The National Landlords' Association has hit back at a jibe by the Labour Party that an expansion in the number of buy-to-let properties in one town would be a disaster.
The party claimed in a local newspaper that the expansion, predicted for Boston in Lincolnshire, would be disastrous because of the allegedly poor quality of some of the rented accommodation in the area, but now the NLA has refuted the suggestion.
Rather than recognising that the real disaster is the chronic shortage of housing, the Labour councillors instead seem intent on placing the blame firmly at the feet of landlords and tarring them all with the same brush says local NLA representative Don Robbie, who is himself a landlord in the area.
Far from living in poor quality homes that don't meet decent standards, the majority of private sector tenants - some 75-80% - are in fact happy with their tenancy he says.
The NLA is currently working with Boston council to find ways of identifying rogue landlords and incentivising responsible ones to continue to provide good quality housing.
After receiving a £109,000 grant from central government earlier this year, the council's Rogue Landlords Project has inspected 78 properties and issued 34 notices to improve between February and April alone.
We can't impose more red tape or regulations, and by proxy infer blame on the majority of good landlords who provide well maintained, affordable properties for often some of the most vulnerable insists Robbie.
Comments
Another ignorant party rant attacking landlords. The government should be concentrating on creating more housing, taking steps to stop buy-to-leave properties and sorting out anti-social behaviour starting with local councils and social housing, not creating sweeping generalisations and blaming the PRS.
Well said NLA! More rubbish from the Labour party. Once again, landlords take the fall for government controlled issues. They ought to check their facts before making allegations like this and stereotyping landlords rather than sticking their heads in the sand to avoid the bigger issues.
No surprise there then - more bull***t coming from Labour who seem so keen to display their complete lack of knowledge about the PRS LOL! The biggest problem with anti-social behaviour stems from social housing NOT the PRS !
There are two sides to the overall housing problem in this country:
1.Too many people.
2.Too few houses.
Both sides need sorting together, not just one.
1. Reduce benefits for baby production and reduce, not stop, immigration.
2 Increase house building.
The Labour Party piping up with ill-informed, sensationalist speculation again, what a surprise! Once again, the majority will be punished for the actions of a small minority of rogue landlords who arent playing by the rules. Whilst its a good thing that rented accommodation is being improved where necessary, its not fair to tar every landlord in a certain area in this case Boston with the same broad brush. Its much more complex than that.
In our area the Council/Housing Associations have demolished hundreds of flats and replaced them with modern low, level less dense quality housing. These organisations have now "cherry picked" the best tenants and "dumped" their anti-social tenants into the PRS sector who have no experience of these tenancies. Landlords now being chased by the very same Organisations to "clean up" their act and blaming the PRS for the problems!!