carrie80 wrote:... I am happy to trade the risk that the landlord may give me 2 months notice (knowing that usually it's in their interest to keep a good tenant in place) for the ability to leave with 1 month notice when I wish. I assume that less flexibility for the landlord is likely to end up in less for the tenant too.
I don't see why that should be a given.
In fact far from it - the tenant / 'landlord' relationship is very far from equal.
I think they way legislation is going is absolutely in the right direction - namely it is now moving to recognise that a modern day 'landlord' is simply a business providing a service - not the old suggested by name someone dictatorially 'lording' over the peasants who should be pleased with any scrap the lord might throw in their direction.
And like all business providing a service to society, the rules for the operation of that business need to reflect the needs of the society it is serving.
Business is there to serve society, not the other way around.
So when it comes to tenancy durations, the business of rental housing provision (we really shouldn't still be using the feudal system terms like 'landlord' to refer to the business of housing provision in modern day society) is about providing people with homes.
For the people renting a home, it is their life. The location is where they are rooted. Their neighbours are their friends.
For someone in the middle of their life (metaphorically, not literally by age), suddenly having to move out of the blue can be a substantial burden.
People fall ill, often with serious illnesses which necessitate serious lengthy treatment. People study and train and take exams, during which period a forced move can have a significantly adverse effect of the outcome of those studies.
When we are talking about houses, we aren't talking about a fridge freezer. If you get a section 21 - a housing equivalent of your fridge breaking down - you can't pop round to the shops / online and order a new one and have it installed in a few days.
A section 21 forces a complete uprooting. It means completely tearing your life apart. It means spending hundreds of pounds on removal trucks. Huge effort on shifting all your belongings from one place to another. Assuming you have managed to find another place at short notice - it ain't enough time to properly hunt a property to buy instead of rent.
The risk of a section 21 in 2 months also means you also strictly speaking can't take advantage of 12 month contracts on utility supply and so on. Because you don't know that you will even still be in the property in 2 months - it's outside your control - so you can't enter into a contract on the presumption that you will still be there.
But from a business point of view, a tenant moving out is just a minor administrative issue.
Being in the provision of homes (a modern day 'landlord'), is only really justifiable where there are efficiencies that provide value over being a home owner.
Morally, society will not accept in the long run a situation where a limited supply of stock is bought out by the wealthy few, and then profited out to those with less wealth -
unless it can be shown that the business adds value.
Businesses only have a right to exist where they add value over and above the alternatives.
Where I'm going with that - well, in the provision of housing, the only real way to add any substantial value to renting compared to ownership, is through the economies of scale, and expertise through being an expert dedicated to the task - not someone part time doing exactly just what an owner/occupier would do.
And therefore when run as a business with the economies of scale, a tenant moving out is just then one aspect of the business that the business simply has to manage. Like all businesses, they have to live within the realities of the rules which society imposes upon them - rules that are for the benefit of society, not businesses.
This is the reality of rented housing. We have moved away from the feudal system of the landlord / landowner being a wealthy, in effect, dictator who is permitting the peasants to use his land - at a cost to them - and only if it is in his interests...
.. to a modern system which is recognises that housing provision is a necessity of society - renters are members of society for whom the priority is to give a home - not just sources of money, for a landlord to throw out onto the streets with just 8 weeks notice on a whim just because he decides one morning he wants to do something different with the property.
That doesn't preclude the modern day business of housing provision being done for a profit.
Far from it. It could and should still be a very profitable viable business.
But like all modern businesses, the profit needs to come from the value the business adds to society. E.g. through the reduction in maintenance costs through economies of scale, etc.
So it certainly doesn't need to be a charitable endeavor. There's still plenty of justifiable scope for profitability in rental provision.
But it has to be recognised as a business-to-consumer enterprise. And anyone who takes on the modern day role of 'landlord' needs to accept they are taking on a business endeavor. And that as such the relationship is not, by any stretch of the imagination a 1:1...
There's no reason at all why a (consumer) tenant should give a business (landlord) the same notice to leave.
In fact, I don't see any reason at all why a business in the provision of housing should have any right at all to ask a tenant to leave who is otherwise looking after the property and paying the rent.
And to address someone else's comment - no, that doesn't mean the business can't sell the property.
The business has two options - sell with the tenant in place to another business in the provision of housing, or simply wait for the tenant to leave. There's no obligation to install a new tenant when one chooses, of their own free will, to leave (provided they weren't 'pushed' or otherwise 'encourage' to leave by unjustified rent hikes etc).
My current landlord would be unaffected by the above model (i.e. whereby a tenant can't be asked to leave except in the case of fault on their part).
The people who would be affected are those who are not adding value. Those who aren't treating being a 'landlord' as a business providing a service to society. Those who still see themselves like the old feudal 'landlord' who has the right to lord over the people living under their domain, and feel they should have the right to cast out the peasants at their whim. They are the ones who will be affected. They will be the ones who complain.
On the other hand landlords like my current 'landlord' will be unaffected. They are already a business. And as such there is no 'lord' who feels a personal ownership of any of the properties in the business. The owners own the business. The business owns the properties. The owner can sell the business, only the business can sell the properties. That's how businesses (already) work.
And such a business model will be completely agnostic about whether or not they should be allowed to throw out a tenant without fault on the part of the tenant. As others have said - why would a business want to throw out a tenant who paying the rent and otherwise not doing anything of 'fault'?
In a society where there is such a high proportion of rental, and housing costs are so high due to limited demand and inability to simply build more where you like, then a decision to put a property into the rental sector really should need to be viewed as relinquishing direct ownership of the property, into the ownership of a business, from where while you (can) still benefit from being the owner of the business, you no longer have an automatic right to take back direct ownership.
It's basically the same model as regular investment.
When you invest in a company you have the right to all the future residual profits of the company, but you do not have any right at all to the return of your original capital.
And the same 'concept' should apply when moving a house into the rental market.
If a substantial proportion of renters are renting from landlords with just one or two properties, and who really do want the option to have the property back at fairly short notice (2 months is
incredibly short), then something is very wrong with housing provision.