?Rising energy, food and other bills are making it increasingly difficult for many tenants to meet their rent payments – subsequently meaning landlords are also struggling.
Rising energy, food and other bills are making it increasingly difficult for many tenants to meet their rent payments – subsequently meaning landlords are also struggling.
The impact of rising interest rates on mortgages significantly raises the prospect of landlords making a loss on their properties – rents are not rising at the same rate as inflation.
Although we know that many landlords are happy to keep rents the same to retain good tenants, the reality is that landlords cannot shoulder the cost of rising prices indefinitely.
The National Residential Landlords Association has written to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng calling on him to adopt its plan for the sector, to be financed by a reported £1.5 billion underspend in budgets at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
The plan includes:
1. Reforming the benefits system to prevent rent arrears in the first place. This should include unfreezing housing benefit rates. It makes no sense to have support for housing linked to rent levels as they were three years ago; ending the five weeks wait for the first payment of Universal Credit; giving Universal Credit claimants the ability to choose, at the start of a claim, to have the housing element paid direct to their landlord if they so wish.
2. Extending access to emergency housing support (Discretionary Housing Payments) to those not in receipt of benefits.
3. Scrapping the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme payment, and instead repurposing the money, paying it direct to every household in one go, for them to use towards the increased cost of living.
4. Addressing the supply crisis in the private rented sector – the biggest driver of rents. According to Rightmove, in the second quarter of the year, demand for private rented housing increased by six per cent compared with the year before. Over the same period, the number of available properties was down 26 per cent. The NRLA says the Chancellor should therefore reverse the decision to restrict mortgage interest relief in the private rented sector; end the stamp duty levy on homes to rent out.