[mmarq]

I’m not sympathetic at all with this idea.

They shouldn’t have built shops and restaurants because there’s a council estate?

On gentrification, if you own your flat then you have won the lottery, for its price is 8 times what it was 20 years ago. Similarly if you can use the so-called “right to buy”. If you are renting privately, you should get you MP to vote the abolition of section 21, which is an uncivilised law. That should sort out all issues related to people being priced out of the area.

[imajoredinecon]

> section 21

For any other Americans who were shocked British landlords could evict with 2 months' notice for any reason, I did some googling and it turns out section 21 _does not apply during your lease term_. It seems like a section 21-eligible lease in the UK is just like a US a month-to-month lease that requires 2 months' notice for the landlord to end. (For the Brits reading this unfamiliar with US leases, this is an eminently normal thing to have happen to a lease in the US at the end of its fixed term.)

Source: https://www.gov.uk/evicting-tenants/section-21-and-section-8... ("You cannot use a Section 21 notice if... the fixed term has not ended")

[rowanajmarshall]

This sounds about right.

On a fixed lease, the landlord generally can't kick you out. But when a fixed-lease ends, unless it's explicitly renewed, it automatically becomes a month-to-month lease which can be ended by the tenant with one month's notice, or the landlord with two months notice. In my experience landlords prefer to renew as a fixed-term.

[jlokier]

How would abolishing section 21 evictions sort out issues related to being priced out of the area for private tenants?

Tenants still have to leave when their 12 month fixed term tenancy ends (the most common type I've seen), if they receive an offer to start a fresh one at a raised price that's higher than they can afford.

[mmarq]

Contracts will be perpetual or will last decades, with rent increases linked to inflation. Tenants will be able to end their tenancies with 1-2 months notice, landlords won’t be able terminate a tenancy unless they have to move into the property or the tenant is not paying rent.

This is how renting works in Western Europe.

[lentil_soup]

Last time I rented in the UK it was 1yr contracts that I had to renew and hope it didn't go up in price. Is that not the case anymore?

[mmarq]

Nothing has changed since Thatcher, I was describing a scenario where the UK completes its westernisation process and abolishes S21.

[xnorswap]

Not quite true, they changed it a few years ago so agencies had to stop scamming both tenants and landlords out of massive fees (often charging both for the same thing) every time the contracts were renewed.

That and the tenancy deposit scheme overall has made renting a lot less stressful than it was a decade or two ago.

[mmarq]

These are all very minor changes. Yes, agencies can’t steal 100£ from you for each renewal, but they replaced it with commissions.

The tenancy deposit scheme is again a fake solution. Landlords can still block your money for months and force you to accept some deductions (because a fork is missing or the flat hasn’t been “professionally cleaned”). If you are money constrained and don’t have enough money to pay 2.5 months of rent (first month plus deposit), you are forced to give accept your landlord’s deductions in order to move to the next flat.

[Ekaros]

It really depends on country for Finland that is certainly not the way. 1 year contracts turning in perpetual ones are somewhat new standard, but this is by the landlord to protect their gains. Otherwise it is always 1 month notice from renter or 3 month in case of less than 1 year and 6 months for landlord.

[nly]

I really don't understand what the hate is with respect to Section 21. If you own property then you should be able to do whatever you want with it, whenever you want, provided you meet your obligations under any tenancy agreement.

As a tenant myself I have always accepted the possibility that my landlord could serve notice as my fixed term approaches its end. It literally says the landlord has the right to do so in the document I signed.

[jlokier]

For HN readers, section 21 eviction means a landlord can send a "no fault" eviction notice to their tenant at (almost) any time, and the tenant must leave fairly quickly (2 months), which is not long enough to plan around.

As a result, no tenant is secure where they live. I would guess most people who do not own property have had to move several times with little notice, usually to another area of town because it's not that easy to find somewhere else nearby at short notice. This can be particularly rough on families because it means the children must change school, and on people with care needs because their (typically unpaid) carers who live nearby don't live nearby after the move. And it's just generally shitty to be unable to settle into a community long term anywhere.

The move to remove section 21 in its current form (set the bar higher for a landlord who wants to reclaim the property), is a tenants' rights move. It's disagreeing with the parent comment that a person (or a corporation such as a pension fund) who owns properties should be able to do "whatever they want, whenever they want" because that results in unacceptably bad living conditions for tenants, who almost universally have no choice about being tenants, and no alternative type of tenancy available to them.

One of the most obviously questionable aspects of section 21, which would be easy to change without harming reasonable landlords, is that a landlord can evict a long-term tenant for no reason just to replace them with a different tenant, just because they feel like it. There is no requirement that the landlord intends to use the property for something else.

