[CM30]

An Englishman's home is his castle?

Maybe it's simply that owning a home lets you do more with than renting one. You can add extensions, remodel much of it, potentially demolish the entire thing and rebuild it, that sort of thing.

[nextos]

Actually, as someone renting several flats in the UK during the last few years I'm still shocked by the lack of rights I have as a tenant.

For example, landlords can enter your property by only giving you a 24-hour notice in writing. I have had real state companies entering my flat without prior notice to show it to potential new tenants several times.

Other countries in the EU would take these incidents very seriously. And I'm talking about expensive flats (>$2000 / month) and reputable companies, so I imagine it can get much worse.

[semi-extrinsic]

> I have had real state companies entering my flat without prior notice to show it to potential new tenants several times.

We had one representative from the landlord (Foxtons) pull this on us. After one angry email to this representative's supervisor, mentioning the Landlord and Tenants Act, it never happened again. I believe the supervisor's excuse was that they had an option on tenants account info that said they could enter without permission, and it was "inadvertently checked" on mine.

[dfraser992]

Foxtons.... I wish someone had told me never to deal with Foxtons. I thought I had a decent relationship with the landlord, but they manipulated her so badly and Foxtons blatantly lied about various things when I left the property. I had to threaten to sue to get my deposit back.

[cstross]

Those landlords are breaking the law (and the terms of your tenancy) and I believe you can file a report with the police that will get them into very hot water with their local council -- potentially fined and booted off the register of landlords (which means it'd be an offense for them to let any flats out at all).

Source: my sister is a landlord.

[lambada]

And then after doing that you're left without a flat and have to find yet another one, with another landlord or agency who will likely do exactly the same

[eterm]

England doesn't have a register of landlords, anyone can let out property.

[semanticist]

Scotland does: https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk

[branchless]

It's because we have very poor rental laws offering little protection to tenants. Plus the UK now has 20 years of the only way most people get rich is via land speculation.

It's a totally toxic mix that is killing living standards.

[EliRivers]

If this were the case, I'd expect to see a lot of this. I don't.