Move to foil greedy landlords
Friday 29th October 2010, 2:59PM BST.
Housing Minister Sean Power
CRUNCH talks to sort out how best to control inflation-busting rent increases charged by private landlords are taking place this afternoon.
Housing Minister Sean Power is meeting Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand and Senator Francis Le Gresley to find a way to stop landlords exploiting tenants.
Senator Le Gresley has a proposition listed for debate next Tuesday to stop landlords inserting clauses into tenancy agreements exempting them from rent review by a tribunal, but says he may pull it if he gets assurances that the Housing Department is taking the matter seriously.
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Long over due and this is applicable in the qaulified as well as the unqualified sector. I was renting from a well established letting Company and they raised my rent by 20% earlier this year and told me to accept it or get out and thats with Quals. The rental market in Jersey is not only greedy its a rip off for a lot of people including the locals.
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I’d be surprised if any landlord raised their rent by more than the cost of living. There are over 1000 properties to rent on Insight although many are duplications it still leaves a lot of available property. If your landlord raises the rent move somewhere else, there has never in my 25 years in Jersey been so many properties available to rent quals on non quals.
I welcome the idea of a fair rent inspectoratealthough in order for it to be fair surely we would have to remove the discrepancy between quals and non quals prices.
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About time; for too long greedy landlords have treated tenants as a cash machine; rents have been far too extortionate for far loo long; maybe landlords who bleed tenants should perhaps have the tables turned and their tax on the rent should be 75%/90% when the rents is shown to be extortion and only taxed at the normal rate when the rent is realistic.
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about time….
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Although I am not in the position to require rental of property at the moment, I do hope that something can also be done about people who let out rooms/bedsits and the exorbitant prices they can charge.
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@2
I am interested why any landlord raising their rent by more than the cost of living might surprise you? Especially as they can do as they please! Yes, there is over 1000 properties on insight though this is due to adverts not being deleted by users once let, if you actually go through there are not that many that are still available as I am currently looking for accomodation myself and when you ring or email 9 times out of 10 they are already let.
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This is a really strange weird statement from Deputy Sean Power.
He says private sector rents rose 24.6% between January 2007 and December 2009.
So where did those figures come from ? More people have left Jersey due to work shortage.
Has the housing Minister not noticed the 1,300 people officially out of work. As Mulvie Le Phew points out, there are many hundreds of units for rent at this time, come on Deputy Power is this really time for landlords to put up rents and risk loosing the lodgers they have.
More interestingly I have friends who have lodging accommodation and not one of them has been asked about rental incomes and two of the four have levied some increase, to cover the 17% rise in electricity , again I ask where did theses figures come from, Dandara maybe?
What they have, said is that greedy landlords with sub standard over priced accommodation are struggling badly in today’s leaner market, which is excellent news.
The reality is that there is more choice for lodgers renting in the private sector, than there has been for years. More choice means falling rents, as said before, this is a really weird statement from Deputy Power.
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Well our landlord raised our by £58.24 per month to which we tried to discuss and at end we lost out as they refused to reply to our mails stating the fact we are in a recession and also have been advised he will be increasing again in January by a further £55.53 which I think is disgrace, I have been out of work for 7mths and getting NO ASSISTANCE WHAT SO EVER and I am finding it very difficult, the flats are freezing in the winter as the window do not retain any heat what so ever, our electric bill are extremely high in fact they are higher than the average household, we now stuggle to heat the flats as we are terrified of the bill?
Landlords are extremely selfish and don’t care about anyone only their wallets….we are in a recession and it is will be a very long time before we come out of it……
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As a few posters mentioned on a recent thread about our quallies system, I think we need to remove quals or non quals classification on rentals.
Anybody who lives & works in Jersey, paying taxes, paying social security, contributing to our economy, deserves to be treated like a civilised human being.
Landlords completely exploit our system as it stands & it needs serious attention
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The rents are ridiculously high that’s true.
But but this is States fault, not 11k’s, not J-cats, not even landlords.
Landlords are ‘normal’ people – they charge ridiculous prices because they can. If you add tax on the top of the rent then they will pass this onto tenants.
As long as States subsidize housing, as long as ‘A-H’-cats would be able to get housing support from States to help them paying ridiculous rents nothing will change.
Home/flat is not something you just can resign from. You have to live somewhere, no matter of price asked.
If states wants to sort out high rent problem then in my opinion they should:
1. Stop subsidizing housing, or at least review it to make sure it is at absolute minimum level and people really in needs get support. Housing benefits (all benefits in fact) should not be lifetime they should be subject to half-year or year review process and they should be limited to maximum two or three years and then cut out no matter of what.
2. Remove housing quals for rentals to make the market bigger. No worries – 11k’s are not going to rent low-end properties for sky high rents…
3. Outlaw clauses binding tenants for long time without possibility of earlier lease termination
4. Perhaps introduce some ‘home quality’ rules. Landlords would be forced to keep house up to the level, and tenant could call independent inspector, in case inspector confirms that the property is well below standard landlord would be forced to pay for inspection and refurbish the house (to be allowed on the market), and tenant could have option to break lease immediately. If inspector would not confirm claim validity then tenant should pay for inspection.
Alternatively states can consider introducing maximum rent per square feet or meter, and set this limit using, say, 25% above average price in UK. But this smells beginning of socialism or communism. It will work in short term, but long term perspective does not seem to be brilliant
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Adding to #7′s comments, no one has asked me, and I have certainly not increased my rent by this percentage over the past 3 years.
Some landlords are happy to treat a good tenant with respect and charge a reasonable level of rent.
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One of the reasons for high rents is the former rent abatement scheme and the current income support rules, which encourage people to pay rent up to their maximum limit.
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10
Spot on
I have been saying this for years.
As soon as the states allowed subsidizes,it gave the landlords the go ahead to charge what they liked as they knew the tenants would have to apply for rebates.
Greed,pure and simple.
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Remember the greedy landords have had millions and millions of our tax quids in rebate, the govt/bankers wanted it and have played right into their hands ,as many of the decision makers gain personaly from it…whereas had the rent control tribunal been strengthened we would now not have this mess with house and rent prices having been obscene..yes obscene…..rampant greed is the disease here….making life luxurious for the few and Hellish for the less well off.the tenants who got rebate never gained only the landlords.Hope Le Gresley makes a decent foist of the rent control initiative….
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Mo 8 – I am sympathetic but if your rent has increased by nearly £114 in a year move into another property. The JEP is full of accommodation, Insight too has lots, vote with your feet.
Landlords will only charge what they can get away with. I rent some rooms in my house and have recently struggled to replace a tenant who left. I had to reduce the rent by 5% to get someone and even then it was a struggle. My previous tenant never saw a rent increase throughout their tenure which is my policy for good tenants. When we first had a tenant they stayed for 5 years and the rent remained the same, we need someone lodging to pay the mortgage, we’re not all greedy some of us are just making the mortgage payments.
When we were non quals we always worked hard when looking for accommodation. We’d spend a lot of time making applications and viewing properties. I think perhaps some people don’t want to put the effort in.
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I spoke to an agent the other day who said rents have been coming down in the past year as people are upping sticks and leaving the island so landlords are struggling to fill their properties – particularly in the 3/4 bedroom houses where middle management have sadly been made redundant.
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