In practice, because these evictions are easy and common, sometimes they occur because the property agent (intermediary between landlord and tenant) feels like it, because it nets the property agent some extra fees to start a new tenancy. Sound unlikely? It happened to me a few years ago where I am currently living. It's only because I accidently met a representative of the landlord that we realised the property agent had lied to both of us, and the landlord intervened to let me renew!

[Ntrails]

I don't think many people would have strong objections to increasing notice to 3 months or something. But actually 2 months has never been a huge issue when i've been renting, and the idea that renting out a property for a non infinite period of time should be impossible is ??? to me.

I think one should absolutely be able rent out a flat for a year whilst working abroad. Or to rent out a house whilst saving up to renovate and move in. The ultimate irony is ofc that you can always just airbnb the damned things instead and skip all that pesky restriction

[jlokier]

> the idea that renting out a property for a non infinite period of time should be impossible is ??? to me

Nobody proposed that, especially for individual landlords with one property. However they do propose that a tenant can stay if there's literally no reason why not. Protecting tenants from unreasonable treatment, just like you have to make sure the electricity is safe, mould won't give them lung damage, roof doesn't leak, windows aren't broken etc.

> I think one should absolutely be able rent out a flat for a year whilst working abroad. Or to rent out a house whilst saving up to renovate and move in.

Under proposals I'm aware of, nothing would stop you renting out your flat for a year, or while saving to renovate. You aren't running a long-term housing business. You have a good reason.

Section 21 is when there's no justifiable reason. "The landlord doesn't like men who wear earrings / how you position the sofa / that you bring a girlfriend over at night / that you put up a shelf / you don't dust twice a week" type reasons, obviously not said or written.

Some landlords kick people out who ask for essential repairs (despite those being covered by the tenancy), as a sibling commenter said. Some corporate landlords want a certain "look" for the type of people in the property. Credit rating dropped? Getting old? Goodbye.

Try to think of older people who are settled and would buy if they could, forced to move every few years, have few choices locally, and daren't decorate and repair as they would like.

For some it means moving children to a different school where they lose friends and perhaps can't continue a key subject. Or moving far from their elderly parent's home, as I said. They can't lay "roots" in the community. And for the lower paid, moving costs months of discretionary income. That sort of thing is a huge issue and stressor.

Those burdens should only be imposed when there's a good enough reason.

> But actually 2 months has never been a huge issue when i've been renting,

It's not about the notice period. It's about being made to move, yet again, for no good reason. Summed up as "security of tenure".

(That said, in my experience it can take longer than 3 months to find a suitable new place. Once I was technically homeless (couch surfing) for a couple of months while hunting. I had the benefit of being single; imagine that with a family. In one town it took 35 viewings to find somewhere, and a lot of time off work. Many times I accepted a place, only to see it go to someone else who beat me to it.)

AirBnB is fine, if you can handle the work (it's hard work). Your wealthy guests will happily choose somewhere else if you run it badly. However if you want to run a business providing long-term housing to people who need it, there are standards.

[Ntrails]

> Under proposals I'm aware of, nothing would stop you renting out your flat for a year, or while saving to renovate. You aren't running a long-term housing business. You have a good reason. Section 21 is when there's no justifiable reason.

That is not how the white paper I read treats the situation. Maybe I misunderstood!

[mmarq]

First of all this state of affairs is unique to the UK, in continental Europe this section 21 business doesn’t exist and 99% of the population wouldn’t consider it a thing of a civilized country (because it isn’t).

S12 invalidates half of your tenancy agreement, to be precise it allows your landlord to renege on all their obligations. A window breaks and you want it to be fixed it? Bad luck, here’s your S21 and may the next sucker come in. It may not be a problem for you, but if you are poor and especially if you have a family, you may have to decide between living with broken stuff (that your landlord is being paid to fix) or being homeless. This is not a hypothetical, this is how millions of people live here.

[raverbashing]

The other side of S21 is for example Germany where you can't easily evict people from your apartment even if you want to live in it.

So yeah, while 2 months is a short time in some circumstances, allowing the contract to be terminated by both parties is an important aspect

Let's not do it like in Canada where you're pretty much forced to leave at the end of the contract or you renew it for a whole year (and in some cities, all contracts end on the same date oof)

[mmarq]

The German system is exactly what I would be aiming for. We should refuse the notion that renting flats is a business, especially as it’s intended in the UK, where it’s the less taxed than work. In addition, we should tax properties and use that money to cut NI.

[raverbashing]

"It's not a business" sure, then wonder why companies are managing ever more properties and private renters prefer renting it through AirBnb

I think there are points in protection but not being able to evict a tenant because you want an apartment for yourself (and no, in practice it can take even as high as 5 years) is simply ridiculous

[mmarq]

> "It's not a business" sure, then wonder why companies are managing ever more properties and private renters prefer renting it through AirBnb

Managing an Airbnb is a business, it requires the flat to be cleaned and functioning and you are practically out of business after N bad reviews. Besides, I’d be surprised if you could make any money with an Airbnb in the UK more than 20 minutes away from Westminster.

