Tenants back rent controls as Burnham weighs up reform
A SpareRoom survey revealed overwhelming tenant support for rent controls - a move being considered by Andy Burnham.
More than eight of 10 tenants support Burnham’s rent controls, new data reveals.
A survey of 5,607 tenants by SpareRoom this month revealed the overwhelming support for the reforms.
Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has confirmed that he is considering introduction rent controls.
Rising rents
SpareRoom says that it understands the support among tenants for rent controls, but warns that it will not solve the underlying supply issue in the rental market.
Matt Hutchinson, Director of SpareRoom, says: “Rents just hit record highs in six of the UK’s nine regions, and supply across the country has taken a battering as the Renters’ Rights Act came into effect.
“Although tenants are now better protected in the market, they are certainly not better off.
“Renters have been struggling with housing costs since the pandemic forced up prices steeply, and now supply is being squeezed, rents will only go up again unless action is taken.”
Supply issues
He adds: “It’s easy to see why the majority of renters support rent controls – they’ll bring some much-needed relief from rent rises – but they won’t solve the underlying supply issue.
“The real question is whether Andy Burnham’s Labour Government will manage to do what successive governments have failed to for decades and meaningfully increase the UK’s supply of affordable homes.”
The SpareRoom research also found that six out of 10 tenants understand that rent controls risk pushing landlords out of the market, reducing housing supply and driving up rents in the long term.
Rent controls would undermine the supply of the homes to rent so many tenants urgently need.”
Industry reaction
Ben Beadle, Chief Executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, (NRLA), says: “With the private rented sector facing significant further changes, it is vital that reforms are practical and fair for both tenants and responsible landlords.
“We urge the Housing Secretary to focus on improving enforcement to root out the minority of rogue and criminal landlords undermining the reputation of the responsible majority. In parallel, ministers must also repair the broken justice system to ensure the Renters’ Rights Act can be implemented effectively.
“Underpinning all of this is a need to rule out any form of rent control. As Angela Rayner herself and the cross-party Housing Select Committee have all warned, rent controls would undermine the supply of the homes to rent so many tenants urgently need.”
Greg Tsuman, Managing Director of Lettings at Martyn Gerrard Estate Agents, says: “The uncertainty landlords are facing is highly damaging to the rental market.
“With new taxes coming into effect in less than eight months and the cost of borrowing surging, while landlords are still coming to terms with the Renters Rights Act, a rent freeze would spell disaster for tenants trying to secure a property. If the objective was to make renting more affordable, this policy will achieve the exact opposite.
Many landlords selling up would prefer to keep the property vacant than risk keeping a tenant in situ.”
“Unfortunately, the uncertainty is now so high that many landlords selling up would prefer to keep the property vacant than risk keeping a tenant in situ.
“With rental stock declining and rents surging, tenants are already bearing the brunt of bad policy, and they will suffer the most from the collapse in available rental properties. Building more council homes is sensible, but they will take years to be completed, and tenants need somewhere to live now.
“If Burnham is serious about wanting to alleviate the cost of living and helping renters, he should be encouraging investment into the private rented sector and reducing the onerous tax costs on letting, which has led to rents increasing so much in recent years. Governing through soundbite policies without thought to the actual effects will wreak havoc.”
If interest rates stay stable and courts plus tribunals can guarantee decisions within 28 days the upward pricing of rent should stop. If rent controls/caps come in the availability of rental housing will go down. This is something that even a politician should be able to understand.
Simple fact is that tenants need landlords more than landlords need tenants. Therefore, driving private landlords out of the market, which tenant activist landlord-hating groups have consistently urged government to do for the last 10+ years, is primarily going to hurt tenants as we have said all along.
We may soon get to the point where those in charge wake up and start to see the damage they have done to the prospects and life chances of those who rely on the rental sector to give them a roof over their heads.
It’s also time that government started to realise that the PRS is actually the cheapest way of providing rental accommodation when all costs are considered, and stop treating us like vermin and trying to tax us out of existence.
Before slamming the foot hard on the rent control brake to slow down rent growth, why not take the foot off the accelerator driving rents higher? Start with section 24 tax and Labour’s extra 2% hate tax on landlords.
To quote Einstein,”The definition of stupidity is to repeat the same experiment and expect a different result.”
Rent control has been tried repeatedly in the UK in the last century, in 1914 and 1940.
This drove out landlords to the point in 1988 private rentals were 9% the housing market.
Even now, 38 years after the 1988 Housing Act there is a shortage of houses to rent.
The Republic of Ireland are suffering a similar shortage whilst operating rent control.
Enormous queues form outside any new property available to rent.
That is helping nobody.
Sorry, Andy, but listening to financial illiterates will direct you to the door marked ex-PM, just like all your predecessors.
Asking tenants if they would back rent controls is like asking turkeys if they want to cancel Christmas. There are way too few properties available here now bring in rent controls and Band C ruling and they will be the final straw for many landlords and we will see shortage turn to crisis.