It is very hard to pay a deposit and the first month’s rent, as well as furnishing even a studio flat as a young person obliged to leave local authority care who has a job in London on the ’London living wage’ of £13.15 per hour. There is soft level support in terms of meeting with advisors and getting leaflets, but the actual care leavers allowance is now £3000 (it used to be nothing, and only went from £2000 to £3000 in 2023). The local authority has to provide accommodation in some cases, but not all cases, much depends on the age you leave the care system. If it is 16 for example the local authority has to step in. So renting an unfurnished place in Lewisham is around 8-900 per calendar month. The deposit and a month in advance could be say £1600 out of your £3000, leaving £1400 to get all the basic furnishing in at the beginning. The chances are that all your necessary expenses before food and clothing will come in around £12-1300 per calendar month. That means working around 92 hours a month before food, clothing, transport and other minor sundries can be paid for.
How is this going to affect the rental market? Most of the changes over the last few years seem to increase rents - won't this mean less properties for rent? Although if many are sold, because it isn't necessarily cost justifiable for landlords to do what is necessary, could that be to people who were renters, so less people wanting a property to rent overall?
I've just checked mine and am relieved to see they are a B and a C - not worried about the one that is a B as a new build (Enderby Wharf) but not sure if anything could impact the C
Anyone else had to go jump through hoops to get their Landlord Selective Licence? What are people's thoughts on it? Isn't there (rightly of course) already legislation in place to tackle rogue landlords
My stepfather rents out a few properties and his view is that pretty much every change made by the Tories and those planned by Labour has had or will have the effect of shrinking the supply of rental properties and raising the rental values on those that remain. Given that the changes were supposedly made to benefit renters, not really sure how that is working out.
this is what I was thinking. Someone has to pay for all the costs
And let's face it, it was never going to be the landlords!
and why should it be?
I'm not saying it should. I was more commenting on the ridiculousness of all the measures brought in by central and local government supposedly to help out renters, that will inevitably result in fewer properties and higher rents. If anyone in government thought that landlords would just swallow the additional costs without passing them onto tenants, they need a checkup from the neck up.
How is this going to affect the rental market? Most of the changes over the last few years seem to increase rents - won't this mean less properties for rent? Although if many are sold, because it isn't necessarily cost justifiable for landlords to do what is necessary, could that be to people who were renters, so less people wanting a property to rent overall?
I've just checked mine and am relieved to see they are a B and a C - not worried about the one that is a B as a new build (Enderby Wharf) but not sure if anything could impact the C
Anyone else had to go jump through hoops to get their Landlord Selective Licence? What are people's thoughts on it? Isn't there (rightly of course) already legislation in place to tackle rogue landlords
My stepfather rents out a few properties and his view is that pretty much every change made by the Tories and those planned by Labour has had or will have the effect of shrinking the supply of rental properties and raising the rental values on those that remain. Given that the changes were supposedly made to benefit renters, not really sure how that is working out.
this is what I was thinking. Someone has to pay for all the costs
And let's face it, it was never going to be the landlords!
and why should it be?
I'm not saying it should. I was more commenting on the ridiculousness of all the measures brought in by central and local government supposedly to help out renters, that will inevitably result in fewer properties and higher rents. If anyone in government thought that landlords would just swallow the additional costs without passing them onto tenants, they need a checkup from the neck up.
If the tenant's rent costs are roughly equivalent to their reduction in heating costs, then everyone wins, at no cost to the tax payer. The tenant lives in a "better" home; the landlord owns a "better" asset; the government increases income, through the tax paid by the landlord on the increased rent (as tax gained on heating costs is lower).
Agreed to a certain extent - whilst lower energy bills and better insulated homes are a good thing, ironically the government will get less tax from the energy companies - not a bad thing exactly but it is less income for the government in your equation.
