Labour's New 'Renters’ Rights Bill' Explained

In this video, we’re going to take yet another look at the UK’s rental crisis, in particular Labour’s new “Renters’ Rights Bill” and whether it’ll actually work.

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[innowacyjnanazwaa]

"it got so bad, even the Tories tried to fix this" has to be the best TLDR line so far lol

[GlassSpider]

My Grandad took out a mortgage when he was 22, with my Gran. It was worth 4 times his annual salary as a mushroom grower's assistant. In just two further generations we've got to this and we still expect young people to crack on like their grandparents did...

[Burito-tjry]

Having a tax on empty flats in high demand area seems necessary.

"For every 100 properties, more than 1.4 sit unoccupied. There has been a rise of 73% over that period in London. It now has more than 34, 000 empty properties. "

[briancarroll]

I don’t see how making it more expense to be a landlord will make them lower prices and increase standards while at the same time limiting their ability to increase rents.

[GingerDrums]

Wow... In Germany the rental crisis is like paradice compared to the UK

[Miamcoline]

My landlord served me a section 21 no-fault eviction literally as soon as this bill was announced.
I live in London and when I moved into my current flat 3 years ago, my rent was £1000 or just under 60% of my salary at the time. The gov then asked employers not to grant pay rises to avoid runaway inflation, but outrageously, did not request the same from landlords and rent, literally everyone's biggest expense by far. Whats worse they announced a major renters protection bill scheduled for March 2024, giving landlord over a year to squeeze as much out of renters as possible before new rules came into force.
1 year into renting the flat, my landlord increased the rent by 12.5%.

I tried to contest given major repairs hadnt happened all year and that the flat was disgusting when I moved in (caked dust, drains all plugged by vomit, etc...). I was unsuccessful. Second year, rent increased by a further 20% on original price. Once again unsuccessfully contested. At the end of this third year, the landlord requested yet another 12.5% increase on the original rent bringing it up to £1450. Imagine going your rent going up by nearly 50% in 3 years when salaries have only just begun to go up by reasonable amounts. Surely this immensely destructive to the economy and for young ppl like myself to be able to reach a good quality of life and be able to even consider affording children. Surely there should be no bigger priority then getting an immediate and strong grip on this crisis.
Now, my landlord, knowing that they can no longer squeeze any more out of me, have seen the government yet again, introduce a potentially viable renter's protection bill and have used it to serve a no fault eviction in order to see how much they can squeeze out of the next person.
And before anyone asks, no there is virtually nothing on the market right now and most of what is, is really terrible and waaay overpriced. And trust me, people in London are not picky. I've rented directly from a landlord that was named worst landlord in the UK one year. We couldn't care less if the flat is decent and the price is acceptable. So that landlord thing is a useless clause given the state of the market.

[PuizLife]

1. Fix the supply problem.
2. Heavily tax buying of 3rd property reducing property investors and thus speculation.
3. Stop overseas companies and people of buying property as an investment.

[HShango]

Rent is very bad in the private rental sector in the UK, which is a long term issue that needs to be resolved

[distinctdipole]

Gutting social rented housing and buying as an investment (not a home) has wrecked the market. This needs reversing and will be the only effective way of fixing it.

[fustilarian]

A lot of people can't rent an entire flat and can only rent a room of a flat in London, people who only rent rooms seem to have even fewer protections than people who rent flats. Are sub lets going to be overlooked in this again?

[jameslewis]

There are many empty properties around the country. Most of these are not exactly in a habitable state with the owners just sitting on the land ownership (many of these being investment firms) while the supply of rental properties continues to decline. As such I think the government should start taxing empty properties to encourage these owners to either sell up or open up their properties to tenants.

[BensJazzGuitarHangOutJoint]

The idea of 'retiring' from a passive income is very funny to me

[TheFrogman]

"Unless it is implemented cleverly" Yep that's f***ed it then lol

[wingtungma]

I think forcing landlords to maintain their flats up to a standard + regulate rent increase are definitely a positive. But no fix term contract and tenant can leave anytime is a bit mad. There should be harsher punishment for bad landlords, but you should also leave protection clause for landlords against bad tenants.

[FarberBob]

The problem is simple, even though the solution is difficult. The problem is entirely an issue of supply: There aren't enough rental units.

[JoshMathewsofficial]

On paper these are great, but realistically all it does is make renting for those who aren’t already renting harder.

[MightiiNinja]

Labour has not, and likely will not, address the wider housing crisis that has been caused by significantly increased demand.

Almost 5% population increase since 2000 ( now officially over 67 million people), plus 3.4 million visas granted in 2023 alone. If we go by grocery data, we likely have more than 90 million people unofficially in the UK, with a 700, 000 net population gain in 2023 showing there’s no sign of stopping.

All these people need to stay somewhere. Improving renting conditions is a good thing to attempt, but it will not fix the demand problem.

[hikarisnowfield]

One thing you've missed is that getting rid of fixed term contracts has essentially taken a wreaking ball to the student lets market, if a landlord can't be certain this years students will leave how can they advertise for next years students. Some cities already have a crisis with a lack of rooms for students this isn't going to do much to help. (I should mention purpose built halls of residence are exempt)

[mikeyallen]

It's a good start but empty homes tax, land tax and an independent board for market rates need to be implemented next. Otherwise a landlord can still sit on an empty home to push up demand until their profits come back up. Incentivising investing in business instead of housing with land tax would be ideal, actually strengthening the economy while making more homes available rather than inflating productivity numbers while people starve on the streets

[shk]

Messing with the market is not going to work. These measures will increase the price and/or reduce supply. The only truly effective policy would be reducing restrictions on building houses and flats to increase supply.