the decade.
Responding to a Parliamentary question about how many landlords have exited the sector every year since 2020, the Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government) Matthew Pennycook responded: “My Department does not hold the information requested”.
My Department does not hold the information requested”.
However, he pointed to data from HMRC that shows the number of landlords in England declaring income from rental property.
Those official stats reveal that the total number of unincorporate landlords declaring income from renting property in 2023 to 2024 was 2.86million.
Exiting buy-to-let
Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former RICS residential chairman, says: “It is surprising that the Government does not appear to have robust data concerning the number of landlords who have been, or are considering, exiting the buy-to-let sector.
“Without recourse to such records it must be difficult to assess the efficacy of the Renters’ Rights Act, as well as other regulation and its wider impact. Or maybe what agents are finding is happening on the ground is not particularly palatable to the Government or an endorsement of its policy?
Without recourse to such records it must be difficult to assess the efficacy of the Renters’ Rights Act.”
“It’s not just about landlords, of course, but the impact on tenants and disruption to their lives of having to leave sometimes very comfortable accommodation at relatively short notice and the difficulty of replacing it at anything like similar rent.
“In our offices, we are not losing as many landlords as we had feared although many are still to make up their minds as the deadline looms and existing tenancies come up for renewal.”
Staggering that a department making policy does not have the facts to hand but not surprising. I could not run my business if I didnt have the full facts of the business and understand the area that I operate in.
Perhaps if they realised the problems that exist out here in the real world for real businesses and real people who desperately to be able to rent – there are many reasons – they would stop constantly being negative to landlords and encourage them as they are a major part of the housing solution not the cause of the problem.
That government figure of 2.85m is higher than we usually hear for the number of landlords. It represents 7.3% of the total 39.1m taxpayers, and corporate landlords are not even included. In preparing his answer to the parliamentary question, I wonder if the Minister reflected that maybe his Department ought to be more aware of the suppliers to the sector he is meant to be running, as Jeremy Leaf comments.
7.3% is a significant minority that the government might heed, you would have thought. That is quite a lot of people that certain politicians and lobby groups say they would like to abolish. Can we expect from Starmer’s government shortly an official definition of Anti-Landlord Hostility?