> I think there are points in protection but not being able to evict a tenant because you want an apartment for yourself (and no, in practice it can take even as high as 5 years) is simply ridiculous

What is ridiculous, and I’m saying this as somebody who owns their home, is that families with children can be evicted with just 2 months of notice because they asked for repairs or because the landlord wants to test the market. This happens every day in the UK and the situation is so bad that even the current government had to acknowledge it.

It is just civilised that evicting somebody may require a lengthy process, depending on who this person is. Can a family with a disabled child find a new home in 6 weeks?

[flir]

You've been locked into mobile phone contracts longer than that. Does that really seem reasonable for the roof over your head?

[LightG]

I'm not sympathetic with locals being priced out of their area.

Your analysis around that is incredibly simplistic.

[_dain_]

They get priced out because it's so hard to build anything anywhere else. The restricted places where development can happen, end up with all the pent up demand flooding into them. The solution is not to prevent building from happening, it's to loosen restrictions everywhere else. The planning system is in serious need of reform.

[lostlogin]

If you want to see what happens if you let people build what they want, have a look at Auckland, New Zealand. Low quality building on large sections spread over a vast area. High infrastructure requirements with low population density. It's not good.

[_dain_]

When you say "low quality building on large sections in a vast area" that makes me think of American style restrictive single-family zoning. And hey, looks like they had something similar until last year: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/15/new-zealand-ha...

>Planning law has long been criticised for being restrictive, unwieldy and slow. It is blamed in part for slowing down housing development, entrenching single-house dwellings, and creating urban sprawl, which has implications for transport, infrastructure and climate change.

>Building a standard single-story house in New Zealand comes with a lot of paperwork, but trying to build a multi-storey or multi-dwelling development could tie someone up in regulatory battles for months or years, at great expense.

>If an area is zoned as a single-family area, the standard residence is a single house with a garden. Anyone wanting to build multiple dwellings, or anything other than a standard house, requires consent from the local council. Councils can reject the application for a whole number of reasons, including, for example, an unhappy neighbour about to lose some sunlight.

So it just proves my point even more. Left to their own devices, people do not naturally make nothing but low density low quality suburbia. It didn't exist until government zoning was introduced after WW2. Same thing happens here: the Deanobox is a product of a restrictive planning regime.

If you really want to see what happens when people are allowed to build, look at Tokyo. A first world megalopolis, that is also affordable. They understand the revolutionary idea that homebuilding has to keep pace with the growth in residents.

[lostlogin]

My brief search leads me to think Tokyo has strict building regulations - mainly due to earthquakes and tsunami risks. Am I missing something?

[_dain_]

They have strict building regulations but lax zoning regulations. I.e. you have to make sure that whatever you build conforms to an exacting set of regulations to ensure its physical resiliency in the face of disaster. But you are not so restricted in terms of use and form. So, you can tear down a house and put up a three-storey set of apartments. You can have the ground floor be a small business. You can build an extra housing unit in place of a yard, you can subdivide, you can add an extra floor, a mansard, and so on and so on. All of this is by-right -- you don't have to ask the council if you can do it, you just do it.

https://nitter.net/AntBreach/status/1121362679367598080

Contrast that with many Western countries: USA, Canada, New Zealand, the UK to an extent (although the situation is somewhat different here). Generally, landowners are not allowed to do these things by right. There is a strict set of rules governing precisely what may and may not be built in each zone, with emphasis on "may not". Whole areas where you are only allowed to build detached single family houses, and even something as trivial as a corner store is effectively illegal. To deviate from the zoning rules, you have to apply for a variance from the city government or local authority, which is in most cases onerous and time-consuming for the applicant, and discretionary on the part of a bureaucrat, which inhibits housebuilding, small business formation and is a vehicle for corruption. It retards the natural forces that result in improvements to land, and encourages zero-sum rent-seeking behaviour.

So, in Japan, cities and neighbourhoods can respond rapidly to changing housing demand. But in Anglosphere countries, places stay legally trapped in the development form established decades ago, unable to build more or build different as the world changes around them. Hence the housing affordability crises: more and more people try to rent in a relatively fixed housing stock, causing prices to skyrocket. Incumbent landlords benefit in a zero-sum fashion from price speculation, while everyone else suffers high rents and reduced labour productivity.

There is a pervasive misconception that abolishing zoning rules means getting rid of building codes. They have almost nothing in common. I recommend reading the book Arbitrary Lines by Nolan Gray on the topic.

[mmarq]

> Low quality building on large sections spread over a vast area. High infrastructure requirements with low population density. It's not good.

This describes perfectly everything built in the UK before 2010.