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Do landlords deserve the bashing they're getting?

ended 06. March 2023

Landlords are having a brutal time of it right now, being pummelled in stereo by tax changes and higher interest rates. Against this backdrop, a few Qs for you…

  • Have landlords, in your opinion, been treated too harshly since George Osborne was Chancellor?
  • Do landlords get too much bad press given that the majority play a key role in providing accommodation at a time when we aren't building enough homes?
  • What, if anything, would you like to see in next week's Budget to support landlords?

7 responses from the Newspage community

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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
The tories really have turned the thumb screws on landlords and it makes little sense. Of course, there is a housing shortage in the UK, but the way to deal with that is to build more homes. Landlords are part of the solutions for housing, providing a valuable private rented space for tenants who enjoy this type of accommodation. Rough landlords and those that allow poor, uninhabitable conditions give the industry a bad name, but they are the minority. Better regulation of the sector by central and local governments could easily eradicate these people.

The loss of interest relief for higher rate tax payers and the additional stamp duty charge for second home owners have really hit the sector and I would remove both of these immediately. It would stimulate growth to offset the tax slash for the treasury.
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Riz Malik
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
Being a landlord right now is like attempting to walk a tightrope over a shark tank with one leg tied behind your back. They do not require any special treatment from the government, nor do they require to be placed in quicksand. My greatest concern is not the upcoming budget, but the possibility of a future administration that is even less friendly to landlords. If you think things are tough now, you ain't seen nothing yet. 
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Rhys Schofield
Brand Director at Peak Mortgages and Protection
As a business who's clientele is mostly first-time buyers you might think we'd love to kick landlords when they're down but we don't. Runaway rental prices are a real worry but driving landlords from the market with no plan to provide alternatives for renters can only make the supply and demand problem worse. Having less available stock certainly won't make life easier for renters.
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Joe Stallard
Director and Advisor at House and Holiday Home Mortgages
The idea that everyone should own their own home is a nice one and there certainly should be government support to help people get on the ladder. However, it's crucial to remember that not everyone wants to.

Rather than introducing meaningful policies to enable this and help build more housing to create those opportunities, the government have gone after landlords and once again found their actions have unintended consequences.

Driving out rogue landlords is a good thing, but understanding that landlords do, and should continue to, play a vital role in the UK housing market is critical to long-term, sustainable living for many.
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Jonathan Burridge
Founding Adviser at We Are Money
BTL mortgages have been one of the most influential factors which have fueled house price inflation for over twenty years, especially during the early part of the last decade. Without BTL and HTB the UK property market would have remained depressed after the credit crunch for much longer. If we want to increase home ownership it has to be at the "expense" of BTL ownership, or, we have to see a massive expansion in property development - the latter simply isn't happening. Osborne's moves were designed to make investment property ownership less appealing and its impact has been minimal. It's a simply logic a buy to let property is a long-term investment so a property that may have changed hands every 5-6 years is now being retained for the long term, stifling flow of stock and therefore increasing prices. We need to go further.
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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
Really we need to encourage landlords to invest in property for income rather than expecting fantastic gains in value. The latter encourages speculative property investment, fuelling demand and pricing out first-time buyers.

The UK is largely dependent on the private rented sector to provide housing for those who can't afford to buy a home of their own, This has led to the ridiculous situation where ordinary people can't afford to buy and can't afford to rent. Utter lunacy.

The budget should focus on house building at scale, especially social housing. Local authorities need the means to replace lost housing stock since Right to Buy was brought in by Thatcher in the 80s.

Until we have more housing stock, rampant house price inflation will always rear its ugly head, even if prices are falling at the moment.
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David Conway
Director at Clayhall Financial Services Ltd
Landlords operate a business model. They are typically small businesses run by people who have invested huge sums of money to buy the property and rely on the income as a stream of income. They are the only business taxed on revenue, face substantial barriers to entry / exit with taxes, and face doubling and tripling of their monthly mortgage cost.... yet they are vilified for increasing rents to cover costs. If they didnt, they would effectively be paying someone to live in their property AND cover maintenance and insurance costs. Imagine how quickly any other business would go bust....