And there is the issue of homes where it is uneconomic to alter to get a C rating - (even) less housing stock for renters etc
Labour has revealed plans to fund the upgrade of rented properties to meet its 2030 plan to have all rented homes reach an EPC band C or above.
The scheme will apply across approximately half of the UK within ‘eligible postcodes’ where older and usually pre-1919-built housing stock is the costliest to upgrade.
Landlords with one property will be able to access funds of up to £30,000 to complete property upgrades to get them to a minimum EPC band C level.
But those with more than one property will then have to 50% fund subsequently properties within their portfolios, with the Government putting in £15,000 and landlords topping this up to £30,000, although theses totals will vary significantly depending on the work needed.
The funding for each property will be split equally between two types of upgrade – improvements to energy efficiency and also the installation of low-carbon heating equipment such as solar panels or air-source heat pumps.
Postcode lottery
But the scheme is not blanket – it is postcode dependent covering around 440,000 six-digit postcode areas out of the UK’s total of 900,000. Also, it will only apply to landlords who have low-income tenants who are either on benefits or have incomes below £36,000 depending on family size, and properties that are currently EPC band D to G. But landlords must only meet one of the three 'pathways' to be eligible - i.e. postcode, benefits or below the mazimum income level.
To stop fraudulent applications, landlords will have to agree to be included within a central database which will be used to monitor the number of fully funded upgrades a landlord has received under the scheme.
“This will ensure landlords are prevented from receiving fully funded upgrades to more than one property under the Warm Homes: Local Grant,” the lengthy guidance says.
Comments
There is soft level support in terms of meeting with advisors and getting leaflets, but the actual care leavers allowance is now £3000 (it used to be nothing, and only went from £2000 to £3000 in 2023). The local authority has to provide accommodation in some cases, but not all cases, much depends on the age you leave the care system. If it is 16 for example the local authority has to step in.
So renting an unfurnished place in Lewisham is around 8-900 per calendar month. The deposit and a month in advance could be say £1600 out of your £3000, leaving £1400 to get all the basic furnishing in at the beginning.
The chances are that all your necessary expenses before food and clothing will come in around £12-1300 per calendar month. That means working around 92 hours a month before food, clothing, transport and other minor sundries can be paid for.
And there is the issue of homes where it is uneconomic to alter to get a C rating - (even) less housing stock for renters etc
Labour has revealed plans to fund the upgrade of rented properties to meet its 2030 plan to have all rented homes reach an EPC band C or above.
The scheme will apply across approximately half of the UK within ‘eligible postcodes’ where older and usually pre-1919-built housing stock is the costliest to upgrade.
Landlords with one property will be able to access funds of up to £30,000 to complete property upgrades to get them to a minimum EPC band C level.
But those with more than one property will then have to 50% fund subsequently properties within their portfolios, with the Government putting in £15,000 and landlords topping this up to £30,000, although theses totals will vary significantly depending on the work needed.
The funding for each property will be split equally between two types of upgrade – improvements to energy efficiency and also the installation of low-carbon heating equipment such as solar panels or air-source heat pumps.
Postcode lottery
But the scheme is not blanket – it is postcode dependent covering around 440,000 six-digit postcode areas out of the UK’s total of 900,000. Also, it will only apply to landlords who have low-income tenants who are either on benefits or have incomes below £36,000 depending on family size, and properties that are currently EPC band D to G. But landlords must only meet one of the three 'pathways' to be eligible - i.e. postcode, benefits or below the mazimum income level.
To stop fraudulent applications, landlords will have to agree to be included within a central database which will be used to monitor the number of fully funded upgrades a landlord has received under the scheme.
“This will ensure landlords are prevented from receiving fully funded upgrades to more than one property under the Warm Homes: Local Grant,” the lengthy guidance says.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66f1573cbd3aced9da489bcf/Warm-Homes-Local-Grant-guidance.pdf
Good luck to all fellow landlords, although judging by here it looks like we'll all be selling fairly soon!!
properties, why not all properties