[onmydesk]

After the Assured Shorthold Tenancy period you can be given 2 months notice at any time. Regardless of what kind of tenant you have been, whether you paid your rent on time, etc etc etc.

I know it has happened to me and many others I have spoken to. What sort of an environment is that in which to lead a settled life? Many many priced out tenants have had to move their kids from school to school as incompetent landlords discover they got their sums wrong and have to sell up.

If you are a 'problem tenant' and stop paying rent there are difficult processes to go through in order to force an eviction. But I am not talking about the far less common case of non payment of rent from a difficult person. I am talking about decent families being forced out of their home as the norm.

That is a disgrace.

[gaius]

That is not the same thing as "being evicted".

The relationship between you and the landlord is the same as any buyer and seller of goods. If say Cadbury's decided to stop making your favourite chocolate bar, would you feel your rights had been trampled? Or if a shop decided to stop carrying some product you loved. Or if your favourite TV show got cancelled.

Or perhaps if the macro environment changes, should the landlord subsidize you when the bank is charging him more? Will the plumber give him a discount because he is a good guy? Will the supplier also give the plumber that discount because he's doing some work for a good guy who charges his tenants less than the going rate?

And what if the landlord's personal circumstances change and he or she desperately needs the money? Say they are no longer able to work?

I know that it is disruptive to move house, but in all likelihood the landlord isn't a monster, just someone who's trying to save for their retirement and has been scared out of pension funds by the smash and grab raid launched in 1997 (which I'll note the current lot haven't reversed).

[onmydesk]

Forced to leave your home at someone else's request is the same as being evicted.

Housing is not optional so the relationship is not the same as anything else.

There is a choice. Buy what you cannot afford and pray the cost of borrowing doesn't increase or live at the mercy of an amateur landlord. Some choice.

A correction is sorely needed so that choice instead becomes rent or buy. Not as it currently is, rent or commit financial suicide.

While buying is not an option for the financially responsible renting should be more like it is on the continent. Rent increases there can only be as high as inflation and the tenant is treated like a paying customer.

The situation is shocking here, that is undeniable.

[gaius]

Now you are just making words up. But I will continue my analogy. Food is not optional, but you have no "right" to force the supermarket to stock what you want regardless of its own decisions.

[onmydesk]

Eviction

noun 1. the action of expelling someone from a property; expulsion. "the forced eviction of residents" synonyms: expulsion, ejection, ousting, throwing out, drumming out, driving out, banishing, banishment, removal, dislodgement, displacement, clearance;

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You're plainly part of the over 40 cohort with buy to let property otherwise you wouldn't be so keen to bend rational thought in knots in order to make yourself feel better about the damage you cause to decent people.

If anyone else is reading this, here we see an example of how the damage continues to be done. There are many with a vested interest in the harmful status quo and so they pretend everything is fine for as long as they benefit.

I note you make no mention of societies in the rest of europe where renting is the norm and where work has been done to help remove exploitation from the system. Presumably you aren't in favour of that either so long as you're alright jack.

You are quite a sick individual and you will waste no more of my time. Your tenants have my sympathy.

[gaius]

You're plainly part of the over 40 cohort with buy to let property

Nope, neither. Just, umm, sane. I suppose you blame all this on Thatcher too...

[zimpenfish]

It's the same as the neutral meaning of "being evicted" (per the dictionary) but not at all the same as the emotional meaning of "being evicted" (which generally brings up images of force, crying children, drama, etc.)

Ah, language.