Jul 24, 2015 12:07
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Comments 21
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Particularly in Edinburgh:
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-population-to-grow-by-28-per-cent-1-3410407
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The average cost for the private sector to build a new house is £70,000, but the average HA cost is £140,000.
It would seem many of these private Housing Associations have turned into pig troughs for scoundrels.
Local Councils need to take charge again for building new council properties.
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The whole point of the HA is to provide decent low-cost housing!
Gah!
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There is something you can do about it if you think a rent increase is unfair. You can apply to a tribunal for rent disputes *. In this case unfair would be an increase that takes the rent on a property above the market value for that area, so in theory a landlord can just decide to up it by 11%, but only if it had been below market rates previously.
* This only applies in England & Wales - the situation is probably different in Scotland.
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Also, my lease is one where they can say "oh hey, move out in two months, bye." or I can do the same.
Which of course means that if I did want to do something like go to a tribunal, I'd have to bear in mind that I could easily be asked to find somewhere else to live because the letting company wanted to refurbish or whatever conveniently just as I was becoming a troublesome tenant. As far as I'm aware, as long as the letting company give me the full notice period, there's not a thing I can do so it's not really in my own interest (or indeed, most other renters) to complain about anything if you live somewhere that available flats get rented quite quickly.
The part of the story that I didn't tell Andy (the better to complain) was that my rent hasn't gone up the last two years, so I guess I avoided that, at least.
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Wouldn't new builds not being bought by landlords who can offer big chunks of money to then rake in their sweet rental profits mean that we would be forced into a situation where people who wanted to buy might be given incentives to buy new builds?
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Which was precisely why I was in favour of this change. It will push some people out of the buy-to-let market, and it will allow people who actually want to live in their properties a level playing field.
Of course, this change doesn't affect companies, so far as I can tell. But they have their own tax systems to worry about.
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