A rental activist who runs the Generation Rent pressure group has told landlords that if they are “serious” about providing long-term homes for tenants they should back the scrapping of Section 21.
Dan Wilson Craw took to Twitter to respond to investor Kundan Bhaduri, and used the opportunity to offer advice to all landlords.
Bhaduri tweeted: “Dan - your over-activism will only drive away small time landlords who provide the backbone of the UK’s private housing sector. Make it easier for landlords to rent out, and there will be a thriving market for tenants as well.”
In return (and without saying who ‘they’ were), Wilson Craw responds: “They’ve already tried making it easier for landlords, in 1988 with section 21. The result: millions of tenants with no sense of a long term home and little negotiating power. Any landlord who is serious about providing long term homes should embrace s21 abolition.”
Earlier in their social media exchange, Wilson Craw said: “Section 8 will continue to give landlords the ability to take action against tenants who don’t meet their obligations. I’m not opposing that but any process needs to be fair. Those landlords are already well represented by their landlord bodies - GR represents renters.”
At the end of the exchange Bhaduri went on to tell Wilson Craw: “I have never served a s21 on anyone with the intention of driving out a good tenant. However, when you wish to sell or reoccupy a property, it will become virtually impossible to prove that this is the case. It will also open up the Pandora’s box to corruption.”
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If you look at their website and facebook page, there is a lot of ranting going on in particular about one of their other campaigns to bring rents down. This after they campaigned for the Tenants Fees Act which has forced rents up, and now campaigning to abolish section 21 which will force rents up. To be fair they arent the only ones who haven't yet got their heads around market dynamics.
scrap section 21 and all bad tenants will never worry about paying rents, section 8 is not an option, i have a tenant who has not paid rent for over seven months and I have to wait till July to go to court, once we get possesion it wil take further two months to remove the tenants by this time i will be owed ower one year of rent and 3k in legal fees.
The only ones to benefit from S.21 removal is the council’s. Currently we trade off rent arrears for a quick departure using S.21, tenant says they have done nothing wrong and end up being rehoused. Now using S.8 the real reason for the eviction will be seen, leading the council to say you made yourself homeless don’t ask us for help.
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