Landlord crackdown triggers record number of empty homes in London

23 comments

1. > Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, said the jump was likely because landlords are recovering possession of their properties ahead of imminent policy changes and then struggling to sell them.

   Time to lower the selling price then chaps.

2. Worth mentioning that London tends to have a rate of unoccupied housing that is below the national average, and the UK as a whole has a very low unoccupancy rate.

   People like to bang on about empty homes but they’re barely even a drop in the ocean. The problem is a complete and utter lack of housebuilding.

3. Good. Seize them and turn them into social housing.

4. Cool, keep on increasing the couincil tax on empty homes (i suggest doubling it every 2 months) and eventually you’ll force HomeHoarders to sell at a reasonable price and correct the market.

   Why do we keep allowing those who hoard assets to hold us hostage and dictate poicy?

5. Sounds like they either need to lower rent or drop the property price if they want to do more than sit with empty houses then.

6. Yet they’re still building on what used to be green belt.

7. How dare private landlords be forced to make their properties liveable /s

8. The problem round my way, and it’s been happening for years, is that new HMO rules mean that many old-school landlords renting 3 bed homes, or shared houses as they used to be called, often to the same people for years at well below market rents, are selling up rather than going through the hassle of becoming HMOs.

   The result is that homes that were being long term rented for maybe £1000/m are being sold either to families moving from London or turned into 6 bed HMOs at 4 or 5 times the rent.

9. Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the housing scalpers!?

10. This is why we need landlord registration schemes and enforcement on the ones breaking the rules. It should be expensive to be a landlord if you’re doing it right: in terms of maintenance, not scalping renters for as much profit as you can cream off, and obeying the law.

11. In Kingston they keep building more and more properties but have them set at unachievable prices so it is hardly surprising so many sit empty. And they are still looking to build more new flats. No new schools. No news GPs and an over-stretched hospital Though.

12. Time for triple council tax rates on empty homes for the first year and 10x for any years after.

13. Landlord hiked up the rent in our place – tried 40% but we got him down to 20%. Our neighbours are moving in with parents, they have lived there for 14 years

14. Landlords are a cancer. First time buyers unable to afford their first home because some c*** is adding another affordable house to their portfolio. Fuck them all. If the Government didn’t take in so much tax, this scourge of wealthy monopolisers would not exist.

15. If homes are left vacant for 6 months, they should become the property of the local council.

16. Very dissapointed that something featuring the words ‘landlords’ and ‘triggers’ doesn’t also include ‘a nice cigarette against a wall’.

17. This sounds like a good idea in theory because they’ll be more houses for people to buy.

    But then I (selfishly) think about people like me. If my landlord decides to sell and the number rentals in the area drops then I’ll have no where to go. I can’t afford a deposit and have no family with room to take me in. I would be homeless and I feel like a large chunk of other renters will be in the same boat. Councils can barely find homes for those waiting already.

18. Great now everyone who hates landlords can go out and buy these homes

19. Any property struggling to sell is just priced too high

20. I’ve no love for landlords, but as someone trying to sell the home they live in so we can go live somewhere with more much needed space. The glut of similar homes in our area sucks.

21. Great! On the road to affordable home ownership for all.

22. A record number, that is 1 more than last year.

    News is quite underwhelming these days 🤣

23. So will the template tenancies have to be amended then e.g notice period? If the landlord can’t even ask for his own property back without providing a plethora of reasons then what’s the point of dictating “two months notice” for example. This is going to be awful; remember what happened in lockdown when evictions were frozen; tenants just stopped paying their rents because they knew nothing could be done; mortgages on the other hand were NOT frozen. Honestly, I don’t even think today’s politicians have the slightest clue about running a country.

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