"Under the new law, tenants would be given the legal right to request a pet in their home, which the landlord cannot unreasonably refuse."
We had a tenant once who brought in her two cats who peed everywhere so we had to replace the entire wooden floor and repaint all the walls because the cat piss stench was everywhere. Financial damage done out of our pocket was way higher than the one month worth deposit.
Feels reasonable to have a say in that matter.
If I understand correctly, you believe that England is a special flower and that regulations which would be considered the bare minimum in a great many other countries around the world (including such exotic and remote locales as Scotland) somehow cannot function here.
I’d be happy to point out any fallacies in your argument for that conclusion – if it weren’t for the fact that you’ve presented no argument for it whatsoever.
This is the only conversation-legislating statement in the thread.
> If I understand correctly, you believe that England is a special flower and that regulations which would be considered the bare minimum in a great many other countries around the world (including such exotic and remote locales as Scotland) somehow cannot function here.
I don't think this, no. I certainly haven't said it.
> I’d be happy to point out any fallacies in your argument for that conclusion – if it weren’t for the fact that you’ve presented no argument for it whatsoever.
I don't know the purpose of your entire comment, then.
You don't fix a broken real estate market with not enough supply, by adding more regulations on top (try moving in Berlin right now, see how regulations "help" you the tenant trying to rent something), you fix it by building enough supply such that the market becomes in their flavor that most people can afford to buy their own home where they can keep as many animals as they want, turn it into a zoo if they want.
The issue of pets that you've picked up on seems a minor one, in all honesty. I was thinking more generally about any increased costs for landlords resulting from these reforms.
I rent in London, so Berlin doesn't really work for me as a comparison case. I'm sure it has its issues too, but it's not obviously worse. If someone were to ask me rhetorically "would you like the rental market in London to end up like the rental market in Berlin?" then I'd probably respond "err, yeah, probably".
Berlin housing issues: it's not too expensive but there's zero supply because of rent control
So which is best? Or, the least worst.
I know very little about UK property issues, but would speculate that any housing shortages are caused by regulations.
Don't let that stop you!
>but would speculate that any housing shortages are caused by regulations.
Which regulations? The UK rental market is almost entirely unregulated. It is less regulated than the rental market in many US states/cities, for example. Landlords can charge whatever rent they like, evict people for no reason, and put up rents without limit when renewing rental contracts.
If any regulations are to blame here, they're likely to be the regulations that prevent building new houses in green belt areas, not regulations on rentals.
>Any increase in expenses will need to be generated through the rent of the property.
You say this as if it's obviously inevitable, but of course one possibility is that landlords will simply make a bit less money on rentals than previously. This is why regulations do have something to do with it: if there are limits on how much landlords can raise rents, then they can't simply defray any increased expenses via arbitrary rent increases. At present, however, there are no such limits.
I rent and have two cats, they pee in the litter tray so that's not an issue, but they cause all sorts of other damage, mine like sitting on the bannister at the top of the stairs, so there's loads of scratch marks on it because it's too high to jump up to it easily, they're very furry Norwegian forest cats that groom each other a lot, so I wake up frequently to vomited up cat balls on carpets, etcetera.
My deal with the landlord is that I'll just pay for whatever damage is done, even if that's higher than my deposit.
No, but the market rate is at one month.
>My deal with the landlord is that I'll just pay for whatever damage is done, even if that's higher than my deposit.
Every tenant claims to your face he's a billionaire and that he will pay for everything, but then bolt it the week before the end of the contract, leaving you with a damaged apartment and unpaid bills. Such claims are difficult to enforce and a bird in the hand is worth more 10 in the bush.
source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/security-deposit-cap-redu...
There were similar issues with social housing tenants where some mortgages or insurances disallowed them until it was made it illegal.
Of course enforcing these laws is hard...
There are no insurances where I live that cover against malicious tenants who's pets destroyed your place. Household insurances here only cover you place against accidents (like a pipe bursting flooding the place) or wraths of nature (like a storm breaking your windows) or against burglars breaking in but that's it. So it's up to the landlord to protect himself from bad tenants or they can financially ruin you.
>he problem is that if a landlord insurance policy (or mortgage, or long term lease) disallows pets, the landlord is going to prohibit pets. If such prohibition is void then pets are more likely to be allowed.
And any such insurances against malicious tenants or pets will be expensive and would only be passed on to the tenants in increased rent prices. There is no free lunch here. Landlords aren't gonna take a loss.
Of course that's an additional cost. As a landlord you can decide whether to take the risk yourself, pass the cost to the tenant at the risk of being less competitive, or eat the cost.
Like I said before, "where I live there's no insurances covering tenant damage". It's great it's a thing in the UK but I don't live there.
"I lost money doing business"
Protecting against such events in the future would mean extra expenses passed on to the other tenants. There is no free lunch here. If the tenants are causing extra damage, then it will cost them more in the end, pushing the market prices up.